Page 30 of Trusting Her Mate

I cut him off, my anger in control. “You made rules.” My voice cracks open. “No touching. No kissing. You let me believe this was fake while your wolf was claiming me.”

“I was trying to give you a choice...”

“You were trying to control the outcome!” The explosion rips through me. “You decided what I could handle. Just like Dax. Just like my father. Just like every male who’s ever decided they know what’s best for me.”

The comparison guts him. I see it hit—his face going pale, the flinch rippling through his body.

“I am nothing like Dax.” His voice drops to something dangerous.

“Then stop acting like him.” I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. “Dax decided I was his without asking. You decided I was yours without telling me. The method is different. The result is the same. I’m the last to know about my own goddamn life.”

He recoils. Good. He should feel that.

“I’m leaving.” The words come out ice-cold. “Tonight. I’ll sleep in the pack hall, or the forest, or anywhere that isn’t this cabin with a male who lies by omission and calls it protection.”

“Ashstone is still out there. You can’t...”

“Then I’ll ask Talon. Or Raine. Or anyone who hasn’t been hiding a mate bond from me for three fucking days.”

“Wren. Please.” The word cracks out of him, raw and unpolished. Boone doesn’t say please. Boone doesn’t beg. But he’s saying it now, and the sound of it nearly undoes me.

Nearly.

“I spent my whole life being told what I could handle,” I say, quieter. “My father decided I could handle a mating contract. Alpha Mercer decided I could handle Dax. Dax decided I could handle his ownership. And now you’ve decided I can’t handle the truth.”

His face twists. “That’s not...”

“Prove it,” I demand. “Tell me everything. Right now. Or I walk out that door.”

He stares at me and I stare back. The fire crackles while a wolf howls outside, long and mournful. Boone’s shoulders sag. The control he wears like armor crumbles, and underneath is just Boone. Exhausted. Terrified. Wanting.

“You’re my mate,” he says. “You’ve been my mate since before you walked into Katu territory. The bond awakened the moment you touched me. I’ve felt it every second since.”

My chest constricts.

“I didn’t tell you because you came here running from a male who wanted to own you. You came for freedom. For choice.” His voice breaks. “And I couldn’t bear being another claim you didn’t ask for. Another chain.”

The anger fractures, not disappears, but loses some of its heat. Because he’s right that it’s complicated. And he’s wrong that he got to decide how much I could handle.

“You should have let me choose,” I whisper. “That’s what Ashstone took from me. The choice. And you took it, too.”

“I know.” He’s close now. Close enough to feel the heat off his skin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I made rules instead of trusting you with the truth.”

His hand lifts. Slowly. Giving me time to pull away. I don’t. Instead, I take his hand and place his palm against my face. His palm cups my jaw. His thumb traces my cheekbone, and the touch shorts out every thought in my head.

“Tell me to stop,” he says. “And I stop.”

“You don’t get to make dramatic gestures either,” I mutter, but my voice is shaking.

“What do you want, Wren?”

The bond pulses between us, hot and insistent.

“I want the truth. Always. Even when it’s scary.”

“Agreed.”

“I want to be the one who decides what I can handle.”