Page 98 of The Rust in Her Hair

The wild thing that was riding him yesterday is gone. His blue-gray eyes are clear and tired and full of a misery I know too well.

"Mack." His voice cracks. "God, Mack, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I don't—I didn't⁠—"

"Hey. Hey now." I rush to his side, and drop to my knees beside him, and that's when I see it.

The massive workbench loaded down with all of Adrian and Nico’s tools, has been dragged a good foot and a half off the wall. There are gouges in the concrete where the legs scraped the floor.

I let out a low whistle.

"Damn, brother." I get my hands on the ropes at his wrists. "You moved the whole bench. You know how much that thing weighs?"

"Mack, please—" He's not hearing me. The apologies keep pouring out of him. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what came over me, I've never, I couldn't stop it⁠—"

"I know." I work the first knot loose. "I know you couldn't."

"I needed her." His breath hitches. "That's all there was. I needed to get to Lyra, and I didn't care who I hurt." His voice gets thick with emotion. "You. Nico. Even Owen." His voice fills with shame. "What kind of alpha does that?"

The rope gives, and his hands come free. He drops them into his lap and looks at them like they belong to somebody else.

I take his face in both hands.

"Look at me, baby." I tip his head up. "You listen. You didn't hurt anybody. We're all fine. Everybody's fine, you hear me?"

His chin trembles, and a tear breaks loose, running down his sweet face and curving around my thumb.

I lean in and kiss him. Soft, slow, trying to remind him that everything’s okay and he’s still deeply loved.

Adrian makes a broken sound against my mouth and leans into it like he's been drowning. When I pull back, I press my forehead to his and hold it there.

"Everything's gonna be okay," I whisper. "I mean it."

We breathe together in the dark for a minute. Then I sit back on my heels, still holding his face in my hands.

"I'm scared, Mack," he says, his voice raw. His eyes are wet again, and this time it's not shame, it's fear, real and deep. "I'm scared of what I'll do to her if you let me out of here."

I can’t help but laugh at that, and Adrian pulls his face out of my hands.

"You saw me yesterday." His voice rises. "If I get near her and I lose it like that again, I could hurt her. I could really hurt her."

"No,” I say simply. "You couldn't."

"You don't know that."

"I do, actually." I dig my phone out of my waistband and hold it up. "I’ve been sitting out on that porch half the night going down a rabbit hole. Reading up on this fated mate business." I thumb the screen and put in my passcode. "Every post, every thread, every comment from folks who've lived it. They all say the same thing. A fated mate can't hurt his omega. He physically can't hurt. It's wired into your DNA."

Adrian's face twists.

"Fated mate?" He says the words like they’re foreign "Mack, come on. You don't actually believe she and I are⁠—"

"I do."

Adrian looks at me sideways, one eyebrow going up, waiting on the punchline. "No," he finally says, when I don’t so much as crack a smile. "We're not fated mates, Mack," he says, slower this time, quieter, like maybe if he lands it gentle enough it'll change my mind. "There's no such thing."

"Yeah, well," I tuck my phone back into my waistband, "fate don't give a good goddamn what you believe."

Adrian shakes his head, stubborn, not buying a word of it.

He plants a hand on the workbench and drags himself up off the concrete, unsteady on legs that have been folded under him all night.