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I nod slowly.

“And?”

“And nothing. He is angry.”

“You told him you love another man. That is reason to be angry.”

I sigh heavily. “I also tried to reject him.” I admit.

Eagan’s gaze lifts to mine, and his hands still from his task. “I’m guessing you couldn’t?”

“Obviously, but why does he need my permission to mark me if the bond won’t give me a choice? I can’t reject him, even if I wanted to.”

Eagan laughs, the sound so startling I jump. “That’s because you don’t want to,” he says easily.

I lift my gaze to him. “That’s not true,” I say, though the words don’t carry the certainty I want them to.

His brow lifts ever so slightly as he wipes his hands on a cloth, setting the bowl aside as he turns fully toward me. “You are confusing inability with unwillingness.” He leans one hip against the table. “The bond does not strip you of choice, Alessia. It simply . . . reveals it.”

I let out a quiet breath, shaking my head as I fold my arms loosely across my chest.

“That’s not how it feels,” I grumble. “It feels like it’s deciding for me, like no matter what I do or what I want, it just . . . pulls.”

Eagan studies me for a moment, his expression softening slightly. “It pulls because there is something there to pull toward,” he replies. “If there was nothing, you would feel nothing, and you would have rejected him without hesitation.”

I look away, my gaze dropping back to the herbs on the table. “If I have a choice, then I should be able to reject him, but I can’t. I physically can’t. How is that a choice?”

Eagan’s gaze sharpens slightly.

“Because rejection isn’t just words,” he replies. “It is both intent and the absence of anything that would tie you to him, and right now, you do not have that, whether you want to admit it or not.”

My jaw tightens.

“That’s not fair,” I mutter.

“No,” he agrees quietly. “It isn’t.”

That catches me off guard.

I glance at him again, surprised by the lack of argument in his voice, by the simple acceptance of it.

“Bonds are not kind things. They do not care about timing or circumstance. They simply . . . exist.”

I press my lips together, frustration building again. “So what,” I say, gesturing vaguely. “I’m just supposed to accept it, accept him, accept that I don’t get a choice in any of this?”

“You do have a choice,” Eagan counters, his tone firm again. “You can walk away. You can fight it. You can spend every day of your life resisting it if that is what you want, but do not pretend that the bond is forcing you into something you feel nothing for, because if that were true, you would not be standing here asking these questions.”

I chew my lip, pondering his words. “But I felt the bond since I met him. I just wasn’t sure what it was,” I mutter. “So there wasn’t something already there to amplify. It just . . . happened.”

“No,” he says quietly. “You are mistaking the bond for the origin when it is only the trigger.”

I let out a breath, frustration still sitting tight in my chest.

“I loved Arlo before any of this,” I say, more firmly now, clinging to something I understand, something real. “So how can this be the same?”

Eagan exhales slowly, watching me with that same steady gaze.

“It isn’t the same,” he says. “What you feel for Arlo was built over time, through survival, through familiarity and comfort. There is nothing false about that.”