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“Maybe,” Daphne said, taking over where Amie left off. “Maybe her soul isn’t tied to the grove. Maybe it’s tied to…” She met his gaze and the word hung in the air between them before she dared speak it. Theo stopped breathing, stopped thinking.

“You,” she whispered. “Maybe Fee’s soul is tied to yours. Maybe it has been all along.”

Theo was already shaking his head, stepping back like he could distance himself from the woman’s words.

“No. She did this. She chose my brother over me.” He nearly choked on the words. That wasn’t really it. It wasn’t about Knox at all, was it? “She lied. She manipulated me. It was all bullshit. It was all…” The one person he trusted more than anyone else in the world had used that trust to fuck with him. He’d come so close to finally having what he wanted, and it had all been bullshit.

And the worst part, his father had been right: nymphs were not to be trusted.

“Get out,” he nearly shouted the words and the nymphs jumped. They scurried out the door and Theo watched them go.

The fourth day he answered as a wolf. The nymphs ran away.

It was worse when they stopped coming. Theo was left alone with nothing but his thoughts. Thoughts about Fee. Thoughts about Knox’s offer to return to the pack. Thoughts about what the hell he was going to do about any of it. He had spent an awful lot of his life avoiding his thoughts. And now he was stuck with them.

He’d gone into town to get some work to distract himself. Something mindless.

Which was how he ended up on a ladder being objectified by Sierra as he repainted her shutters.

“I don’t know,” she was saying now from below him. She was wearing the tightest snowsuit he’d ever seen in his life. It looked like something he imagined rich people wore on ski vacations to Aspen, but he’d never been anywhere but here, so he had no real point of reference for that. She was playing with the zipper that went down the whole front of the suit. Up. Down. Up. Down. It was driving him insane.

He was always unsettled when Fee wasn’t around, but never like this. Never like he knew she wasn’t coming back, and his body forgot how to function without her. Every breath was an effort, every heart beat slow and unsteady. Every word out of Sierra’s mouth felt like it was grating across his brain.

Fee wasn’t here and it was killing him. Is this what Daphne and Amethyst had meant? Is this how Fee felt? Those fucking nymphs and their meddling. Their words, their insane theory about Fee wouldn’t stop playing over in his head. Dryads were tied to oaks, not to wolves.

The fact that only a few days earlier he had been convinced she was his Mate made no difference. He was done chasing Phoebe.

Every time he thought about their night together, the one he thought had meant everything, the one that turned out to be a complete lie, he threw up. He hadn’t kept food down in days.

“I’m not sure if I like the navy blue,” Sierra said over the sound of that damn zipper. “Maybe the forest-green was better?”

Theo bit down on a growl. The shutters were forest-green when he got here. Sierra had hired him to paint them blue.

“I’ll have to go back to the store if you want the green,” he said as politely as possible considering he was barely clinging onto his humanity and his sanity.

“Why don’t you come down from there and take a break?” Sierra said, clearly checking out his ass on his way down. “You can come in for some lunch. You look hungry.”

He was starving.

But he had no desire to sit in Sierra’s house and eat while she ogled him and he pretended his heart wasn’t ripped to shreds.

“Nah. I’ll grab lunch at the bar, stop at the store for paint, and be back later.”

Sierra pouted but Theo just turned and climbed into his truck, leaving her alone in her snowy yard.

Unfortunately, the bar was no better for his nerves.

It was fairly empty since it was the middle of a weekday, but it still felt too loud, too hot, too crowded.

Everything in the entire world felt wrong!

“What can I get you?” Macy asked, coming up to where he’d seated himself at the bar. Theo didn’t see Ruby. Must be her day off and he was glad. He didn’t need her meddling anymore in his life.

And he certainly didn’t need her sympathy.

It would be weird to order a sleeve of saltine crackers, so Theo asked for a chicken sandwich, but he did request ginger ale. Maybe that would settle his stomach.

He glanced around the bar while Macy put in his order. He’d gotten to know more people, putting faces to names, during the ridiculous search-party meetings and subsequent celebration. He was surprised to find himself alone at the bar today. He knew Sal could be found more often than not in this exact spot.