They stepped into the bedroom together, and while she stripped out of her clothes to hit the shower, Aaron stood looking at her.
“What?” she asked after a moment of silence went by.
“Your mind is filled with so many thoughts that I can’t decipher them.” He revealed, leaning against the wardrobe while watching her.
She had cleared her head while racing over to the pack estate, but it didn’t last because as soon as she remembered Lionel’s plight, the thoughts returned.
She sat on the bed to take off her sneakers. “Did Sesi tell you she broke up with Lionel?”
He nodded, and she frowned at him because that meant he knew, but didn’t think to tell her. She opened her mouth, but he spoke instead: “She told me today when you were out, and I’m guessing Lionel told you about it too.”
“He’s my brother; of course he will.” She pulled off her shoe and tossed it to the floor, and she did the same for the other leg. “So, what is going to happen now?”
“I don’t know.”
She rose to her feet and placed her hands on her hips. “You don’t know?”
Aaron stuffed his hands into his pockets and pulled away from the wardrobe to stand upright. “They are two grown adults, and I don’t feel like getting in between their issues.”
She scoffed. “Their issues?”
“Yes, it’s their issue; last I checked.”
“I bet you wouldn’t say that if the one who left was Lionel.” She slammed, not loving the response she was getting from Aaron.
“She didn’t leave him; she found her mate!”
At this point, Zera wanted to pull out her hair. “It’s the same fucking thing, Aaron! She claimed my brother as her mate and marked him two years ago,” she said.
“Zera…”
She took a step forward. “I remembered when we needed to break the curse of power. You refused to mark me because you knew how miserable I’d be without you once that happened. That’s the misery Lionel is in now. Marked and abandoned!”
“You think I don’t know that? You think Sesi doesn’t know that?” he demanded, frowning.
“I don’t care what she knows; she’s not the one marked and abandoned! She’s not the one who is miserable and whose soul is tied to someone else for who knows how long. Lionel is miserable, and he doesn’t deserve that. All he did was love Sesi and be faithful to her. He was going to ask her to marry him after they returned from Paris. He didn’t want to do it there because he wanted to be considerate of her mission. I don’t even want to think about how heartbreaking that must have been, learning she found her mate there after he proposed,” she said in a pain-filled voice.
He held his hands up. “I am sorry. I know you’re angry and pained; I would be too.”
“Do not patronise me!” She snarled, and her eyes glowed.
He stepped back and said, “I am not doing that; I’m being very honest. But there is nothing I can do.”
That wasn’t the answer she wanted to receive, and so she stayed silent. After taking off her last piece of clothing, she walked into the bathroom to take a shower and clear her head before going to bed.
She settled in bed and picked up a book from the nightstand to read through before going to sleep. Aaron wasn’t in the room, and she figured since it was his turn to put Zion to sleep, he had gone to do that. So she bothered herself less and concentrated on the book in her hand.
Thirty minutes later, the door cracked open, and though Aaron’s scent engulfed her nostrils, she didn’t look up from the book in her hand. She kept her head low and her eyes fixed on the book she was reading.
If she had her way, she wouldn’t speak to him before sleeping; she wouldn’t even want to see him. She knew he would have his sister’s back and be in her corner no matter what, and she didn’t think that was fair.
She did not hate Sesi; far from it, but she wasn’t her biggest fan now, especially with what has happened to her brother.
“I can’t read you,” Aaron said from across the room, and she knew he hadn’t moved from the door.
She paused on her reading-not that she was reading anyway, with the many thoughts in her head. She set down the book in her hands and glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I can’t read you,” he said, and this time he stepped away from the door.
She didn’t understand anything he was saying because she knew mates could read each other, but she had never heard of one being unable to before. Being unable to read Aaron wasn’t because he shut her out; it was because she didn’t have that ability. Or that was how she saw it.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re shutting me out.” He pointed it out and lowered himself onto the bed.
“I can’t do that,” she argued.
“You most certainly can, and you have. You’re mad at me, and you can’t trust me, and that’s why your mind has wired itself against me and built its defence.” He answered, and now it made sense. “You do that most times we argue or when you don’t trust that I have your best interest.”
“That hasn’t happened before, has it? Shutting you out,” she clarified.
“It first happened after the miscarriage, but it was fueled by grief,” he answered. “You also did when you found out the truth about your nightmares and hallucinations.”
She remembered, but she didn’t think she shut him out during those times. His words now just told her she did.
She pressed her lips together before speaking. “I am mad at you. I doubt your judgement, since it’s so biased towards your sister.”
“I’m going to always want to understand her, but that doesn’t mean I agree with her. This, however, is beyond Sesi’s control.”
She scoffed. It was hard to believe that. She had as much control over the way she broke Lionel’s heart.
He groaned in frustration, and his lashes fluttered. “I do not want us fighting because of this. Ivan is already searching for ways to unmark a mate. Sesi asked him to. She’s not a cold-hearted being, you know.”
She never said she was. “You cannot just unmark a mate unless he’s also going to take it further and wipe out the memory and everything about Sesi from Lionel’s brain. Unmarking him alone will not help much.”
“Then we will wipe out his memory if it’s a safe procedure,” Aaron answered, staring at her, and she knew he wasn’t just saying things she wanted to hear; he genuinely meant it.
“I mean it.” He answered, reading into her thoughts finally, “Lionel is already a part of this family, Zera; there is no way we are going to just abandon him this time.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. She was happy to hear him say that, and she was optimistic for the days ahead for Lionel. There might just be a silver lining in all of this for him.
“So, are you still mad at me?”
She shook her head. She could never successfully stay mad at this man; he was too good, and that always made her reconsider.
She pressed her lips together. “No, I’m not.”
This made him smile. “Good, because I can’t stand when you’re mad at me.” He reached out and placed his hand on her ankle. His touch sent chills through her entire body, and she knew he felt it, too.
“Lionel asked if we had plans to have another baby,” she said, and that made him pause and stare at her. “I didn’t tell him we couldn’t or had already lost one,” she continued, and her eyes dropped from his.
“I’m sorry if that was difficult to talk about.”
She shook her head and said, “I’m not meant to have another child, and I’m okay with that. It hurts, but I can find closure in what I already have. You and Zion.” she smiled.
He pulled closer and kissed her lips, and she kissed back, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He took the book beside her and set it on the nightstand before kissing her lips again.