My Alpha Said I’d Crawl Back in Three Days

Midnight came and went.

Ethan didn't.

Once, that would have kept Elena awake until dawn.

She would have lain in bed replaying everything, looking for what she'd done wrong, waiting for the bond to tell her he was on his way home.

Tonight she slept fine.

Maybe letting go of someone who was never really yours is its own kind of rest.

...

He came back in the morning.

She woke to the sound of him in the kitchen.

She found him with his sleeves pushed up, reheating the venison she'd cooked the night before.

All of it.

Every dish, still arranged on the table like she'd left it.

"I'll stay with you today," he said, not looking up.

"Make up for last night."

He tasted a piece of the venison off the serving fork.

"Good," he said. "You've gotten better."

She looked at him.

Ethan never ate leftovers.

It was one of his things — fresh kills only, food prepared the same day.

The fact that he was standing here reheating yesterday's meal and calling it a gesture told her everything about how seriously he was taking her dissolution request.

He was waiting for her to soften.

To thank him for the effort.

To step down off whatever ledge he'd decided she was standing on.

"That's not necessary," she said.

He looked up then.

Something flickered across his face.

He turned to the counter and came back with a small package.

Set it in front of her.

"From the night market. The herb-cake stall you always wanted to try."

She looked at it.

Wrapped in leaves, the way Selene liked.

Her preference, from a comment she'd made once about how the best food came simply packaged.

She'd mentioned her allergy to those particular herbs the first winter they were together.

Twice more after that.

He'd never remembered.

Seven years, and he knew everything about Selene's tastes.

He didn't remember what made Elena sick.

She didn't say any of that.

She just sat down and looked at the table.

The silence stretched.

She felt his patience thinning through the bond — that familiar pressure, the warning that came before he stopped trying.

"You've made your point," he said.

"I came back. I'm here. What else do you want from me?"

She didn't answer.

"Selene told me to come back," he said.

Like that was a point in his favor.

"She said you'd been patient with her being here, that I wasn't being fair to you."

There it was.

He'd come back to coax her because Selene asked him to.

"Ethan," she said.

"Don't file the dissolution again. I'm asking you—"

His phone buzzed.

He glanced at it.

And she watched his whole body change — shoulders dropping, jaw loosening, the careful patience he'd been performing replaced with something real and effortless.

"Selene."

He was already standing.

"I'll be right there."

He hung up.

Looked at her.

His expression had already returned to neutral, like a door closing.

"She needs help with the boundary mapping. It won't take long."

He left without waiting for her to respond.

She heard the front door close.

His footsteps on the path outside, moving quickly.

She sat at the table for a while longer.

The reheated venison.

The herb-cake she couldn't eat.

The bond between them, vibrating with the particular warmth he only ever felt around her.

She'd been about to tell him.

She was going to say it — I'm done, I'm going home, my family has been waiting.

But he'd already left.

That was fine.

She'd say it the next time.

She'd been saying things to the back of his head for years.

She could do it once more.