Chapter 62

Aria’s POV

I kept watching Lucian until he entered his car and drove off. Even with him gone, I stared at the place he had been, wondering how everything went so wrong so quickly.

I was in a state of shock, my hands trembling.

“Aria,” Jasper said.

With his hand on the small of my back, he gently turned me toward him. His smile softened, but seemed genuine. It confused me. How could anyone be happy after seeing what had just occurred occur? Did Jasper not understand how much I was hurting?

He couldn’t know, could he? I’d covered everything up so well, telling everyone, including myself, that a divorce was exactly what I wanted. The things I had said… I’d meant them in the moment, I was sure. But now that it had happened, now that our bond was well and truly broken.

Everything hurt so much.

Jasper was oblivious. “You know, I truly wouldn’t mind being your boyfriend, Aria. If you’d have me.”

I backed away from him.

“I know I was something of a playboy in the past,” he continued, misunderstanding the cause of my reluctance. “But I want to be with you more than I’ve ever wanted to be with anyone else.”

He held his arms out, and then let them fall. “I love you, Aria,” he said with a touch of annoyance, like he himself didn’t understand how he could feel that way. “I’ve never felt this before, and I… I want to try to be faithful to you.”

It wasn’t the most romantic proposition I’d ever heard, but perhaps it was for someone like Jasper, who seemed so unaccustomed to love that he likely didn’t even know what it was.

He couldn’t feel love for me. Maybe he was starting to, but it couldn’t have been love for real. Not yet. We’d only truly gotten to know each other fairly recently.

But even if it was love, I couldn’t return his feelings.

All I could think about was my pain, my loss.

I wrapped my arms around my stomach, worried the sudden chill might be hurting them.

“I will protect the child,” my wolf promised. That, at least, was a relief, even if the rest of me felt like falling apart.

“I can’t,” I told Jasper. “I’m sorry, but I can’t return your feelings.”

“But, Aria…” Confusion crossed his features. He’d likely never been as rejected in his entirely life as he had with me. “I don’t understand…”

“I…” Talking was painful. I didn’t know how to put all of my terrible, overwhelming feelings into words.

Cathy, seeing my struggle, stepped forward. “No means no, Jasper. Read the room and take a walk, yeah?”

Jasper shifted his gaze to her, looking for answers with Cathy instead. “But I…”

“Go inside,” Cathy said to me. “I’ll deal with this one.”

Piper waved her arm, gesturing me toward her. Sidestepping Jasper, I hurried toward Piper, who helped me inside. We moved to the couch where we sat down side by side. Above me hung that banner. Congratulations. It seemed to mock me now.

Piper removed her party hat.

Cathy stayed outside for a handful of minutes, then walked in looking frustrated and annoyed. She closed the door and locked it.

“Jasper?” I asked.

“I convinced him to go home for today,” Cathy said. “You’ve got enough on your plate than dealing with his mess. I’m sorry I invited him.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “If Lucian… If this didn’t happen…” I shook my head. “Jasper is a friend and I would have liked to celebrate with him.”

Seemingly accepting my words, Cathy came to my side and sat down beside me, on the other side of Piper. Her own party hat was long gone. I didn’t see her do it, but she probably removed it the moment she saw Lucian at the door.

“How’s the baby?” Cathy asked.

“Okay,” I assured her.

Cathy nodded. “And you?”

I could not answer that as promisingly, so I pressed my lips hard together and remained silent.

Cathy and Piper looked at each other.

“You’ll feel some side effects of the mutual rejection,” Piper said. “Lucian might have known that touching would soften the initial blow of the act, but you will still feel intermittent pain over the next several days to few weeks, depending on how well-established the bond was.”

Piper was either attempting to be kind to me or she had botched the timeline. I should let it go, but as someone who had been hoping to cultivate Piper’s medical learning, I had to help teach her.

Besides, she didn’t need to lie to me. I was a Healer. I knew very well the pain I was in for.

“A well-established bond would take more than mere months to fade away,” I said. “It could take years. Sometimes entire lifetimes.”

Piper looked away. She knew that then, and had been trying to be kind.

“Well, it’s a good thing your bond wasn’t that tight then,” Cathy said. She placed her hand over one of mine on my knees and squeezed. “You’ll be over this before you know it.”

I hoped she was right but I wasn’t sure. Right now, it certainly didn’t feel that way. I felt like this empty feeling could last forever. And my poor wolf. Again and again, I could hear her howling within my mind, a sound of mourning.

“Luna, please stop,” I tried to tell her, but she was inconsolable.

Cathy watched me, studying my face for several long moments. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

I wanted to say yes with confidence. After all, the divorce had been my idea. But it had been borne from a desire of wanting Lucian to love me. Our marriage might remain intact, but with our mating bond broken, our relationship felt well and truly over.

He would never come around and love me the way I wanted him to.

If he had, we could have been happy. We could have raised our child together, loving each other.

Instead, I was here alone. And he was going back to Sheila.

Tears welled in my eyes.

“Oh, Aria,” Cathy said. She could see the truth without my having to say so.

“What?” Piper asked. She didn’t know me as well.

“It’s over,” I said miserably, my bottom lip trembling. Tears welled in my eyes. “Lucian and I are done.”

Cathy turned me toward her and I fell into her comforting embrace. Dropping my forehead to her shoulder, I let the tears fall.

Luna’s heart-wrenching howl was no longer just in my mind but also stretched through all of me. I felt the ache of loss in every inch of me, and the cold lingered, even indoors.

“We’re done,” I said again through the sobs.

Cathy gently rubbed my back. “It’s going to be okay. It is. You just don’t know it right now.”

“It’s the rejection,” Piper said. “The empty feeling is an effect. In time, it won’t be as strong.”

I didn’t believe her. I felt like a vital piece of myself had been ripped away.

My wolf howled and I cried.

“Where do I go from here?” I said miserably.

Cathy urged me back so she could look into my eyes. “Wherever you want, Aria.”

The only reply I had in that moment was a despondent, “Where’s that?”

Cathy gave me a sad, pitying smile. “Only you know that.”

Where I wanted to go was back to Lucian’s side, but that was the one place I couldn’t go.

Not anymore.