to fall asleep with every night, and wake up to every morning. He was the full package, the one who made me feel everything. And that wasn’t to mention that he was my first: my first Darken kiss, my first mate, the one I had lost my virginity to.
And Kane? Well, he was my favorite to think about. He was my ultimate “what if.” I often wondered what my life would have been like with him, unsure if I would ever really know.
So, yeah. They were all my favorite, in their own way.
“I want you to be honest with me about something.” Kane’s green eyes locked on mine. “If you could choose to end the connection you have with me right now and get out of the mate bond we share with one another, would you?”
I stared at him for a long moment. Even though my head told me that I should say yes, that I should want out of this mate bond with him, my heart just didn’t feel the same way.
“No, I wouldn’t,” I admitted, even though speaking those words was against my better judgment.
At the end of the day, my bond with Kane only made things way more complicated. He was just another werewolf for me to think about spending an eternity with, another contender to throw into the mix. It only made it harder for me to choose in the long run.
“Really? Are you sure about that?” Kane asked.
“You’re lucky I told you that I wouldn’t break the mate bond once. Now you’re just pushing it,” I said with an eye roll. “I know you’re looking for flattery, but you’re not going to get it from me. Not after you’ve been M.I.A. since July.”
He looked mildly amused. “My apologies for my disappearance. But you’re one-hundred percent certain that you wouldn’t end what we have going right now if you could?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You’re positive?”
“Yes, I’m positive,” I replied, beginning to grow frustrated.
“Well, okay then. Since you insist.” He shrugged. “You say you don’t want to break the bond, so we won’t break the bond.” Pulling a flask out of his suit pack, he unscrewed the lid and dumped the liquid that it contained onto the grass. His emerald green eyes met mine. “That was the antidote, by the way.”
“The antidote?” I found myself asking.
“The potion, the antidote, whatever you want to call it. It could have broken our bond and made us lose our connection to one another,” Kane explained. “But you were so positive that you wouldn’t want us to not be mates anymore that there was really no use for it.”
“Wait. You have a potion that could break the mate bond?” I asked him with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah. Well, I had a potion that could break the mate bond. It’s in the grass now.” He shrugged.
“Why the hell would you get rid of it?!” I asked him, my cheeks growing hot with anger.
Was this some sort of joke? And if it was, did he really think it was funny? Because I could think of a lot of funny jokes, but getting rid of an antidote that could have broken our mate bond definitely wasn’t one of them.
“You told me you wouldn’t have wanted to end our mate bond even if you had the chance to. Are you now telling me that you were lying to me?” There was an intensity in his eyes as he stared at me.
“No, I wasn’t lying,” I admitted quietly. “But I could have used that potion in the long run. I have to figure out a way to break my bond with four of my mates. So, that potion could have really come in handy.”
He just stared back at me. “Wait, what are you talking about?”
“I have five mates,” I reminded him.
“I’m aware of that.”
“It can’t be that way. I can’t have five mates,” I explained. “In the end, there can only be one.”
“You only want to be with one of us?” Kane’s dark eyebrows knotted together at the center of his forehead. “I thought we were all your favorite.”
“You are all my favorite. And that’s not what I want, but the others have made it clear that they want me to choose just one of you in the end,” I explained. “So, I’m going to honor their wishes.”
“Wow. Just one of us, huh?” Kane stared out in the direction of the reception. I watched as his eyes landed on the table where the rest of our pack was sitting.
His green