“There is a sofa.” Magnus pointed out
“I am a king.”
Magnus sighed and closed his eyes because arguing with Evander was like stabbing smoke.
It achieved nothing.
The suite settled into silence.
Beyond the walls, the palace murmured quietly.
Magnus ignored all of it.
He listened past the room, past Evander’s unnecessary breathing, then he found her.
Her heartbeat pulsed through the wall next door, carrying a rhythm he knew better than any song.
It slipped under his skin and settled there, calming him.
Her heartbeat was peace.
It was cruel, really, that the sound of a woman who did not love him could soothe him more than anything else in the world.
Magnus smiled to himself despite the ache.
He allowed himself the smallest lie: that this was enough.
Then Erin yelped.
Magnus’ eyes snapped open.
He straightened quickly.
Evander sat up immediately.
“What?”
Magnus held up a hand, listening harder.
If something was wrong, if someone had slipped into her room, if she was hurt— He would have been right there in her room in a breeze if he were not stuck in this damned body, trapped by useless legs.
Cursed.
Broken.
He heard a giggle and exhaled, the tension bleeding from his shoulders.
“Never mind. She was just startled awake.”
“Why?”
Magnus didn’t answer.
He had his ear tilted toward the wall, head resting against the carved headboard, eyes half-closed.
Listening.
“If you would be quiet for a minute…I will be able to hear. Or you can listen for yourself.”
Evander looked at the wall.
Then at Magnus.
“You’re being creepy, Magnus.”
“Shut up.”
The smack to the back of Evander’s head caused him to chuckle.
Magnus settled back and closed his eyes fully.
It was a mistake.
The first thing that reached him was the sound of her moaning in pleasure.
He did not move.
He did not open his eyes.
He absolutely did not look at Evander, because he could feel Evander watching him.
Evander didn’t like Erin.
He knew why, too but Erin was his problem to manage.
She was his or was supposed to be his.
The distinction had never felt quite so vicious as it did right now, listening to her fall apart for someone else on the other side of a wall he could have punched through if he could.
He kept his eyes closed.
Her voice came again — muffled, helpless, urgent.
His jaw tightened.
He tried to pull his attention back, focusing on the grain of the ceiling, on Evander’s irritating breathing pattern.
It didn’t work.
His hearing had decided, with spectacular and complete indifference to his dignity, that it was done taking direction tonight.
It kept going back to her.
Her sighs.
The specific cadence of them, the way they pitched higher and then broke — breathless, unguarded.
He had imagined being the one to draw those sounds out of her.
His fated mate was being fucked in the room next to him.
There was nothing he could do about it.
His fingers had found the edge of the duvet at some point — he didn’t remember reaching for it — and were now holding on with a pressure that was doing the fabric no favors.
He breathed through it.
The ache was enormous and shapeless and completely without an outlet.
He heard her whisper a name.
Garrick.
The name detonated somewhere behind his sternum.
Son of a bitch.
That scent — that infuriating scent that had been raising the hair on the back of his neck.
Son of a fucking bitch.
Now he understood.
He was vibrating.
Genuinely, physically vibrating, the energy of it moving through him in waves with nowhere to go —
Evander’s palm settled over his hand.
“Stop listening, Magnus. Stop hurting yourself.”
Magnus’ eyes fluttered open.
His body felt locked beneath him while his senses remained cruelly alive.
His usually stormy green eyes were bleeding crimson now.
Magnus turned his head slowly toward his brother.
“You were listening?”
“I felt your anger and got curious,” Evander said.
“Sorry.”
Erin’s voice slipped through the wall again.
Magnus shut his eyes.
Damn it.
He had thought being near her would help.
Instead, it had been a huge mistake.
A stupid, humiliating, self-inflicted mistake.
His breathing came heavy now.
The crimson in his eyes deepened.
“Let go of the bond, Magnus,” Evander said quietly.
“Love shouldn’t hurt this much.”
“I cannot,” Magnus whispered.
Evander leaned closer.
“You can.”
“No.” Magnus swallowed, the word scraping his throat.
“I cannot. It’s all I have. Everything else was taken from me. I have no strength…I have no useful legs. I have no power.”
“No,” Evander said.
“You let go of your power all by yourself. You cannot add that to the list, brother.”
“And just what kind of king would I be then? Uhn? How do I lead when I cannot move?” Magnus swallowed, but it did not clear the tightness in his throat.
“I was supposed to be something,” Magnus whispered.
“Do you know what that feels like? To have everyone look at you and see everything you should have been?”
“I do,” Evander said.
Evander was not merely his brother.
He was the son of Damien and Isolde.
The boy born from betrayal.
The king people obeyed while still whispering about his mother’s sins.
They both knew something about being punished for things decided before they could defend themselves.
“And then the little energy that keeps me going will then be drained off if she breaks the mate bond? What will be left of me then?”
“What more can the goddess take from you?” Evander asked.
“There is nothing left for her to take…Have Erin break the bond. Let her cut it clean. This thing is killing you faster than being without a bond ever could.”
“You do not understand.”
“I understand perfectly. You are in love with a woman who does not love you, who is currently next door fucking another man, and you are lying here defending a bond that feels more like a curse than a blessing.”
“I do love her.
Once she gets her wolf,” Magnus continued, “she will realise just how much she wants me.
The bond will wake in her.
Erin is not rejecting me because she hates me.
She simply cannot feel what I feel yet.”