Bad Love an Alpha’s Regret by Elise Sinclair

Chapter 345

I can’t bring myself to name what I’m feeling.

If I do, it’s putting too much power behind the emotion.

“Axel, why did you break the bond?”

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I didn’t mean to blurt that out, but once the words are out there, I

watch him flinch.

But he keeps walking.

Axel?” I try again.

He doesn’t answer right away, and I swallow down the lump in

my throat. But I don’t turn back. I follow him into the annex. To the

far end, pushing into the bathroom after him and not caring if he

wants his privacy or not.

He washes himself in the sink. The blood sluicing off his arms and

chest.

I wait as he cleanses away the remnants of the fighting. I want to

help him. To take the towel from his hand and care for him myself,

but I know it’s not what he wants right now.

“Why, Axel?” I repeat. “Is it because of what happened to me?

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Because you knew I would be some broken, fragile mess?”

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He hurls the last of the rags aside and steps forward. He catches. my upper arms, his expression fierce.

“I don’t think that about you at all, Emily,” he says in an intense tone. “I think you’re strong and resilient. I think you’re amazing. Instead of being broken by what you went through, you let it make

you stronger. Not many people can claim that.”

I let a wan smile tug at my lips.

Not many people have been through what I went through, and I

agreeing with Axel’s assessment

whisper this time, looking up at him, searching

the

I think maybe he’s not

me after all.

know where to go from here if he can’t

he seems to give in to whatever thoughts are going

inside his

at all, Emily,” he says gently, pulling me closer still, holding me properly now, his touch tender. “Well, it was, just

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to me,” I say, daring to lift my

I’m in his embrace in a way I never imagined

and haunted. “I’m centuries old, and in all the time, the Moon Goddess never once granted me a mate. I understood why. I live a dangerous existence. And I’m immortal. What good would it do to have a mate for a single, mortal lifetime, only to lose. her and then maybe lose myself

never considered

perspective.

sense

trying to save both of us from

him in a quiet voice, and

he continues. “I’ve made many

my long lifetime, and I will no doubt make many more

a mate, any of

me in countless terrible ways.”

melts for him as I realize that all this

to reject me had been selfish, that he was

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person who simply didn’t want to

like I am.

trying

were the least selfish ones he

come up with.

I say, and I realize it hurts that my

and there’s nothing I can

him.

whispers, as if he can’t quite

to do with

I nod emphatically.

thing I want to do is make your life

been doing these past

Emily,” Axel replies. “I

well.”

a moment, we

feel the new trust and depth

between us.

be in my

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