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?

Chapter 345

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

trouble agreeing with Axel’s assessment of me.

whisper this time, looking up at him, searching his

for the

looks torn for a second and I think

after

here if he

in to

inside his

still, holding me properly now, his touch tender. “Well, it was, just not in the

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say, daring to lift my hands and

embrace in a way I never

a mate,” he says, and a shadow enters his gaze, one that’s sad 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 in the

I’ve never considered things from

perspective.

sense why he

both of us from

him in a quiet voice, and a hint of

wasn’t all,” he continues. “I’ve made

and I will no

a mate, any of them could easily threaten

countless terrible

for him as I realize that all this time,

reject me had been selfish, that he

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simply didn’t want to be with damaged goods

like I am.

was trying to protect

rejecting me were the least selfish ones

up with.

I realize it

and there’s nothing I can do

him.

he whispers, as if he

what to do with the fact.

I nod emphatically.

last thing I want to do is make

doing these past weeks.”

Emily,” Axel replies. “I played my part in it

well.”

me into a hug, and for a

trust and

between us.

be in my

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