“I’m so sorry,” I said to Olivianna, who didn’t seem to mind the dramatics we’d brought into her home and shop at all.

Her lips pursed, her gaze darted between the two of us with bright delight.

Then I warped back to the apartment, unsteady on my feet as I locked myself within the bathing room.

Scythe’s booted steps boomed over the wooden flooring as soon as I had the door closed.

I should’ve gone home. For although it didn’t feel like home anymore, it was better than enduring this male’s toxic, acidic hatred of me.

A hatred I knew I deserved to some extent—but he’d gone too far.

“Open the door.”

I bent over the sink, fingers clutching the cracked porcelain.

“Aster.”

I peered at the female staring back at me in the broken mirror, unsure who she was. Her cheekbones were sharp, her hair a tangled mass of cinnamon waves, and her eyes…

Damp and reddened and empty.

“Wildflower?”

My breath hitched, and my eyes further flooded as I wondered just how far he’d taken it with his friend in the tavern. As I surrendered to the perilous reality that he’d likely brought many a female back to this very apartment, and tonight he’d…

He’d rejected me.

No. Surely, that wasn’t what he’d done. Not when he’d been the one to force the acceptance of the bond upon us.

Though that didn’t mean it couldn’t be severed.

“Fuck, Aster. Would you please open the door so that I can look at you.”

A sad smile colored my lips. Unable to stop myself, I had to know, “Why do you always demand that?”

“Because,” he started, and there was a giant pause before he finally said softly, “I need to know you’re real. That I didn’t just fucking dream you into an obsession I can’t shake.”

My lips quivered. My smile fell.

“Aster, please.” His sigh was almost groaned. “Just open the damned door.”

I closed my eyes over the tears, but a few snuck free. They tickled against my cheeks and chin, falling to splash against the porcelain.

“I needed you to wait.”

I said nothing, though I knew what he meant.

He repeated himself. “I needed you to wait, and you left. You just…” A rough clearing of his throat sounded. “You were just gone.”

More tears escaped. I swiped at my cheeks while pacing the length of the tub, too torn to know what to do.

“A door can’t keep me from you, wildflower,” he said with gentle lethality. “Nothing can.”

I clasped the handle, then leaned back against the wood.