She felt so far removed from that moment of violence, of self-harm, she hadn’t even considered that might be the issue, and not Obelus being taken from him. “Yes. Myself. I didn’t do it to you. I did it to myself.”

“You said you’d never hurt me. You know I feel what you feel. Why would you hurt yourself if it was not your intent to hurt me?”

She hadn’t thought of it like that; it was just an impulse, energy that came out in the form of violence, violence that she deserved but no one else would mete out.

All the same, he was right.

“I . . . I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You swore you wouldn’t. Then you did.”

“I was afraid,” she said, tears welling. She was losing this battle already.

“There will always be fear. It is in your nature to lash out because of your fear. You give your word not to cause harm, but your word is meaningless. You harm yourself with the intent of harming me.”

“I didn’t . . . It wasn’t my intent to hurt you.”

“It was. You intended to hurt yourself, knowing it would hurt me.”

She blinked hard, letting the first wave of tears fall out. “You’re right. I acted on impulse. I wasn’t thinking. But now that I know this about myself, I can work on the behavior before it becomes a pattern. It’s not normal human behavior. I . . .” She reached out, feeling that there must be some magic words that she just needed to speak in the right order. That somewhere out there was the perfect thing to say to snap him out of this, to make him understand that now was not his time.

“I am twenty-one years old. You have to give me room to learn. You have to give me room to make mistakes!”

His big, waxy eyelids slid over his eyes like syrup as they closed. “Our mutual trauma is too extensive. Our empathic bond is mutually destructive. One or both of us must die.”

“No!” she said sharply. “No, no, that’s not how it works. We’ve only just started; you’ve only just gotten here. There’s so much trial and error we haven’t done. There’s so much we haven’t even tried.”

“It is what’s best for you. I cannot be your caretaker. You had a mate that provided for your needs better than I ever could. Your kind can care for you better than I ever could.”