He Wants to Buy My Heart—But It’s Not for Sale Chapter 07

He Wants to Buy My Heart—But It’s Not for Sale Chapter 07

I could almost picture it.

While I was at the hospital, shattered by the loss of our child, he had been tangled up with another woman.

He had said he was rushing to the hospital to see me.

But when he left her, he had shoved her underwear into his pocket and promised he would be right back.

The thought made my stomach turn.

That day, I smashed everything I could reach in the hospital room.

I wanted to claw open Thayer’s chest, dig out his heart, and see whether there was anything human left in it.

Thayer had stood among the wreckage, calm in a way that did not seem human.

“Selah, no matter how much you rage, it already happened.”

“I told you on the night of our bonding. If you couldn’t accept it, we could sever the bond at any time.”

Later, those cruel words would echo in Thayer’s ears again.

Only this time, they struck him like thunder.

He suddenly realized something.

It had been an entire year since we last hugged.

My love for him had already grown too thin to support even that.

—

Thayer’s strength seemed to drain out of him.

Delphine thought he was unwell and quickly helped him to the couch, pressing her fingers against his temples.

The moment her warm, soft fingertips touched his skin, Thayer thought of me again.

Back when he first founded the pack, he often got headaches from the pressure.

I would massage his temples, helping him relax.

He had always been shameless then.

Somehow, his hands would wander from his temples to places they had no business going.

Thinking about it now, those years had been the happiest.

Even though he had no money, no status, and spent every day groveling before the elders like a dog begging for scraps.

Back then, I only had him.

And he only had me.

It had felt as if nothing in the world could ever tear us apart.

Time was the cruelest weapon.

It could beat a burning heart into dust.

Thayer shook his head hard, trying to throw those memories out.

As if that could stop guilt and regret from crawling into his chest.

—

He convinced himself again.

I would come back.

Even if I did not, even if I insisted on severing the bond, he would not stop me.

He would not beg.

He had decided on the night of our bonding that he would always be the kind of man who never looked back.

He had always loved freedom.

Only the bond gifted by the Moon Mother had made him settle down for a few years.

He had never believed in belonging to one woman forever.

And yet, my shadow began to appear before his eyes again and again.

When Delphine ran his bath, he thought of me.

When Delphine talked to herself in his arms, he thought of me.

Even when Delphine fell asleep against him, he still thought of me.

Before, I had always been within reach.

He had never thought of me.

As if I were unimportant.

Now that I was gone, the whole world felt empty in a way that crowded him.

—

As if I were everywhere.

As if I were nowhere at all.

Thayer forced himself to sleep so he could stop thinking of me.

But in his dreams, I appeared even more often.

Every memory of us came back.

Bit by bit, like countless tiny, sharp needles piercing his heart.

Not enough to kill.

Enough to torture.

He saw his eighteen-year-old self.

The Thayer Blackthorn who had followed after me no matter how many times I told him to leave.

That younger Thayer stood beneath a tree, his furious gaze nailing into him.

“Thayer, why did you treat Selah like this?”

“I loved her so much. I couldn’t bear to see her hurt at all. Why did you do this to her?”

Thayer stumbled back.

The ground vanished beneath his feet.

He woke with a start, drenched in cold sweat, gasping for air.