Chapter 51: The Morning After

Astrid

For a few seconds after waking, I didn’t remember anything at all. My eyes were swollen, my head pounded, my whole body ached in ways that had nothing to do with dancing. My dress lay crumpled on the floor beside my shoes.

Then the memory hit suddenly. Mates.

No, I thought immediately, before I’d even fully opened my eyes. My stomach dropped, my chest tightened, and for one desperate second I wished I could simply fall back asleep and wake up somewhere before any of it had happened.

I lay still, testing something I didn’t have a name for. I closed my eyes and reached toward whatever had shifted inside me last night. It was still there, an awareness I couldn’t quite explain, not a location or a direction, just a presence, unmistakable and quiet.

The bond had survived my attempt to break it.

My body flinched instinctively at the memory of that pain, sharp and tearing. I wasn’t doing that again.

Mates, my wolf said again, unbothered by my denial.

I know what you said, I told it silently, though it clearly didn’t care whether I believed it or not.

Then the shame arrived, and it arrived fast. I remembered crying against the door, my nose running, begging them through the wood to reject me, screaming that I didn’t care if I hurt myself. I covered my face with both hands.

I had actually begged them.

I wondered what they must think of me now. Pity, probably. Or fear. Maybe they thought I was pathetic, some hysterical girl who couldn’t handle a little supernatural surprise.

Except they’d stayed. That detail refused to fit neatly into any of those explanations. I’d expected them to leave once I stopped screaming. They hadn’t.

I tried to find a reason that made sense. Maybe they felt responsible somehow. Maybe the bond forced their concern the same way it forced mine. But none of those explanations sat right, because I kept hearing Reed’s voice through the door. You’re not alone. And Xander telling me to stop hurting myself, his voice cracking in a way that wasn’t performance.

Some small, honest part of me had believed them. That was the part that scared me most.

Because if I was honest with myself, whatever I felt toward them hadn’t started last night. The bond hadn’t built anything from nothing. It had simply put a name to something that had already been quietly growing for weeks.

I forced myself out of bed anyway. Classes didn’t stop just because my entire life had rearranged itself overnight. I washed my face, changed, tried to look presentable. My reflection stared back at me, eyes still puffy, cheeks blotchy.

Excellent, I thought. Exactly how I wanted to look after discovering my life had become a nightmare.

I caught myself smiling faintly at my own bitterness, then pushed the thought away entirely. Today, I decided, I would act normal. That was the whole plan.

Ivy took one look at me in the hallway and frowned. "You look terrible."

"Good morning to you too," I said.

She asked whether I’d enjoyed the ball. I told her I was just tired. She studied me a beat longer than necessary, clearly unconvinced, but didn’t push. Instead she reminded me we had class in ten minutes and offered to grab me something to eat on the way.

I was grateful for that more than she knew.

Moonshade looked exactly the same as I walked through it, students laughing, talking about the ball, hurrying to lectures. Nobody knew anything had changed. It struck me how strange that felt, everyone else moving through an ordinary morning while I carried something heavy enough to crush me.

Then I overheard two students near the courtyard.

"Did you see Astrid run out last night?"

"I heard the Ashwoods went after her."

I tensed immediately, though it seemed to be nothing more than idle gossip so far, nobody drawing any real conclusions. I kept walking before they noticed me.

I saw Reed not long after, across the courtyard. The bond reacted instantly, not violently, just enough to remind me it existed, my heartbeat shifting rhythm without permission. He saw me too. He didn’t approach. He simply gave me a small nod.

I returned it, and that was all.

Inside, I wasn’t nearly as composed. I thought about his voice through the door last night, his patience, the way he’d asked if that was really what I wanted instead of simply arguing with me. I looked away first.

I saw Xander later, near the library steps. He looked like he wanted to say something, his usual carefree expression nowhere in sight. He started toward me, then stopped, clearly remembering I’d told them to leave me alone.

He gave me a small, careful smile instead.

I felt the same pull the bond always brought, but this time something else surfaced underneath it. I missed his teasing. I actually wanted him to say something ridiculous, to make me roll my eyes the way he always did.

That realization unsettled me more than the bond itself. I didn’t just miss him.

I missed the version of myself that laughed around him.

I sat through my first class barely absorbing a word of it. Avoiding them wasn’t realistic. They were seniors. They were princes. They were everywhere at Moonshade, and now, apparently, they were my mates.

I’d already tried rejection. The bond hadn’t allowed it. So there had to be another way. Distance, maybe. Pretending. Ignoring whatever this was until it stopped mattering.

I decided, firmly, that I would not accept it.

Then I remembered how relieved I’d felt seeing their shadows beneath my door last night, the certainty that they hadn’t abandoned me even after everything I’d screamed at them.

My resolve wavered immediately.

I didn’t want the bond. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to lose them either.

Sitting there in class, staring down at notes I hadn’t absorbed a single word of, I felt them both, distinct and unmistakable, somewhere else on campus. I didn’t need to look for them anymore. I simply knew.

Yesterday, Reed and Xander had simply been the two people who’d somehow found their way into my life.

Today, they were the two people my heart had apparently chosen without asking my permission first.

And I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to live with that.