Urdon Pov
I woke up early and decided to check on Freda. We had not spoken in four days. Not since I told her to go to Kyran if she wanted him so much. I regretted saying it the second the words left my mouth, but I was too angry and hurt to take them back.
Now enough time had passed that I needed to make sure she was okay. She was still my mate even if things between us were broken. I still had responsibilities to her as her Alpha and her partner.
I walked down the hall toward the guest rooms. I still did not understand why she refused to sleep in our bedroom anymore, but I was tired of fighting about it. If she needed space, then I would give her space.
As I got closer, I smelled something that made me stop walking. Blood. Fresh blood mixed with something else. Heat scent. Freda's heat scent.
My wolf side went on immediate alert. That combination of smells meant something was very wrong. Freda had been in heat, and she had been bleeding, or someone near her had been bleeding.
I walked faster. The smell got stronger the closer I got to the guest room. But there was another scent layered underneath. Male scent. Kyran's scent. And his blood.
I stopped outside the door and looked down. There were drops of blood on the floor leading from inside the room out into the hallway. I followed them with my eyes, and they led directly to Kyran's room two doors down.
Rage filled me so fast I could not think straight. Freda had been in heat. Kyran had been with her. His blood was in her room, mixed with her scent. They had been together during the most vulnerable time a mated wolf could experience.
I kicked open Freda's door and found her curled up on the bed. She was awake, and she looked up when I came in. Her eyes went wide with fear.
"Urdon," she said. "I can explain what happened."
"Explain what?" I said, and my voice came out as a growl. "Explain why Kyran's blood is all over your floor. Explain why his scent is mixed with yours. Explain why you let another male near you during your heat."
"It is not what you think," Freda said and sat up quickly. "The heat came early, and it was so painful I could not move. Kyran heard me screaming, and he broke down the door to help me."
"Help you," I repeated. "Is that what you call it when you bite him hard enough to make him bleed everywhere?"
"I lost control," Freda said, and tears started running down her face. "The curse made the heat worse than it should have been. I was in so much pain, I did not know what I was doing. I bit him by accident."
"An accident," I said. "You bit him deep enough to leave blood trails to his room, and it was an accident."
"Yes," Freda cried. "You have to believe me. I would never choose to hurt Kyran. The curse took over, and I lost control of my wolf."
"I am so tired of hearing about this curse," I shouted. I slammed my hand against the wall hard enough to leave a dent. "Every single time something goes wrong, you blame it on a curse that nobody can prove is real."
"It is real," Freda said. "I showed you the book. I told you about your tattoo and the history of your bloodline. Why will you not believe me?"
"Because curses are not real," I said. "They are just stories people tell to explain away their bad choices and their failures."
"This is not a story," Freda shouted back. "This is our lives. This is us dying slowly because you refuse to see what is right in front of you."
"What I see in front of me is a mate who cheated on me with my friend," I said.
"I did not cheat," Freda yelled. "Kyran was helping me through the heat pain because you were not there."
"I was not there because you locked yourself away from me," I said. "You chose to hide in a guest room instead of coming to your own mate for help."
"Because you have been pushing me away for weeks," Freda said, and her voice broke. "You look at me like you hate me. You barely touch me anymore. You accused me of wanting Kyran. The mate bond is breaking, and you refuse to acknowledge it."
I walked over to her and grabbed her wrist. Not hard enough to hurt but firm enough that she could not pull away. I looked into her icy blue eyes and saw fear and pain and something else I did not want to name.
"If you want Kyran so much, then go to him," I said. My voice came out cold and flat. Dead sounding. "I am done fighting for a mate who does not want to fight for me."
"Urdon, please do not say that," Freda begged. "Please. You do not understand what you are doing."
"I understand perfectly," I said. "You made your choice when you let him touch you during your heat. Now live with it."
I let go of her wrist and turned to leave. Behind me, I heard her fall to her knees. She started sobbing so hard that it sounded like she could not breathe.
Everything in me screamed to turn around. To go back and hold her and tell her I did not mean it, but I was too angry and too hurt to listen to that voice.
I walked out and slammed the door behind me. The sound echoed through the whole hallway. I kept walking even though my chest felt tight and wrong.
My tattoo burned against my skin, hotter than it ever had before. Like someone was branding me from the inside out. I touched my chest and felt the heat radiating through my shirt.
Something inside me knew I had just made a terrible mistake. The mate bond between us felt thinner than ever. Like a thread that was about to snap completely.
But I was too proud and too stubborn to go back and fix it. So I just kept walking and told myself I had done the right thing.