And he wasn’t the only one who noticed because Dalton and Chance both kept shooting Lena worried looks from the couch where they were talking with their new clients.
Sure, women were confusing as shit, but Jenner was being gutted every minute that drew them closer to goodbye, and Lena had just literally laughed out loud at something she read on her glowing computer screen.
She took another bite of the apology sandwich he’d made her and clicked away on her little laptop mouse. Out of sheer curiosity, he ambled around the other side of the dining table like he was going to join the others, but sat on the back of the couch and looked at what she was doing on her computer instead. She was attaching the pictures to an email from the looks of it.
“You aren’t sending pictures of me, are you?”
Lena cast him an angry glare over her shoulder. There it was. “Those are just for me.”
Jenner licked his bottom lip and gripped the edge of the leather couch he was resting against. “Do you want to talk in private? About anything? I mean, before you leave do you want to…I don’t know…yell at me?”
“Nope.”
The pain in his chest intensified, and he stifled a growl because the trio of mid-thirties men on a bachelor party adventure were close enough to hear. And he’d be damned if he outed his beastly nature to humans twice in one week.
Lena’s hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and the lighter auburn ends curled under, showing off that long, pretty neck of hers, but also the top edge of the bandage that sat right under the neck of her shirt.
She was his. His, and he was about to let her go. Fuck, he hated this stupid urge to be a decent person. He hated feeling trapped. Wanting her to stay more than anything, but needing to push her to leave and find someone normal. A regular human guy who could be there for her always, not just during the warm season. Who would encourage her drive to be the best in her industry. Who could give her little babies, not cubs, who would grow up to go to college and marry normal women and give Lena normal grandchildren. And he could picture it all. Her hair streaked with silver, glasses on her nose, with a huge family gathered around her for holidays while he would still be here, sleeping through. But as much as he told himself he wanted that for her, he hated the thought of her making a family with anyone else. Of her spending the holidays with another family. And how fucking selfish, right? He hadn’t been awake for a Christmas since he was fifteen, but he begrudged her having that with people she could actually celebrate with?
Pushing off the couch, he strode from the cabin and off the porch, then across the massive yard to the deck overlooking the river. He couldn’t be in there while she looked so unaffected by all this. He was burning inside, and she couldn’t look more relaxed to be leaving him. And yeah, this was his fault—his choice. She’d cried so hard when he’d told her she needed to go and that it wouldn’t work out between them, so by God, he thought it would’ve been harder for her to separate.
He’d been her first.
He’d given her his mark, but maybe that didn’t mean as much to her. Maybe humans didn’t feel bonds like shifters did. He didn’t know. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, he hated what he was because Bear had cost him Lena.
Lena would be it for him. For the rest of his life, he would never want another. His bear had chosen, and now she was an hour away from leaving, and she seemed completely at ease.
“Fuck!” he yelled, chucking a heavy tree branch into the woods.
He was burning alive and she was fine. Smiling. Beautiful, perfect, strong, too good for him, and a panicked part of him wanted to beg her to stay. He wanted to beg her to feel something for him and not flip that switch so easily. Was he really so easy to forget?
He paced in front of the deck, running his hands roughly over his hair.
Lennard had told him “good job.” He’d said Lena had filled out a survey first thing this morning and given Jenner all five stars. Called him an “attentive and professional guide,” and she would recommend him to anyone. Her answers had been emotionless.
She wasn’t fighting this at all, and that fact was relentlessly slicing up his insides until he wanted to Change just to escape these roiling human sentiments.
The scent of dominant grizzly hit his nose an instant before he turned around to find Tobias standing there. A mass of emotions washed over him. His bear wanted to kill him, but the human side of Jenner was relieved to see Tobias after all this time. He hadn’t laid eyes on him since Ian and Elyse’s wedding at the beginning of the warm season. And dammit, right now, he needed something. Someone. He needed his brother to tell him it would be okay.
“What have you done?” Tobias asked softly.