CHAPTER 89: CHAPTER 89: I MISS YOU

MAEVE’S POV

She added a wink and a little conspiratorial smile.

My body didn’t react fast enough, but something in me came alive—a twitch in my fingers, a lift of my lashes. The spark in my chest.

"What time?" I rasped, my voice still sore from too much crying, throwing my head up a little too eagerly.

She glanced at the clock on the mantle just as it struck 6 p.m., her smirk widening.

"Right now."

And like on cue—like he too had been watching the clock, holding onto the anticipation with every bated breath—the phone on the table began to ring.

My stomach flipped.

"I’ll excuse you," Nina said with a soft pat to my thigh. "Try not to cry into the tea, mm?"

The moment she left, I just stared at the screen like it was going to bite me. Devon’s name blinked up at me like a warm hand reaching out across time, across heartbreak, across Ash Creek.

I didn’t even realize my own hand was trembling until I answered it.

"Hello?" I managed.

"Hey, angel."

His voice. Goddess, his voice.

How long had I gone without hearing it? How much distance had grown between us that just the timbre of it tugged so painfully at my heartstrings—both in yearning and in the realization that it wasn’t enough?

That deep, calming tone that used to lull me to sleep when we lived in the cozy royal room of ours, so different from the extravagance of Ivan’s castle.

No—Devon’s was far different. It was smaller, yet not too tight. Warm in that soothing way. It always felt like home.

Ash Creek didn’t feel like home. Home doesn’t hurt this bad, doesn’t constrict my heart and lungs and chest until the closest thing to warmth is my own tears.

I was undone in a breath. My lips quivered and though I fought it, pressing them tighter and tighter together, I crumbled.

I burst into tears.

"M-Maeve?" His voice was softer now, worried. "Mae, what’s wrong? Talk to me—what’s going on?"

I couldn’t speak. I was sobbing too hard, gasping too much, trying to gather words I hadn’t dared admit to myself.

Everything I was, everything I had been for the last few weeks came hunting me—even the very lies I had hidden from him.

The moments I had slipped into Ivan’s arms and let him touch me, damn well close to ripping my clothes off.

"It hurts," I finally choked out. "Everything hurts. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Devon. I feel like I’m drowning in my own mess. I lie every day, and then I feel guilty for feeling anything, and I hate it. I don’t like what it makes me. I don’t feel like a good mother to Asha—I keep hiding big things from him. I keep trying to pull him away from Ivan—and failing. I am failing at everything. In this mission, I’ve gotten nowhere except hurt myself and disappoint you. I don’t even know why I’m here anymore."

There was a long pause. Then his voice came, slow, intentional, low in that measured way.

"Maeve. Are you having second thoughts?"

I blinked through the tears. And for some reason, there was a stab to my chest.

It wasn’t that simple, and maybe in this moment, I wanted to exist beyond just being a tool for the mission. I was his mate too.

"Because if you are," he continued, "we can end this. Right now. I promised I wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to. If this is getting too much, if you’re done, if you want out, I’ll have a car outside the pack borders tomorrow morning. I’ll have you out of that hellhole before noon."

His certainty, that firmness in his voice, was both a balm and a cutting blade to my heart. It wasn’t that black and white now, was it?

My chest tightened, and all I could think of was Nina’s voice: Do you think Ivan would just let you leave? Or do you believe Devon would be pleased to learn that you failed in the one way he trusted you? For Goddess’ sake! He has woven every thread so intentionally, so perfectly. You cut one, and the whole web falls.

Her words were a bitter pill to swallow. But everything going on here was fragile—sensitive.

If I pulled one thread, the whole thing unraveled. Devon’s years of strategy, this perfect opportunity... and maybe I might lose Asha in the process.

Ivan would never let me leave with him—and I couldn’t stay with Ivan.

Devon might just be my savior through this mess.

"No," I whispered, wiping at my cheeks with trembling hands. "I don’t want to leave."

"Then what do you want, baby?"

I didn’t know how to answer that. I wanted peace. I wanted to stop the endless lying. I wanted my mate bond with Ivan gone. I wanted my heart back.

Instead, I whispered, "I just miss you."

His breath hitched on the other end. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I said, curling into myself on the couch as I dropped the tea on a stool. "I miss... sleeping next to you. Waking up with your arms around me. I miss you mumbling nonsense in your sleep and hogging the blanket. I miss... the warmth."

There was a soft chuckle, the sound of him shifting wherever he was.

"You know I miss you, too. You were the only one who could put up with the troublesome she-wolves around here. And... I think about you every night. Every single goddamn night. You, and that god-awful candle you liked burning. The one that smelled like cinnamon and wet wood."

"It was cedar," I whispered, smiling faintly.

"Still was very suffocating—like, woman, let me breathe."

We laughed, for the first time in what felt like months. It felt too good. Too easy.

"I miss being inside you, too," he said after a beat, and the smile died slowly on my lips.

I urged my mouth to say the words I knew he wanted to hear, to feel something close to the yearning for physical contact—but it was like hitting a wall in this state of mind.

I mean, just seconds ago, I’d been crying so hard my chest ached. And now, he—

"I..." My throat tightened with a discomfort I didn’t want to name. "Devon, I don’t—"

"Relax, Mae," he murmured with a half-laugh, as if I was being uptight. "I was just trying to lighten the mood and maybe stir things in a different direction. We’ve been apart for too long, and I can only imagine you might... be a little horny. Sex is a good release for tension, and you’ve been crying non-stop. I don’t know, I just thought maybe... you know, we could help release some tension. For you. For us."