Perry's POV
The mate bond between us pulsed like a second heartbeat. Every flutter of Phoebe's distress hit me like shattered glass in my chest. She tried to hide it—God, how she tried—but I felt everything. Her pain. Her guilt. The raw wound of our lost child that she carried like a secret shame.
She thought she was protecting me by staying silent.
She was wrong.
The invisible wall between us wasn't small. It was massive, built from grief and unspoken words, and it was driving me insane. Every smile she gave me felt fragile. Every laugh carried an echo of what we'd lost.
I couldn't take it anymore.
"Ready?" I moved behind her, sliding my arms around her waist. My lips found the sensitive spot on her neck, the one that always made her breath catch.
Her laugh drifted through the air—pure music, even tinged with the sadness she couldn't quite hide. The sound went straight through me. Every noise she made lit me up from the inside, reminded me she was here, alive, mine.
