Atlas

|chapter 15|

The next morning when I wake, Atlas is gone. The bed feels cold and empty in his absence, a numbing feeling I have never experienced with such intensity. I brush my fingertips across the chilled bed sheets that had been disturbed with the presence of his golden body only hours ago, my breath hitching in my lungs at the painful remembrance of him.

I don't see him for the rest of the day, my heart and soul aching to know what is going on in his head. It feels like my entire being is gravitating toward him, my desire for him becoming an all-consuming fever. If this is what it is like to have a mate, I hate it. It's like slowly being ripped apart without him there to fill in the cracks or piece together the fragments of my soul.

When night falls again, I am alone. Wrapped in the bed sheets in a vain attempt to keep out the chilly fingers of darkness and loneliness, I finally manage to drift off. But my sleep is short-lived, the satisfying warmth of another body pressing close to me again quickly drawing me out of my slumber. I don't even have to open my eyes to know who holds me, a strange peacefulness stilling my fear despite how unnerved I am that he was able to slip into my room and down into my bed without me even noticing. But I am relieved that he did, my restlessness finally calmed and my loneliness chased away.

It's just like last night, only sweeter somehow. His warmth envelopes me as I lean my face against his bare torso, his hand brushing absently up and down the small of my back.

"Atlas?" I whisper uncertainly, unable to live any longer in the torment of not knowing what he is thinking. He only shifts slightly, his hand stilling on my back as he waits for me to continue talking.

"I don't understand what you want from me," I say a little more confidently, opening my eyes to look up at him. It's dark, and I am too intimidated to look directly at him, so I find myself absently tracing his defined jawline with my gaze. Mixed signals confuse me, and I'm teetering on the edge of giving into this whole "mate" thing. But I can't do that if I don't know what he wants from me.

There is a long stretch of silence, Atlas finally moving to carefully grasp my arm, his thumb brushing across the spot of skin where the crescent moon shimmers. As his warm touch comes into contact with the symbol, shivers run down my spine and my breath is caught in my throat, my stomach doing nauseating flips of exhilaration. If he notices this reaction, he doesn't show it.

"I just don't understand you," he finally answers, his deep voice throaty from lack of use. "It's like you're everything. My weakness, my strength, my desire, my friend, my enemy. I don't know who you are, and I've never needed someone or something that I couldn't provide for myself. But dammit, now I do. I hate it, but I feel like I can't breathe without it." I still haven't managed to screw up enough courage to look directly at his face, so my eyes follow his lips as he speaks, hanging off every single word. "I thought you were killing me, but then you ended up saving me and I still don't know how," he finishes, his jaw clenched with frustration.

I don't know what to say to him, his vulnerability in this moment startling to me. I've never seen this side of him, and now that I have, I feel dumbstruck. My eyes travel down to where his thumb is still gliding across the moon symbol, and I have to try my best just to continue breathing. His infatuation with it reminds me of something that has been on my mind for a long time, and I have to search for the courage just to bring it up.

"Elipse gave me something that I think you should see," I tell him after a moment of uneasy hesitation. I slide up to a sitting position and reach across Alas, pulling open my top dresser drawer and finding the smooth stone. Sliding down to press myself back into the curves of his body, I carefully drop the treasure into his palm and peek absently at the small sun marking the inside of his massive bicep. With a closer look at it, I can confirm that it is identical to the one on the stone, and finally I know that I'm not completely crazy yet.