She was sobbing. The composure was gone. The armor was gone. The woman in his arms was raw, shaking, crying with the specific intensity of a girl who had been holding this since morning and the holding had ended and everything behind it was pouring out into bathwater and steam and the chest of the man she was terrified of losing.
Dex felt every wave of it. Every pulse of guilt. Every tremor of grief. The matebond was delivering her pain at full volume, unfiltered, and the pain was worse than the shifts because the shifts were physical. She loved him and was apologizing for something that was tearing her apart.
It shattered him.
