COLE
I tried.
I want that on record before anything else. In whatever version of this story gets told later, I tried.
The other thing I want on record is that I did not choose this.
Nobody chooses a fated mate. That is the whole point of the word fated. The moon goddess does not ask. She does not check your schedule or your friendships or whether the woman she has decided is yours happens to be engaged to one of your oldest friends. She just puts the bond there and steps back and watches what you do with it and I have hated her for it every single day since the night it formed.
I did not go looking for Lila. I did not sit across from Rowan and decide to want the woman he was going to marry. I woke up one morning with a pull in my chest that had not been there the night before and it had her name on it and I have been trying to survive that fact ever since.
