She was my mate. And I couldn’t tell her. Prisca didn’t choose to be born the hybrid heir. She didn’t choose to go to war. She’d had so few choices in her life so far, I refused to take any further choices from her. Oh, she knew mates didn’t have to stay together. But I wouldn’t place the weight of more expectation on her shoulders. And…some part of me, a part I’d never acknowledged before…it needed her to choose me. Of her own free will.
