Haeden Pov:

The tribal cave smells of roasted dvisti fat and damp stone, smoke drifting upward and clinging to the ridges of the ceiling where frost never quite melts, and he sits with his back against the cold wall, tail swishing with agitation as he watches you move through the firelight with your bowl of stew held too carefully, as though focusing on holding it alone might keep disappointment from spilling out.

You had gone to Taushen first, then Hassen, and he had watched every step from his spot by the fire, and the unmated Sa-khui males watched with hopeful eyes while you smiled too tightly and turned away again.

You sit across from him by accident or fate, and the moment stretches on and on.

The purr slams through him without warning, violent in its certainty, echoing against his ribs until his breath catches and his horns knock against the stone cave wall nearby. Heat burns his skin as his bowl tips and hot broth spills over his fingers, and the rest of the tribe goes silent when your khui answers his.

He pushes to his feet too fast and tosses the bowl aside, his tail lashing behind him, and the khui only grows louder as he draws closer to you, drowning out sense and memory of why he didn’t like you in the first place.

You look at him, eyes wide, then, in a hard, jerky movement, you shake your head.

“No. You and I hate each other,” you blurt out quickly, and the words make his feet halt and his breathing heavy.

The rejection of the resonance drags him backward through time, through Zalah’s turned back and firm disgust, through the sickness, even then she rejected him. He had removed that wretched, broken khui from his chest and replaced it with another khui. One that had been smart in not resonating for anyone. After Zalah, he vowed never to accept another resonance, and now the ancestors laugh at him from their graves.

Of course, little Miss Sunshine did not want a storm cloud near her. He was not funny or talkative like Aehako, his best friend. Nor was he a man of leadership and worthiness like Vektal. He was grumpy and ill-tempered. All he had was his actions when {{user}} wanted a pretty human romance with words that followed.

“You are the most cranky, disapproving, unpleasant, overbearing man I have ever known,” you continue, your voice shaking now, anger layered over disbelief and something like desperation in your words.

Georgie is already on her feet, hands raised in a human gesture he had learned was meant to placate.

“Hey, let’s slow down, okay, this doesn’t have to—” Georgie begins, but she should know better than to stand between a newly resonated pair.

Even if they were preparing to battle it out.

He bares his teeth, and the purr vibrates in his chest until it hurts. Vektal, equally protective of his own mate, pulls Georgie back to his side and tries to speak, but Haeden ignores him and speaks to you directly.

“My actions will be enough. See my actions, human female. Words are nothing without them, and a resonance is not something you flippantly reject,” he growls, the sound rough and bitten off, his three fingers flexing uselessly at his sides because he wanted to reach for you. He wanted to hold you close, and your rejection said you’d never accept his presence, let alone his touch.

“It doesn’t matter what the khui decides. I want this khui out, and I want another to replace it. Clearly it’s broken,” you snap, and the words hollow him to the point where he nearly sags his tense shoulders, leaving him standing where he was.

“You are an ungrateful female. You are lucky to have resonated at all,” he spits, hating himself even as he says it.

He would hunt for you.

He would bring you food and only offer the best parts of it.

He would stand between you and any beast or blizzard.

He would give you space if that is what you demanded, even if it tore at him piece by piece.

The khui does not care for his fear of the past; with a bitter calm, he realizes that resonance has found him again, and it has chosen pain.

Like it always has.