TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 205

Two hundred and five

Cameron POV

I sucked air into my lungs in ragged pulls. The blood vessels behind my eyes throbbed in time with the rush in my

ears.

Everything in the room looked warped. Alpha Kieran and Harry stood in front of me. Their lips moved, but the words came too fast, blending into a flat drone my brain couldn’t piece together.

Lisa stood near Kieran’s shoulder, her chin tucked into her chest as she sobbed. Every time my eyes drifted toward her, a knot tightened behind my breastbone. The sound of her crying scraped against the inside of my skull.

I raised my right hand and wiped a smear of warm fluid from the groove above my lip. I looked down at my knuckles. The skin was split where I had driven my fist into Kieran’s jaw. I stared at the blood on my skin, the reason for the blow completely missing from my head. The room was just noise.

“Look at me, Cameron.”

Kieran’s palm struck my cheek lightly, pulling my focus back to him. I tried to hold his gaze, but Lisa’s mother wrapped an arm around Lisa’s waist, pulling her backward into the shadow of the hallway. Even after the bedroom doorway emptied, Lisa’s tear-streaked face remained stuck in my mind.

“What happened?” I asked Kieran. The words scraped my throat.

“You hurt Lisa,” he said flatly. “You scared her badly.”

Harry watched me, expecting me to lunge again.

“You need to go home,” Kieran said.

A dry chuckle broke from my throat, though nothing felt funny.

“Why? I don’t want to go home.”

The word home felt wrong in my mouth. There was warmth in this house that I didn’t want to leave behind.

I leaned my lower back against the wall, my thoughts slowly falling into place.

“What did I do to her?”

Kieran turned his head briefly toward the empty corridor before looking back at me.

“You lost control. Thankfully, she screamed before things became irreversible.”

“Did I?” I whispered, looking down at my feet. “I… I didn’t hit her, did I?”

Kieran stayed silent, his eyes fixed on me as though he wanted the memory to return naturally instead of forcing it.

Fragments came back.

I wanted to touch Lisa and bury myself inside her because the pressure in my head stopped around her, then the bathroom door clicked shut.

After that, a sudden, violent hatred toward the baby and the urge to make it disappear.

Cold sweat broke across my hairline.

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“What’s happening to me?” I asked.

Neither Kieran nor Harry answered.

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“Come on, son,” Kieran said quietly. “Let me take you downstairs. Guards will follow your car home.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but exhaustion crushed the words before they could leave my throat.

My gaze drifted toward the doorway. I could still see Lisa shrinking away from me against the hallway wall.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I said, my hands trembling. “Can I at least talk to her before I leave?”

Kieran shook his head.

“I know you didn’t mean it, but no. Not tonight.”

The answer landed hard.

He didn’t trust me near her anymore.

I looked down at my hands again. My fingers felt detached from the skin beneath them.

Kieran rested a hand against my shoulder blade and gave it a firm pat.

“You need to fight, my dear boy. No one can save you if you stop fighting during the lucid periods.’

The phrase lucid periods kept turning over inside my skull.

I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth and let him guide me toward the stairs.

When we reached the bottom landing, I felt her and looked up through the banister.

Lisa stood near the top rail. The hallway light caught the tears on her cheeks. She watched me with wide eyes full of fear and grief. Her mother’s arm slid around her shoulders, trying to pull her back.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The words came out cracked and loud in the entryway.

“I don’t know what happened.”

Neither woman answered. Then Lisa spoke. Her voice drifted quietly down the stairwell.

“What did Evangeline tell you before you came here?”

The room went still. Kieran watched my face.

Pain split through the back of my head. Fragments stirred again. A voice near my ear and fingers against my jaw.

You’re getting worse because of the baby.

I jammed the heels of my palms into my temples as a spike of pain shot through my forehead.

Kieran tugged my arm. “Don’t force the memory.”

But the scene was already rebuilding itself.

Evangeline standing beside the curtains in our bedroom, her face wet with tears, her mouth brushing mine while she whispered:

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Save yourself.

My breathing turned uneven. I looked toward Lisa upstairs.

“You told me the baby was hurting me,” I said, though I wasn’t even sure who I was speaking to anymore.

The color drained from Lisa’s face.

“That’s enough,” Kieran said. “He has to leave now.”

I looked at him helplessly. “But I want to stay.”

“You can’t.”

He turned me toward the front door.

“You need to leave before your condition shifts again.”

I lowered my head and nodded weakly.

Harry stepped forward, pressed my car keys into my palm, and folded my fingers over them. Nobody spoke as we stepped onto the porch. The cold air doubled the pressure in my skull.

Two guards waited near the bottom steps.

“They’ll follow behind you,” Kieran said.

I looked back toward the doorway. The hallway inside stood empty now.

“Tell Lisa I’m sorry.”

Kieran nodded.

“She’ll understand. Don’t destroy yourself over this.”

Then he placed a hand against the back of my head.

“Fight, Cameron. Fight for your name, your mind, and the people you love.”

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