Noah’s declaration was returned and he felt the emotion blaze over their bond in the way Elann often did when she was touched by something he said. Next came words that were hard to hear. It was his displayal of love for her to not let her feel the constant pain that he was in because it gave her discomfort, a visible discomfort he couldn’t bear to see half the time. He watched her kiss his hand then beg of him to release his hold of his bond with reasoning that touched him inwardly. Still, his face showed his torn thoughts and confliction.

“No,” he nearly whined because it pained him to deny her anything. “I won’t.”

Despite his rejection of her, his hand didn’t shy away from her hold. It tightened to show his dedication and his own eyes were pleading for her not to ask of it anymore. “I don’t want you to feel it,” he explained. “I don’t want you to feel hurt. I don’t like seeing you wince when nothing is there because it is me who is causing it. It’s my fault that I’m hurt; I forgot where I was and I was attacked because I forgot. I couldn’t defend myself, and then I couldn’t defend you there either.”

Looking at Elann, the situations in which he dulled his bond to her and the time in which she dulled his were different. This was a sensation she knew, pain, whereas the one she was wanting him to feel wasn’t one he knew enough to produce himself to the point she would be satisfied. Atop that, it was enough to feel the pain himself, and to him it was a reminder of a lapse of thought and mismaneuver. His wounds ached emotionally and physically within him; he’d rather be over it himself than to see his bondmate in a pain that came from him, for one, and, for two, he couldn’t stop.

“I loved you before we bonded, didn’t you know it then?” he questioned. “Can you not see it now?”

Noah was truly curious in his inquiries. He had grown to love her to the point of bonding, it was the act of bonding which cemented his feelings eternally. Was she blind then, too, to how he felt for her?