Waking up was just as bad as sleeping it felt. He had reached out for Elann but she wasn’t there. On his back, settling, he remembered the darkness of his previous nightmare and how only Caesarion was there. The acts done in the dream were supposed to bring him joy, pleasure, and fulfillment but Caesarion wasn’t his bondmate, wasn’t his love any longer, and thus the entire dream, Noah’s entire subconscious, felt like the steepest betrayal of Elann’s kindly given trust. It was a betrayal done unto himself as well because he couldn’t fathom giving himself pleasurably to anyone else. 

The days since the last nightmare were filled with reconsideration and meditation in order to affirm that his loyalty to Elann didn’t waver. Sadly though, he realized the last time he had given himself in utter pleasure to another was to Caesarion. Noah came to know his heart was still grasped by the man whom had abandoned the Kelvic. Being taken by the other man was always a pleasurable experience, Noah’s passions always flowed and his emotions had been as rolling and as immense as Elann’s were. The feelings weren’t utterly foreign to him, he realized.

Noah recognized he unintentionally lied to Elann and it compounded atop already depressing feelings of deepseated guilt. Now he could comprehend his intensely adverse reactions to Elann pressing sexual passion on him:  his passion was still possessed by another. Subconsciously he didn’t want to face the truth, the truth of knowing Elann wanted what Caesarion got so easily from him. It wasn’t to say he innately thought Caesarion attractive either. It was the man’s personality which drew Noah to him, the same as Elann, but their sex caused the creation of their bond. The bond was birthed in burning passions toiling with the deep emotions of attachment, love, and more. From the start, their bond had been hotly forged and cooled to rival steel’s strength.

Elann’s voice came as she appeared out of the corner of his sight. Noah’s hand went to clutch the fabric of her dress as she shushed him, petting over him to calm his quickly paced heart. Her usual concern and worry trickled instead of flooded, making it harder to cling to the genuineness of her overall woe for his wellbeing. He felt her beneath the dress, knew she was real, but she was holding back the surging feelings he had grown accustomed to feeling, even if they did shock his system momentarily.

Noah’s bond answered her question, twanging as a pang of longing came over it. He grasped her dress all the more and pulled, forsaking fabric, much like she yanked on their bond from time to time.

“Are you upset with me?” he spat immediately after he tugged at her.

It was perhaps an entirely baseless question given what was on Elann’s mind or what she made of it, but it was asked with the desperation for an answer. In his mind he saw Elann walking away in her shadowy form, watching her say words he couldn’t hear, and she was standing beside the bondmate who had abandoned him. He was out of the nightmare but until reality was cemented with her answer, her touch, breath, and words, he was mightily terrified.

His bond was open and it was gripped in his guilt. Their bond had not been forged in the fires of passion, it had been strung in a downpour of somberness. Forlornly it was crafted by the both of them, him promising to save her from the sadness of being disowned. It was his vow to her and in the bond several more promises, oaths, and vows were given. In his mind he had broken many of them with his dreams and inactions.