Chapter 2. Brokenness

Now

It wasn’t the first time Mia had woken up without Xavier beside her. She had subconsciously gotten used to waking up without him beside her. Being used to it didn’t remove the ache his absence brought her.

Something had happened. Something happened to him, and she didn’t know what it was. He wasn’t the same Xavier she knew, at least not in the last three months.

They slept beside each other, but she felt she was beside a stranger. She couldn’t read his mind anymore, and in the seven years they had been true mates, that had never happened. She believed her inability to read him was her fault initially, but then she realised it wasn’t. He had created a barrier in his mind to keep her out of it. It didn’t make sense; why would he do that? What was he hiding from her?

She confronted him a week later, and he told her he had nothing to hide.

It was a lie; she didn’t have to read him to know that. It was the first time in years that he had lied to her, and