Her skin was still dripping wet but she didn't care, her clothes clung to her uncomfortably and her feet squelched in her shoes but she was beyond it all at this point. Her breath puffed out in short shallow wisps as the cold air licked against her damp skin. The brittle chill did nothing to soothe the rage coursing through her.

Water drip dropped along her neck and slid along her back as she marched through the camp. Teeth gritted and fists clenched.

He infuriated her. He thought he could pull and push at her whenever he felt like it. Reel her in like a fish, inspect her in all her bright colours and then dump her back into the tank, because this was no ocean. Had this been an ocean she would have swam away from Simeon a long time ago but she had sealed her fate. She was too involved and people had become dependant on her. Zosia need her and though Jana would be temporarily leaving she would come back.

She had to because she wasn't sure how Zosia would fair in this harsh world her father adamantly clung to. Simeon's world was splitting open at the seam but still he tried to sew it back up with short strokes, forcing the material together without folding the seam. He had yet to secure the things that mattered at home and yet he was already prepared to charge out there. Hoping that his hasty job would fix everything.

Well it wouldn't.

Zosia was on the cusp of a breakdown. If Simeon continued to persist with this life Jana knew he would loose her and not through death, though that was always a possibility. He would loose his daughter through his neglect, she would withdraw from him and then who would Zosia have?

Jana? Zosia couldn't depend on her because Jana's stay here was not guaranteed. She had come here to find herself, to be free. To prove her strength but she wouldn't stay forever. She had a home and time apart was doing her family well. Bonds were being mended between her and Neema and for the first time in her life, her and her biological mother Felicity had a relationship.

She had a family and though she considered Zosia as he part of her own, she couldn't take her from her father.
Simeon was an emotionless ass.

Yes he tried to care but the main word was tried. He didn't care or if he did it was hardly what anyone needed. She didn't doubt he loved his daughter but he was too used to being alone that he was incapable of putting someone's feeling before his. Or perhaps he was too ignorant to how his actions were affecting his daughter.

The flap of the tent flew open as she stormed in, heading straight for her belongings. She ripped out of her clothes throwing them to the floor all the while she cursed him beneath her breath.

She was annoyed, enraged even.

The bathing session had been a trial in itself and it wasn't because everyone had been fornicating around her. Bodies damp and glistening, that had been an issue but not The issue.

The issue was him. Simeon. He had taunted her, mocked her.

Everything was a game, a move on a chess board. He had sat back and dared her to cower away from the scene to chicken out and surrender and when she hadn't he had tried to soother her irritation with his touches.

She hated it. Hated how he tried to use sex as a tool to gain her submission, to get her compliance.

He confused lust with intimacy and then used it to try and win her over. His bodies needs were what drove him forward and perhaps that was the way of their kind but not hers.

He ran hot and cold, feeling and then unfeeling. He couldn't decide what he wanted to be or what they were and while he was deciding she was being yanked about like a rag doll. He was physically "there for her" but emotionally bereft.

She deserved more, she deserved stability and he wasn't giving that to her. He couldn't. How could he?

"Jana," he asked quizzically, brow furrowed as he stepped cautiously into the tent. He had taken the time to dry his body but his locks were still damp and glistening with droplets of water.

"This isnt going to work" her eyes were flickering with orbs of fire but her words were emotionally detached, robotic. She was resigned.

She had been fighting, if not for him then to prove her place here but was it all really worth it. She was tired and alone. She missed home and she needed intimacy, affection somone to show her they genuinely cared. She was just so tired of this.

"Huh?"

"Me and you, this isn't going to work" she repeated her words stronger as she met his tumultuous black eyes, the black shifting into a kaleidoscope of reds and oranges.

"I don't think I heard you correctly because it sounded like you said we aren't working but my ears must be deceiving me"

His thick boots crunched along the mat as he stepped further into her tent. His chest sticking out as he stepped towards her, tension rolling of his body in waves. The strength clapping into her face and leaving her gasping. Mouth wide as she struggled to breathe through the aggression emanating off of him.

"They are deceiving me, right?" he gritted, shoulders hunching as he curled his body over her, forcing her against the material of her tent.

"No"

"Did you say no?" His eyes shifted as a chilling grin slid across his face, his left arm rising above her head as he leant towards her. Breath ghosting across the light pink of her mark. It's colour fading as it entered its last stages of its claim.

"Don't pretend you didn't hear me Simeon, you know what I said" her voice strong even as her conviction wavered. Her neck pained her as she tilted her up towards him.

"You see, I think you're lying to yourself. You know we work well, Jana, but your stubborn pride won't let you admit it. Isn't that right princess."

"Don't call me princess" she spat her hand thudding against his chest.

"Why not? You are a princess. Every time something doesn't go your way you retreat back inside your ivory tower. Hiding away from the rest of the world" he sneered, lip curling over his teeth.

"Don't mock me!"

"Don't you dare mock me" she screamed her nails ripping into his cheek as the sharp whack of her palm met his skin.

His chest heaved as he staggered away from her, body shaking as he tried to control the anger tightening his muscles. The air was sizzling with rage between them, bubbling like the fiery depths of an active volcano. Churning and churning until it was no longer dormant.

"I have tried. The gods know I have tried but this is not working Simeon. I don't want to run back to my family with my tail tucked between legs" her wet hair slapped across her face as she shook her head.

"I don't want to, but I would rather be in that environment than be with you" she pushed against his chest when he began to crowd her back in but he didn't budge. His chest was as hard as stone.

His teeth kissed together as he rolled his eyes, body still tense as he spat "What have I done now Jana? Please tell me what I have I fucking done"

His arms were bulging, claws ripping into his thigh as he growled at her. Canines poking through as his eyes flickered tellingly.

"Nothing! You've done nothing!" She cried her hand flying in the air as she snorted a dubious laugh.

"You are lacking, you don't do shit but try and use our physical attraction to manipulate me. You are emotionally void and I'm tired of being tugged around like a goddamn dog on a chain. That prank you pulled tonight? Well that's just cemented everything for me! We aren't working and we never will"

"You don't understand me and I will never understand you Simeon, so let's just lineage the bond alone. Let my mark fade"

Her heart panted with those words, the bond throbbing between them. Screeching at the thought of being repressed. Discarded.

His back turned to her as he grabbed at his still damp locks, "So what you're going to go home?" He growled. At her silence he only became more infuriated.

"You know what your problem is princess Jana? You think the world revolves around you! That you can be here for a couple months and I'm meant to bend over backwards and try to please you. Shit doesn't work that way!"

"You think I don't know that? Trust me I do, but as my mate I would have hoped you would have been more supportive and more caring while I was struggling to adjust. Why is it so hard for you to show me some genuine affection"

She didn't even want his love but the least he could do was give her security. She felt as if she were drifting out into the ocean with no way to get home. All she expected from Simeon was to be there for her. She knew this transition had to be hard, especially when they weren't being mates in the traditional sense. She just needed him to show her some genuine emotion, to show that he was real, that he felt something other than anger.

He was always so guarded and empty.

"I don't have time to be consoling emotional women all the damn time! I have more important things to worry about" his face pink and veins popping along his skin as he threw those words at her.

As if her being emotional was something she could control. Like she hadn't already lost a lot.

As if her grief was inconsequential, irrelevant. His words struck a chord in her chest. She heard the resounding crack and then everything went red as her heart leaked obsidian blood.

"More important things than your daughter? The daughter you are leaving behind after she was just abused! You are selfish! Why can't you just put her first!"

Maybe she was projecting because she knew that she would never be a significant factor in his life but Zosia deserved more. This was her home and she couldn't even feel safe within it because someone had terrorised her, all the while her father had been out their "saving lives". Well who had saved Zosia?

No one, she had suffered and had perhaps been suffering for years. No one knew but here he was ready to traipse around the country while the person who harmed his daughter was still living and Zosia was still petrified.

He was so selfish.

She didn't doubt that he loved his daughter but it was becoming abundantly obvious to Jana that whatever it was that pushed Simeon to start this camp, was more important to him than Zosia's wellbeing. No one could be so oblivious to their child's pain, not when light bruises still clung to her body and she struggled to sleep by herself.

"Don't tell me how to raise my daughter! You may be mad that I'm not giving you whatever it is you want but don't you talk about my daughter!"

He snapped, his hand wrapped around her neck as he gripped her tightly, forcing her body flattening against the tent walls. Her eyes bulged wide as she scraped and pulled at his fingers, yanking and yanking until he realised her neck sharply. Air wheezed through her lips but was snatched back as his claws scratched at her shoulders. Splitting skin.

"Don't ever talk about her, do you hear me" he growled his nails biting into her shoulders as he shook he roughly, her head bobbling with his movements.

Her back thudded against the tent as he jerked his hands away, his body ripping away from her as he paced the room. Hair rising and receding along his arms as he fought the shift.

"Leave," she stammered, her heart in her throat.

His head snapped up to face her, body grinding to a halt as he took in her dishevelled state. Blood dropped from her shoulders and her neck was bruising from his rough handling. Her eyes were cold, emotionless and for a moment that look scared him. Scared him so much that his heart slid to a crashing halt.

"Jana" he murmured regret glistening in his eyes, his hands outstretched as he moved towards her m.

"Just leave" she thundered, her voice full of emotion but her eyes were so dull he couldn't even see a flicker of anger.

//--//

Breakfast was a somber affair. There was a thick tension in the air, one that went beyond what was felt between her and Simeon.

They were leaving and with their exit brought uncertainty. There were no guarantees that they would all make it home alive, no guarantee that this plan would work.

The anxiety was so strong, so strong because yet again these families were forced to say goodbye. Wave their loved ones away as they sat back and wait for the days to pass by at a slow crawl. Dragging and dragging as they waited for news, to see familiar faces.

This was a hard life and no matter how many times this ritual of goodbyes happened, Jana could tell that it never got easier. They were reluctant to release each other. Reluctant to speak in fear that the words that left their mouths would be the last they would ever say to each other. But they feared that if they didn't speak they would always look back at this moment and regret the words that hadn't been said.

There was an overwhelming amount of fear in the air and in their faces. Jana tried to shrug it off but that fear had settled deep into her chest. For weeks she had pushed it to a side as she focused on getting better for this moment but now she was here, she could feel the emotion.

It chocked her, dragged her down until her limbs felt heavy and her mind foggy. Words around her were just sloshes and the taste of her meat was like nothing. She could feel the hard chewy texture but she could not taste the spices, the slight taste of charcoal didn't meet her tongue like it should have.

A hard hand on her shoulder shook the fog from her, she shrugged away from the arm and clutched Zosia tighter in her embrace. Placing her plate down beside her she stroked along her hair. Murmuring softly to her even as Simeon took a seat beside her. He leant over her and nuzzled his face along Zosia's skin, taking in her scent. His beard scratching at her cheek caused a squeaking giggle to fly from her lips, her face shying away from him as she buried her body closer to Jana.

"Stop it" Zosia chortled, snorting as she shuffled away from him but he only persisted. Grabbing her body and lifting her in his arms, throwing her up and catching her again.

A smile slid over Jana's face as she watched them bonding, it was a bittersweet moment. One that she was sure Zosia would remember as she lay in her bed waiting for her papa to come home.

His black eyes lingered along her skin, she could feel the warmth but she refused to look at him. It was awkward now but it was what it was.

She was tired of this back and forth, it was draining and she just didn't have the energy.

Like he had said there were much more important things to worry about then the dishevelled state of their withering bond.

The bond vibrated in displeasure but she swatted it away, dismissing the urge to look at him. To give into the urges.

There was this longing to rest her head along his chest as he pulled her into his arms but such intimacy was few and far in between.

They didn't have a relationship like that and it seemed they never would.

This mate thing just wasn't for her.