Chapter 52
Alexander
The light hurts.
Its touch is physical, like a branding made internal. I shrink away from it, grasping desperately for the darkness again. It was cold there, and lonely, but at least it was safe. In the dark, I didn’t have to face the parts of me that ached.
The pain was there—it would always be—but I didn’t have to see it.
Now something unfamiliar and frighteningly powerful drags me away from that a safety. Like manacles clamped around my ankles, it tugs viciously, sinking unforgiving claws into the parts of me no other should be able to touch, and yanks, forcing me into the present.
Control between Julian and me was supposed to be a give and take. This is only a take. It is also innately wrong.
It ends before I have a chance to fight it. The darkness is wrestled from my grasp, and I from it, and instead, I find myself at the forefront of the world I tried to shun while Julian falls inwards.
I open my eyes out of reflex, only to slam them shut when the blinding light assaults my vision. It hurts here, too. It’s too bright, too loud, too much. I dig my fingers into—dirt? Sinking in so that I have something to hold on to while the world spins.
I swallow hard, then choke on my next breath when my stomach churns with nausea.
Where am I? What happened? Where is Julian?
I reach for him, but he doesn’t answer my calls—he can’t from the hole I’d been in that he now fills.
Something terrible must’ve happened. Something bad enough to force me to the forefront, even in my current state.
I curse myself to hell and back as I force myself onto my feet, bracing for a fight.
Only the world sways again once I’m standing upright.
I shake it off and pry my eyes open to survey my battlegrounds.
The ground wavers in gold and green, and utter terror engulfs me as my eyes slide over the unfamiliar lush grounds. Stalks of wheat shudder before me as if cowering from some invisible force, and I find myself dishonourably desperate to do the same.
Something is here—some wretched thing that has clogged the atmosphere, thick enough that each breath catches on it. Its stench is slathered over the air, the earth—and the source is nearby.
My fingers curl into fists as I square myself, forcing the tremor from my limbs. I would not be defeated so easily.
Nothing about this terrain is familiar, from the lingering scent to the strange hut in the distance, but I forget about the oddities entirely when my eyes land on him.
My heart stammers in my chest, forgetting how to function as all else falls away—the nausea, the panic, the pain. It all comes to a halt as I look at him, staring into his blood-red eyes.
A fire flicks in them, and then before my very eyes.
The flames sway and flare, stoked by every caress from the passing winds. Bodies circle the flames in a wild rhythm, wolves and shadows, and in their midst, Max howls.
He’s so lost in his madness that he doesn’t hear me rouse, not until I approach him, and the smile on his face somehow grows. It’s so radiant, so wonderful, it feels like a sin to witness it.
“Promise?”
“I promise. There is only us. I will never leave you behind, Alexander.”
The memory flickers out of Max’s gaze, taking with it the joy and the warmth. What’s left behind is hollow. He takes a step forward, and I find the strength to take one back.
“Alex—” he starts, but I shake my head to make him stop. “Please just listen to me.”
“No.” My hands fly to my ears to block him out, to block it all out. “No. No. No.”
“I love you too much to ever leave you.”
“Alex,” he pleads, and he sounds too much like he had then. My eyes fill, but even behind the tears, the memories refuse to be washed away. “Sweetheart, just—”
“Don’t!” I shout, swallowing the sob that tries to strangle me. I shove it all down as I meet his dark gaze and hold it. “Don’t you dare.”
Max holds his tongue, but he doesn’t free me from his stare. His eyes glisten from the pain he doesn’t have the right to feel.
Anger licks at my chest. I try to stifle it, but that only stokes the coals. I bite the inside of my cheek, clenching my fists, but I can’t hold it in. It only feeds the fire. It blazes a cruel path, spreading until it’s all I can feel.
“You left me.”
I hurl the words at him like a blow, and for once, I hope they hurt. Tears roll down his face, and mine follow.
“Please … Alex,” he pleads, stepping closer.
“You promised!” I shout, my heart breaking at the memory.
It had been one of our few outings, a night spent in the woods with our betas’ wolves and closest companions, to enjoy being at the forefront now that we were mated and fulfilling the very positions we’d been crafted for.
One weekend. One night. One promise. A promise that he broke.
“Never ever?”
“Never ever. No matter what, even if you beg me to. I will always be with you.”
For as long as I have known myself, there has been Max. First as bitter companion in the Goddess’s Plains, then as foe here, and finally as my mate. But he had always been there in some form, and promised me that he always would be. Only, when it came down to it, when it really mattered, he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Max starts, inching forward. His movements are careful, tentative. He’s afraid I’ll run, but I can’t move anymore. I’m trapped within our lifetime of memories, and I don’t know how to escape this with him still holding my aching heart. “I’m so sorry.”
“You said you would never leave!” I cry as my legs tremble beneath me. It’s all bubbling up now, and there’s no stopping it from boiling over my jagged edges, but I try. “You promised.”
He didn’t have to. I never asked him to. But he’d given me something I never craved until it was in my grasp—a promise of forever, a promise of companionship. But then he took it back.
“Never ever.”
My knees hit the dirt, and I let them. Max follows, dropping in front of me to pull me into his chest. I try pushing him away, but it’s a lost battle from the moment his skin touches mine.
My body heats, ignited by the connection I haven’t felt in so long, and suddenly crave with disappointing desperation. It makes my shoves weak and my fists slack.
My body gives up before I do, slouching into him as it all comes pouring out.
“You promised … you promised,” I wail, sobbing into his chest.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers again and again. “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You left me.” Like I was nothing. Like we were nothing.
“I didn’t want to. It was Aiden,” he says, but the excuse is like salt over my fresh wounds. I shake my head, straining against his rigid grasp. “We needed to go. He needed us to leave, Alex.”
“You left me!” I snap as something inside of me does the same and affords me the strength to shove him off. I scramble back until the space between us is what it should be—enough for me to breathe on my own. “You. Left. Me. You! You were mad, like Aiden was, and you pushed me out!”
I’m heaving now and I can’t make myself stop. “You could have reached out, come forward to talk to me, but you left me alone, and then you left. You said you wouldn’t, b-but you did.”
“Alex …” Max pleads with a surge of tears. I force my own away as I glare down at him. He has had enough of mine. “Please, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
It hurts. It’s as if he sinks his claws into my heart in his efforts to keep it. Life isn’t supposed to hurt this much. I’m sure of that.
“Alex,” Max weeps. The sight of him—on his knees, breaking—only makes it worse.
I hate this feeling, hate how empty he could make me feel even when he’s so close. More than any of that, though, I hate myself—for trusting him, for loving him … for still loving him.
Before, our love felt so innocent, even if we were aged beings.
It was so new—its edges so undiscovered—that it’d felt impossible to imagine it ever being infected by any of this.
We had barely spent time together since discovering we were mates, but it hadn’t mattered to us when we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d learn everything there was to know and then everything else.
Why make ourselves the focus when Julian and Aiden already had so many demons to contend with? We would find one another when the time was right, learn one another, love one another … but then …
“You didn’t even give us a chance,” I sob, feeling terribly small and alone.
“I know. I know, and I’m so sorry,” Max cries as he crawls forward. I try to escape him, but he reaches me first. In his grasp once again, he takes my face in his hands, imploring me to look at him.
“I’m so sorry, Alexander, I’m so, so sorry,” he says over and over again, but none fix it. “I should have fought harder for you. I should have stayed. Please forgive me. I’m dying without you—we’re all suffering without you.”
His voice breaks, dark eyes tormented. “You can’t—you can’t let yourself fade away. I love you. Baby, I love you.” He presses our foreheads together, letting his trembling breaths brush against my skin. “Come back. Please don’t go again. I know I left, and I don’t deserve it, but please … stay.”
I clench my eyes in a hopeless attempt to reacquaint myself with some fraction of the cold, but even in this fabricated darkness, Max fills the void. His words do, his warmth does, his love does, but it’s not like it used to be.
For every good thing, some inked web is wrapped around us, every memory tainted, and I’m so tired because everything hurts.
“I just feel pain,” I whisper, clutching at my chest. “It h-hurts.”
“I know,” he says while he strokes my cheek. A small whimper slips past my lips when I find myself leaning into his palm. “Let me fix this.”
Easy, isn’t it? To say that things can be fixed?
Maybe they could, but this cold sadness doesn’t feel like something anyone could mend. The crater in my chest, the tear in our bond, it didn’t feel reparable, so what’s the point of pretending that it is?
Alex, please don’t, Julian begs, his words reaching me for the first time in what must be weeks. I’m sorry he hurt you. I’m sorry it hurts so much, but I need you. I need you.
Guilt tears at my chest, making it harder to breathe as he fills my senses.
I’d tried to stay strong for him, to keep us going when he couldn’t, but it had all been too much. It had felt like drowning, and at some point, I stopped fighting the tide. I shouldn’t have, not with Julian, but it was all too much.
It’ll get better with time, Julian promises desperately. I promise it will. I’ll make sure it does.
Weak tenderness creeps into my heart at his solemn words. I know he means them. Max is my mate, but Julian shares my soul. His truths are mine, his promises made by our tongue. He would not break them.
“Let me love you,” Max begs, those wet eyes trying to keep hold of mine. “Let me love you.”
My heart lurches within his piercing grasp.
“I won’t make you regret it,” he vows earnestly. “I won’t ever hurt you like this again. I won’t. I promise.”
I promise.
I promise.
I promise.
The words ring in my ears like a bad opus.
“The last time you promised that you would never leave me, you looked at me the same way,” I whisper as I slide my hands over his.
“You looked at me just like this—like you held all the love in the world and reserved it just for me.” I grip his fingers, allowing myself to relish in their warmth for only a moment before I peel them away. “And then you left me.”
“Alex …” Max breathes my name like a prayer.
“I’ll stay. For Julian,” I tell him, standing, wiping my face clean. “I’ll deal with this—for him. I’ll live with this pain—for him. Not for you.”
The weight of my words hits him, but they do nothing to me with the agony already roiling inside. Besides, the relief that ruptures out of Julian is enough to mute everything else. For now.
I focus on that as I reach for him, begging him to take control. He hesitates, afraid that I won’t linger if he does, but our trust is a deep thing. He takes hold of me and doesn’t let go.
“Alex, please!” Max tries as he feels me fading, but it’s too late.
I’ve been the fool, the one to put us before our other halves. We were wolves first: the council to our humans, their protectors and companions. Max understood that. Which was why he’d left, because Aiden needed him.
Well, I understand that now, too. I would stay, because Julian needed me, not because of him.
Our other halves first. As it was meant to be.