Chapter 64
Chapter Sixty-Four
Rain pelts the window. There’s a boom of thunder that makes me flinch, only because I know what it’s doing to her. What I’m doing to her because I’m a selfish bastard.
Her energy signature pulses wildly.
Deep, rasping breaths beneath the covers, and Skies, I hate myself.
I’m the worst type of man.
Another loud crack of thunder shakes the room, and her breath chokes on a mangled sob. Soft whimpers pierce my heart, guilt flooding my veins like poison.
Lightning flashes, illuminating her shaking form, and I find the courage to rise from the sofa.
The mattress dips beneath my weight as I carefully peel the covers off her head.
I slide into the bed beside her, leaving half a foot of space between us.
My hand wavers, but I don’t let myself touch her. I don’t deserve to.
Not after what I did in the tent.
What I’m doing now.
The thunder cracks again, and she flinches so hard, it shatters my restraint.
I reach for her, palm open. Waiting. Her face is wet with tears, blue eyes anguished. I did this. I will always do this if I stay.
Thunder booms again—fuck—the storm is growing larger than I intended. The loud crack sends Mayah scrambling across the mattress into my arms, and the jagged shards of my broken heart scrape together.
She rests her head on my bare chest, silent sobs racking her frame.
She lets me stroke her hair and rub circles against her back.
I tangle my legs with hers, desperate to have her as close to me as possible.
Eyes clenched tight, I hold her in my arms, savoring the way her breath fans against my skin, the heat of her body against mine.
One last time, baby.
I hook my finger under her chin, gently tilting her face and wiping away her tears.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp. “For how I treated you last time.” I swallow hard. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she whispers, voice wavering.
“For everything. Zev, I—I miss you so much. I miss the way you teased me. Cared for me. Held me. I miss the light in your eyes when you saw me from across a room. Tides, your smile that was just for me.” She’s sobbing, hands clutching my shoulders.
“This was never supposed to happen. I was to marry your brother. I would’ve despised him.
Been eager to kill him. I would’ve found the tunnels, smuggled in the poison, killed everyone.
I wouldn’t have been left with this gaping hollow inside me where you live now, Zev.
You made a home for yourself in my heart, and then I—Tides, fuck.
” A deep, shuddering breath. Her eyes glimmer with fresh tears, waiting to drip down her pale cheeks.
“I’m aching for you, Zev. Just like you wanted me to be. I need you so bad, I’m drowning.”
Not a single prickle.
It’s incomprehensibly cruel for my truthwielding to not work on her. I want to believe her, Skies, I do.
Mayah, on her knees, beside her captain’s corpse, blue eyes brimming with grief.
His lips on her mouth, her leg around his waist.
“Why were you with him, then?” I don’t mean for ice to frost my voice, but it coats the edge of every brittle word anyway.
“He didn’t know my feelings had changed.
I tried to stop him, avoid … touching him, but I-I didn’t try hard enough.
I couldn’t admit to myself how I felt about you then, let alone someone else.
What you saw—that was my goodbye to him.
He just didn’t know it. I swear by the Tides, I was going to tell you everything when you returned. ”
Every sense inside me screams that she’s telling the truth. Her anguished eyes, the desperate twist of her lips. Not a single pinprick.
But she’s lied before. And I had no idea.
I loose a deep, pained sigh before shifting onto my back.
“Say something,” she begs. “Is there a path forward for us?” She grabs my hand and splays it over her heart, its frantic beat pounding against my palm.
When I don’t pull away, she rises up on her elbow and traces each white scar across my chest. There’s so much skiesdamned reverence in her touch, it nearly undoes me.
I don’t trust myself to speak. Mayah rests her head against my chest, listening to my heartbeat, and the Skies must wish to punish me in the most brutal of ways because nothing has, nor ever will, feel this right again.
I love this woman. I love her with my every cursed breath, with every shuddering beat of my broken heart. And I know when I leave tomorrow, I’ll leave its jagged shards here, with her.
She’d asked me if there was a path forward for us.
Not one where I trust her again. I’ll never stop wondering.
And I’ll never stop hurting her for it.
“I gave you everything I had, Mayah.” A broken whisper wrapped in my grief. “I have nothing left.”
She swallows hard, the motion rippling against my chest. “Then … then why are you here?”
A frustrated sigh escapes me.
“I can’t seem to stay away.” My jaw clenches tight.
“But I can never trust you again. When I close my eyes, I see you with him. In his arms. On your knees, grief and rage swirling in your eyes. For him. When I thought you were mine.” I swallow past the tightness in my throat.
“I’ll keep being cruel to you. Pulling you close, then pushing you away.
Like I did in the tent.” My voice breaks under the weight of my pain.
Her pain. “You deserve to be happy, Mayah. Just not with me.”
A tear drops onto my chest, then another.
She weeps against me for what feels like hours, soft, shuddering, hopeless sobs until she drifts off to sleep.
Only when she’s asleep do I let my own tears escape.
Goodbye, Mayah.