Chapter 19
Lyall
Will Soren hate me when he knows I let my family chain him up? When he finds out I didn’t fight for him, craven that I am, he’ll never want anything to do with me. I revisited this memory many times, searching for some way to change things, and it never got easier.
It’s strange to witness the worst day of my life from outside of my own body.
I’m an observer. I can’t feel the same gut-wrenching grief I felt back then.
It’s as if all these terrible things happened to someone else, not to me.
My own voice comes from the basement, broken with grief at seeing his mate chained to a damn wall like an animal.
I should have broken his chains. I should have run away with him.
Why didn’t I just go with him?
“Lyall, you’re bleeding!”
I jump when Soren snatches my fist and forces my fingers to uncurl. They’d shifted to claws, puncturing my palm. In seconds, the wounds close.
“You saw.”
Soren pulls some napkins out of his pocket and wipes away the blood. “I did,” he says.
Is that accusation in his voice? Is he already angry with me?
Good. I deserve his hatred.
“Hey.” He cups my cheek. “Should we go back?”
I move out of his touch. It’s too tender, and I don’t deserve it. “You should see the rest.” If we’re to have any future together, he needs to know the truth.
Soren startles when my past self bursts from the cellar and marches toward the front door. He makes a ruckus as he stomps through the house until he arrives at Wulfric’s room. Soren hurries after him.
By the time I’ve made my way into the room, the fight has already started. Soren puts a hand over his mouth, eyes damp as my brother and I tear into each other. I shouldn’t have been so cruel to Wulfric. Had I ever apologized for those words I’d hurled at him?
“Don’t make me do this without you, Lyall.
Please.” Wulfric’s broken voice yanks me from my thoughts.
We’re kneeling on the floor, bloody and bruised, clutching each other.
“I lost Father. Gunnar w-won’t even speak to us.
Anders blames me for everything. I can’t…
I c-can’t lose you, too. Don’t leave me alone. Please.”
“Damn it, just say no!” The roar tears from my throat before I can stop it. “Tell him no! Tell him you won’t stay!”
None of these ghosts from the past acknowledges me. My past self will choose his family over the man he loves and will condemn himself to years of loneliness and misery.
All he had to do—all I had to do—was follow Soren into exile.
I should have chosen Soren. I should have.
But my family needed me. They needed me.
I can’t look at Soren. All I want is to sink into the floor and rest within the earth, like all those who died on this day. He must hate me. How could he not? I hate myself for being too weak to fight for him. Gods, he must be so angry with me.
“Lyall.” Soren’s voice cracks. He sounds as close to breaking as I feel.
I’m still a coward, even now. I can’t face his judgment. “I cannot bear another moment.” The words scrape my throat on the way out. “If you want to talk, you can find me on the beach.”
I walk out before I can see the disappointment or betrayal surely in his eyes.
Gulls cry as they swoop down over the ocean, tearing fish from the gray waves. One poor bird has been trying to catch a fish and just when he finally catches one, the fish slips from between his jaws and falls back into the sea. I pity him, to have gotten what he wanted only to lose it.
Shoes clack over stones behind me. I close my eyes tight and try to brace my heart for what’s coming.
“Lyall? Can we talk?”
My spine stiffens. Gods, here it comes. “Aye.” I have to drag the word from my throat when I want nothing more than to run.
“Can you look at me?”
And see the hurt that my decisions have caused him? No.
Soren sighs. The warmth of his body seeps into my side when he joins me, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. If he were angry, would he sit so close? Finally, I face him. The anger I expected to see in his eyes isn’t there. Instead, they’re red and damp.
“I’m sorry.” Soren’s face becomes a blur through my tears.
He says, “What for?”
What for? He saw the choices I made. Surely he knows I did not choose him.
“You didn’t see our talk in the basement after my fight with Wulfric?”
“No, I did,” he says.
Then why isn’t he angry with me?
“Soren, I let my family exile you. I chose to stay behind. Did you not see that?”
“I did!” he snaps. “What I don’t get is why I’m supposed to be angry with you.”
He’s lying to spare my feelings; he must be. “I abandoned you! I should have followed you into exile. By the gods! You were my mate, and I let you go!”
Soren’s lips part on a quiet inhale. “Sweetheart, you’d just lost your father. Your brother was still a child, and he was forced to become an Alpha before he was ready. He begged you not to leave him.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
Soren leans in, his hands warm as he cradles my face between his palms. “They needed their big brother. I decided to take the blame so your pack could stay together and if I had that choice now, I’d make it again.”
I can’t speak as my throat tightens and my eyes burn. How can he be so understanding?
Soren’s lips tremble when he smiles. “You promised you’d find me. You honored your duty to your family but you never gave up on me. How could I ever be angry with you for that? You found me, Lyall. After all these years, you found me.”
A laugh shudders from my chest. I hide my face against his palm as a tear spills free. Pressing a kiss into his hand, I say, “I always will.”
Soren pulls me into the warmth of his body, and when his lips find mine, he tastes like the ocean. Even after so much time and the loss of his memories, the man he was has never faded. His heart is still the kind, noble one I fell in love with.
Stones press into my back, but I barely feel them when Soren’s fingers curl in my hair and we kiss until we’re breathless. I pour my devotion, love, and joy into the kiss and pray Soren can feel everything I can’t fit into words.
When we finally part, I hold him for several long seconds, unable to let go. He runs his hands up and down my back, pressing fleeting kisses into the crook of my neck as the sun sinks into the ocean.
“What are we going to do?” Soren asks sometime later as we lie on the shore together.
“About?”
“Your family.” He tightens his grip on my hand. “The Council. How can we convince them I didn’t betray the pack? Could we show them this moment in the past?”
“I wish we could. The Council would not approve of what we’re doing here, Soren. If they found out I’ve been traveling to the past without their approval, I could get in trouble, and so could my pack.”
Soren sighs beside me. “So we have to hide for the rest of our lives?”
“The Council made it clear I was not to remind you of your past or expose you to the paranormal world. They made it clear I could have a relationship with you, so long as their terms were met.”
“But you’ve violated all of their terms,” Soren says heavily.
“On top of that, my family would never approve of us. So I can’t count on their support, either.”
Soren’s face falls. “So we stay a secret forever. Got it.”
It’s not what I want either. I can’t put my pack in danger. Anders has only just reconciled with our family. It would not be fair for him to be separated from them. “Would you still want to be together, even if we had to keep it a secret?”
Soren rolls onto his side to face me. He guides my hand to his mouth and kisses the back of my hand. “It’s not ideal. But you’re worth it, Lyall. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble because of us. So how do we make this work?”
I heave a sigh. “I don’t know. The TTA has a large presence in New York, and I fear Helena Cartwright does not trust me, rightfully, when it comes to keeping secrets from you.
So staying in the present with you will be tricky, and bringing you into the past with me is also not an option…
” A thought comes to me, making my heart skip.
“What if we were to go somewhere the TTA doesn’t have a headquarters? Somewhere no one knew us?”
He looks as surprised as I am. I can’t believe I’m suggesting such a thing. Being away from my pack would break my heart, but it might be the safest thing.
Soren frowns. “Is there such a place?”
“I don’t know, but I know someone who might.” If anyone would know, it’s Arlo.
“It’s a lot to ask of you, Soren, I know.
You have a job in the present, friends, your grandfather.
I would travel to the future to live with you.
You’d have to help me find a job and learn the ways of your time.
You would not be the only one making such a big change. We would be in the same boat, aye?”
Gods, it’s too much to ask of him. I’ve overstepped.
“I’ll do it,” Soren says, and my heart damn near stops. “I’ll go away with you, Lyall.”
How can he say yes so easily? Has he not considered all that he’d be leaving behind?
“Are you sure? You would not miss your life in the future?”
Soren worries his bottom lip. “Of course I would. Leaving would be hard. But losing you would be harder.”
Knowing how deeply he’s come to care for me warms me to the depths of my soul. “Soren—”
He leans in for a brief but hard kiss, silencing all my feeble protests. “What about you?” he asks when we part. “Won’t it be hard for you, being away from your family?”