Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
A knock at the door stirred me from sleep. I rolled over, reaching instinctively for Sebastian–but he was gone. The sheets were cool where he’d been.
I pushed myself upright and stumbled across the room. My eyes were still bleary, my vision fractured and slow to catch up. I found the doorknob and pulled, expecting to see him standing there, smirking, pretending like nothing had happened.
But it wasn’t Sebastian.
It was Maalikai.
And my heart dropped.
He looked friggin’ amazing. His chiseled jaw, a strong perfect curve in the deep light, his onyx hair completely black in the shadows.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
“You’re here,” I breathed.
He nodded, still standing there. “Triska, the girls, and I arrived yesterday. You were hibernating in your room.” He raised a brow. “Sebastian mentioned you were left unguarded and needed a chaperone.”
Of course he did, that one didn’t know how not to meddle, even if it broke him. “Did he just?”
He nodded again. “Besides, you and I need to talk.”
Before I could move, Maalikai stormed in, the level of grief in his eyes almost tangible, carried like a wound to the heart. I hadn’t noticed from his place outside my bedroom, but his gaze was fierce and broken. “Can I please just say something?”
Running my teeth over my bottom lip, I nodded. I wore a loose white shirt, the bottom hem only just reaching my thighs. Honestly, I hadn’t been expecting him to arrive yet, but now that he was here, I felt exposed.
“I want to be painfully clear. Whatever you’ve got swirling inside your head, it’s not true.”
His words left me baffled. I opened my mouth, closed it then opened it again. “What are you talking about?”
Exasperated, Maalikai ran a hand through his hair, leaving the obsidian locks disheveled. “You have an issue with self-sabotage.”
Irritation reddened my skin, heady heat bubbling to the surface. “Excuse me?”
“Sebastian and I talked…”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You and Sebastian finally get together and talk about me and decide who I am. You have no right.”
“You gave me the right when you broke my heart.” Hurt crossed his features as he fixed me with a stare that shook my insides.
“What?”
An irritated sigh left him as he leaned against the wall. “We did things. Things I don’t do with just anyone…”
“Maalikai…” An embarrassing shade of red crept over my face for a second time.
“No, you need to hear this.” The way his voice broke crumbled me. Against my better judgment, I shut my mouth. “What happened two nights ago, wasn’t about getting into your pants. What happened, at least for me , happened because you’ve stolen my heart. Do you really think I would’ve let that happen if I didn’t want to be with you?”
“Yes.” The word left me before I could cage it.
“What, because you think I’m a manwhore?” I couldn’t even hold his gaze; I was so ashamed of my unspoken accusation. “Not that you even bothered to ask, but I’m not. Call me a sucker, but I believe in love. Yes, I’ve been with women before. But this—this is something. Something real. At least it is for me .” He pointed to himself, emphasizing how deeply he felt about me. And man did it sting.
My heart swelled with his words and as much as I wanted him to be right, that I wanted this to be real, I knew there couldn’t be an us. “Maalikai, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“The only thing that is stopping it, is you.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You believe you’re not worthy of love.” He took a step forward, invading my personal space and stealing my ability to breathe. “You believe you’re not good enough for me or Sebastian, so you make all the excuses in the world, so this won’t work. Then you convince yourself it’s true.”
What in Nexus?
“I— I don’t.” I stammered, at a loss for words.
“You do. But this time, I’m not going to let you.”
I shook my head, shame consuming me. “I slept with Sebastian.”
Hurt flickered through his eyes, onyx instantly inking through his irises. “You what?”
“I love him.”
Silence fell between us, becoming suffocating. Maalikai’s jaw clenched, that storm-slick stillness coiling in his shoulders.
“Do you want to be with him?” The question cut deeper than any accusation ever could.
"I..." I didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t hurt both of us.
His voice cracked through the quiet—low and bitter. “Because if you do, if you’ve already chosen him, then say it. Don’t string me along like I’m some fucking placeholder.”
My chest caved in. “No. Gods, no—it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it, Emylia?” His voice rose, just a little, and the way he used my name stung more than anything else.
“Because I’m standing here trying not to fall apart while you tell me you love someone else. That you're in love with someone else.”
Tears burned my eyes, unapologetic as they streamed down my face. “I didn’t plan for it to happen… but I don’t regret it either.”
His voice dropped, brittle. “So where does that leave us?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and prepared to hand him the one thing that might break him.
The truth.
“I will always love him. I will always be in love with him. I can't change that.”
Maalikai looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen… and the one thing that could break him.
“And me?” His voice cracked, soft and trembling. “Are you in love with me?”
I blinked, struggling to find air. “I—I never meant to fall in love with you. But I am.”
A pause. Then, quietly?—
“That’s the worst part,”he whispered. “Neither did I. I never meant to fall in love with you, but here we are.” Air whooshed from him. “And now? I’m incurable.”
His voice broke, low and shaking. I’d never seen this side of him. Never seen this much emotion poor out of someone so carefully held together, full of things he never let anyone see. Only I had the special ability to break him. To bring him to his knees. And Gods… did it ruin me.
“I don’t care that you slept with him. I don’t even care if you love him. As long as there’s still some part of you that loves me, too. That wants me, too.”
My breathing stuttered. “You still want to be with me?”
“Emylia, you are a truly stunning creature. You make me feel like life is worth living, even though I have lost so damn much. Without you, I feel like I can no longer breathe, like there is no point even existing anymore. As much as you fucking frustrate me, you are everything. I would do anything for you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, letting the obsidian strands fall in sexy disarray, as he took another unsteady breath.
“I wouldn’t just watch the world burn for you,” he said, voice cracking as he stepped closer, fists clenched at his sides. “I’d spark the damn flint myself and watch the whole fucking thing turn to ash—just for the chance to be with you.”
His chest heaved, like he couldn’t hold the weight of it anymore. He ran a hand through his hair again—agitated, raw, unraveling in front of me.
“You are beyond enough,” he said fiercely, eyes blazing. “And you are so damn worthy of my love it hurts to think you’d believe anything else.”
The words poured from him, unfiltered, like they’d been caged for too long and now refused to stay quiet. “So if you don’t want to be with me, that’s fine.” He exhaled sharply, gaze dropping for just a second, like the truth of it scorched him. “But it won’t be because you weren’t enough.” His eyes locked with mine again—pleading, certain. “It’ll be because I’m not worthy of you .” One last tortured breath. “Because you don’t want me.” The breath tore from him–sharp, sudden–like letting go might unravel him. “Or… because you’ve chosen him .”
Before I had a chance to say anything, he left. I went to follow but stopped before I made it to the door. I had no idea what I was going to say. I had no logical argument, everything he said made complete sense. I finally started to believe that he wanted this more than he wanted to breathe.
That he wanted me.
Every shattered part of me.
Maalikai was right. The only person standing in the way of us… was me. Not him. Not Sebastian.
Me.
I was sabotaging everything–unintentionally, maybe, but no less destructively. I was too afraid to be completely vulnerable. Too afraid I wouldn’t be enough. That if I gave myself fully to one, I’d lose the other. That wanting both made me selfish. Shameful. Unworthy.
It wasn’t just fear of being hurt. It was the fear of how the world would see me. How I would see me. By protecting my own heart, I wasn’t saving it.
I was shattering it.
And both of theirs too.
I sat on the edge of my bed, eyes shut tight, my head spinning with images of the man who was likely still just outside my wall. Still guarding me. Even as I destroyed him.
Utter confusion bled into every nerve, a storm of uncertainty cloaking me like a second skin. And for the first time in my life, I had no idea what to do.
Because the truth I’d buried beneath shame and silence–the truth I could no longer deny, not even to myself–was that I loved them both.
And I wanted them both.
Desperately.
Entirely.
And I hated myself for it.