Chapter Twenty-one
W hen she steps out of the car, all I want to do is throw myself across the yard and into her arms. The only thing that stops me is Oliver’s hand on my shoulder.
I would do anything to get her to forgive me. I’d prostrate myself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, if she would just let me.
The rest of my pod feels the same way, but since we arrived back in Quion, we haven’t been able to get her to speak to us.
How are we meant to explain why we left her if she doesn’t want to hear a word coming from our mouths?
The flame of hope that’s been building in my chest suddenly extinguished.
Sure, she said she wanted to hear us out, but what if she’s changed her mind again? What if she’s just going to crush us once more ?
I wouldn’t even blame her if she did … I just don’t think I can survive another rejection from her.
On one hand, I’d give anything to go back in time to change our fates, but on the other, there’s a chance Quion wouldn’t have survived.
“Breathe, Ty,” Aidan murmurs, reaching for my hand. “Don’t lose yourself inside your head. We’re going to take this one step at a time. We finally have the chance to tell her why we left. We might not be able to dictate how she’ll respond to the truth, but we’ll have done everything we can.”
I suck in a deep, shaky breath while I keep my eyes locked on Lila. “What if that’s not enough? What if she can’t forgive us?”
No one answers me because none of us want to think about her never forgiving us—me, least of all.
You don’t deserve her.
Of course, she’s not going to forgive you.
You’ll never know true happiness without your other mate by your side.
The others will leave you when she sends you away.
You’re too much for them—all of them.
You’ll be alone .
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake my head as if I can shake my thoughts away, but it’s not that easy—it’s never that easy.
We might have helped save the worlds—all of them—but I lost a piece of myself when I was forced to leave Lila behind, and I’m not sure I can get it back.
“Are we planning to have this conversation outside?” Wyatt asks, amusement in his voice. “Because you’re supposed to stay off your leg as much as you can and give it time to heal. Even shifter healing has its limitations.”
My eyes snap open, immediately seeking Lila. She’s blushing, her eyes on the ground as she leans against Wyatt.
“Why aren’t you using a crutch?” I ask, already hurrying down the stairs toward her.
”I … uhhh … “ Lila stutters, eyes turning to Wyatt with a frown.
Wyatt snorts. “I was planning to carry her up the stairs.”
“No need,” I tell him, sweeping her up into my arms and heading straight back up the stairs.
Lila is tense in my arms, and I turn to meet her gaze .
“What are you doing, Ty?” she asks quietly, her hand hovering in the air as if she wants to touch me but doesn’t know how.
“You didn’t look comfortable hobbling along, and your incubus said you needed to be off your leg,” I tell her simply. Because, to me, it really is that simple.
I would do anything for the woman in my arms, including carrying her around while she’s injured.
Who am I kidding?
I’d carry her all the time if that’s what she wanted.
Carter clears his throat when we reach the top of the stairs, pulling my attention away from Lila. “Key?”
“Oh,” Lila flushes, looking around as Wyatt stops beside us.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it, Lil.” The incubus leans down to kiss the top of her head before pulling out said key and unlocking the door.
The others file in behind him, and while I know I need to follow them, I also know that stepping inside is going to mean putting her down—something I’m not ready to do just yet.
“Ummm, Ty?” Lila’s arm winds around my neck. “Can we go inside? ”
I don’t want to deny her anything, but part of me wishes I could be selfish. Instead, I sigh and head inside.
Wyatt’s standing in the entrance hall with a smirk as he reaches out to close the door behind us. “Where do you want to talk, Lil?”
“I guess the living room?” She tries to shrug, but it throws her off balance, and she’s forced to wrap both her arms around my neck.
“That’s where I sent the others,” Wyatt says with a nod. “Ty, if you’ll bring her in there? I’ll grab a snack and some drinks, then I’ll join you.”
Then he’s gone again, leaving me to stare after him. I’m surprised he remembers my name. We introduced ourselves when we showed up for Lila’s heat, but that feels like forever ago.
“We should probably … “ Lila whispers, trailing off when my attention turns back to her. “Are you okay?”
I snort, though there’s no amusement in the sound. “No, I’m really not, but that doesn’t matter. Let’s get to the living room so we can talk, yeah?”
Not bothering to wait for an answer, I make my way to the living room and set Lila in the armchair she indicates. Looking around for where I should sit, I startle when Oliver’s hand wraps around my wrist and tugs me toward him. He pulls hard enough to throw me off balance, and I end up sprawled across his and Aidan’s laps.
Scoffing, I right myself and settle between the two of them. “You could’ve just said you wanted me to sit by you.”
Oliver cocks his eyebrows but says nothing as he settles back into the couch. He’s worried about me. They all are and have been for quite some time.
Not wanting to focus on the reasoning behind that worry, I turn my attention back to Lila.
“I wasn’t sure what everyone would want, so I brought a variety.” Wyatt appears with bags of chips and a cooler full of drinks, setting them on the table.
I don’t bother looking away from Lila, which allows me to see the soft smile lighting up her face as she stares at Wyatt.
She loves him.
While I’d suspected as much, seeing it confirmed breaks my heart just a little bit more. Not that her loving him doesn’t mean she can’t love us. It’s just …
Fuck, I don’t even know why it bothers me so much.
I’m glad she had someone after we abandoned her.
“Thanks, Wyatt,” Lila says when he hands her a bottle of water, settling onto the arm of the chair she sits in. She takes a long drink of it before turning back to us. “There’s no reason for us to continue to sit here in awkwardness. You wanted to explain what happened, and I’m ready to listen.”
Silence follows her words as the four of us glance at one another. We’ve been desperate to tell her why we left, but we never discussed who would explain it or how.
Fuck this shit.
“To allow you to fully understand, we have to take you back over twenty years ago,” I say, leaning forward and keeping my eyes locked on her. “It might not make sense to you now, but it will eventually.”
Carter clears his throat. “As you know, we’ve known each other for a long time. We were a pod before anyone our age even really understood what a pod was. Finding one another like that so early led to us being reckless from time to time. Only this time, it was almost the end of us.”
Lila’s face scrunches up in confusion, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she gestures for us to continue.
“As teens, we liked to have competitions about who could swim the farthest—both in our human form and our shifted form. One day, we took it too far. We swam further than we ever had before. Our animals were exhausted, and we were forced back into our human forms.” Aidan scoffs. “We were just as exhausted in that form but without the means to stay alive in the middle of the ocean.”
“We thought that was it. We’d fucked around and found out. We knew our parents would be devastated, but there was no way we were making it back to shore.” Oliver wrings his hands in his lap as he stares down at them.
Lila gasps, biting her lip. “Clearly, you made it. You’re here now.”
I nod. “We did, but we didn’t do it on our own. Seemingly out of nowhere, a man appeared in the sky above us—just floating there. If I hadn’t been so fucking scared, I would’ve been in awe. Then we were floating in the air. He introduced himself as Ryder Jin, an Autumn Fae from Sorlphi. He told us he’d been sent there by the goddess Bria to save our lives.”
“Sent by a goddess to save our lives? Let’s just say we didn’t immediately believe him.” Aidan shakes his head, a small smile gracing his lips.
“He told us he could save us, but we’d owe him a life debt—that one day he’d call on us. Even if we didn’t believe him, we wanted to live, so we agreed.” Carter leans his head back to rest on the top of the couch. “He flew us back to the shore. We built a fire and got to know more about Ryder and his life.”
Oliver speaks next. “His story wasn’t a happy one. He was on a quest for Bria to right the wrongs of all the realms, which meant he had to leave his entire life behind. She didn’t give him a lot of information about what would be needed of him or of us. She just told him he would need us.”
Carter runs his hands over his face before sitting upright so he can speak directly to Lila. “Then he said he had to go before a portal appeared behind him, and he vanished through it. We didn’t hear from him for over ten years. He came to us again after we made it to our house after your heat. He said we had to go immediately. We wanted to at least let you and our families know what was going on, but he pulled us through a portal before we could.”
“Then we were forced to travel the realms for the last ten years to help others fix what was broken.” My voice sounds bitter—because I am. “We saw the goddess in Sorlphi right after Ryder dragged us there, and she told us she was sorry. That we would be away from you for a long time, but that we’d get another chance once we fixed the realms. As if I cared about the realms when we’d left you without a word.”
Tears fill my eyes as rage courses through me, and I blink against them. I didn’t understand why we were the ones who had to help save the realms. I would’ve rather let them all fall to pieces and been here with my mate.
The mate that was fated to be mine—to be ours. Something we learned about just before we arrived back on Quion. We’d all felt a pull to Lila during her first heat, but it was nothing like what it feels like now.
She’s our fated mate, and we’d left her.
“You were meant to be ours,” I bite out, swiping away the tears that now fall down my cheeks. “Bria did something to block our fated mate bond when we first met—she told us about it right before we were allowed to return home. You’re our fated mate, and we just abandoned you.”
Fucking hell.
That wasn’t how I meant to share that particular bit of news, but it’s already done. There’s nothing I can do to take it back now.
Silence descends around the room, and I realize I might have just fucked this all up.