Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Neve
For a moment, everything was just right.
The answering emotion shimmered in her gaze, and his hearts picked up. While it was stupid to tell her such a thing, he wouldn’t take it back. Their relationship was a deformed, damaged thing, but it was still theirs.
It was a relief to have it out there.
Neve was exhausted from trying to hide it from her. One of them had to be brave.
Her eyes filled and then slammed shut, the tears spilling onto his thumbs.
Unable to help himself, he pressed his lips to her salty tears, feathering kisses over the bridge of her nose under her right eye.
This felt right. There was so much distrust between them, but at this moment, there was nothing better than his mate in his arms.
“I didn’t know you were capable of such cruelty,” she whispered brokenly.
He frowned. “And I did not know you were capable of such violence, and yet, here we are.”
She jerked out of his hands, and it was as if a bucket of ice water had been tossed over his head. Lia shook her head, her lips thin as she backed away.
What had just happened?
Dahlia was acting like he’d wounded her. He had only stated the truth.
“You told me this would happen, and yet I walked right into it.”
Neve held his hand up in question. “What?”
“Your trap.”
“My trap,” he parroted, brows furrowed in confusion.
“You told me this was how you broke people,” she said, wiping the tears from her face with her sleeve. “And I still almost fell for it.” She chuckled, the sound harsh to his ears. “What a stupid valles I am. You almost had me.”
Neve scowled, running a hand through his hair.
She thought this was all a joke? Some sick game?
This was their lives, their happiness in the foreseeable future.
He was trying to extend a bloody olive branch.
His feelings were real. He had been brave enough to utter them out loud despite her betrayal.
Here is your out.
It would be so easy to laugh scornfully right now and pretend like he’d been playing her.
But he could not do it.
The words stuck in his throat.
He was so tired of lying. Of the anger. They were nowhere close to being okay, but he did not want to hide his feelings anymore. They were destroying him.
“Are my feelings so unreasonable?” he asked, trailing her. She kept the table between them. A growl rumbled in his chest at the potential hunt.
Blood and bane, he wanted to hunt his mate properly.
“You cannot and you could not love me. You do not even know me!”
He ran a finger along the table as he continued the slow chase.
“I know that you love the water that is too hot and hold your breath for a frightfully long time. That you choose to see the good in others even when they show you their ugliest parts.” More tears dripped down her cheeks.
“You treat lowly people as if they are stationed above you, and you are merciful. More than myself. You find joy in the little things, like a common crystal or freshly baked bread.” He inhaled.
“You are ashamed of your body, but I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life.”
She held out her palm. “No more.”
Now it was time for the hardest one. “You are loyal. I have seen that with Loshika and even myself. I do not know why you hurt me, but something terrible must have happened to you. Because I remember much of what happened as you left me to die. I could smell your anguish and pain.” He pushed back the hair along his left ear and pointed to the fresh piercing in his ear, knowing the blue-green gem was on display.
“When they told me your body had been left along the border, I did not sleep for days. I hated you for what you did, how you had left me, but the idea of you no longer being in this world? I could not function. It was unthinkable. Still, I mined this gem myself. I had to find the perfect one, the same color as your eyes, and honor you with a mourning piercing.”
“Araevve,” she pled in Loriian. Stop.
“No. I cannot. I will not.”
His gaze went to the three new piercings along the edge of her own left ear. One green, the other a blue strikingly similar to his own skin tone, and a blood red ruby. They were so much alike in so many ways. He knew without a doubt one of those was for him.
She wasn’t ready to admit it yet. That was okay, but the time for running was over.
The valles—no, his Lia—turned from him, and he lunged, grabbing her wrist. Her bones were so delicate beneath his fingers. He stared at the way his hand looked so brutish wrapped around hers. The monster in him liked it.
“Stop running from me,” he breathed, reeling her in. She came slowly but didn’t pull away.
Progress.
Her bottom lip wobbled. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m poison. I cause death wherever I go.”
The statement made his hearts ache. “I’m not afraid of death,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead.
“You should be because—”
“Dahlia!” a scream pierced through the night.
His niliave jerked from his arms, eyes wide, full of fear.
“Do not do it,” he warned, his body coiling.
“I’m sorry.”
Then she bolted.
He had no choice but to give chase.