Chapter 5
G uilt had me in a chokehold as I paced the living room back at the elite tower. If I’d gone to check on Varsa sooner, maybe he’d be alive. Why had I left it all day?
“It isn’t your fault,” Shar said.
“She’s right,” Orix said. “Varsa has been sick for a long time. What the graynites did to him…It’s a wonder he lasted this long.”
“My Cameron couldn’t have stopped his death,” Derek said. “But Varsa not die alone.”
“Derek’s right,” Shar said. “Even if you had gone to see him earlier, it wouldn’t have prevented his death. You were there at the end, and he didn’t die alone. That’s what matters.”
I latched on to that fact, holding on to it like a lifeline. “He said he would see me soon.”
“The afterlife is a comfort for many,” Palia said. “Even us goyles.”
“It didn’t feel like he was speaking metaphysically.”
“How else could he have meant it?” Curi asked.
I was being ridiculous. “I don’t know. What will happen to him…to his body now?”
“They’ll take him to Arcadia for proper goyle rites,” Orix said.
I had no idea what those were. “I want to be there. I need to be there.”
Orix put his hand on my shoulder. “Okay. I’ll take you.”
“I’m coming too,” Curi said.
“I’d like to visit Selas,” Touron said. “I’m in love with her.”
It took a moment for his words to register, and silence yawned for several seconds before Curi broke it.
“I knew it!” Curi said. “I fucking knew it.”
Touron loved Selas? He loved her, and she was hurt, but all this time he’d stayed here with me. My throat throbbed. “Touron, why didn’t you say something sooner? You should be with her. Not here with us.”
He waved off my words. “We never…we never talked about that stuff…Love. I never told her, and I don’t know…
don’t know if she feels the same. I don’t even know if she’ll want me there or want…
want anyone to know.” He roughly raked his fingers through his hair.
“Dammit, it’s been hell the past few days.
If Curi hadn’t been giving me updates, I don’t know how I would have coped.
But…I need to see her. I need to tell her how I feel. ”
“Don’t,” Orix said. “Don’t do it.”
“What?” Was he serious? “Why not?”
He sighed. “Because he’s not free to love her. Not the way that she needs.”
“Orix is right,” Shar said to Touron. “What happens when you find an omega?”
Touron’s jaw tensed. “I won’t.”
“You can’t say that for sure,” Palia said. “If the scent takes you and an omega chooses you, then your beast will take over.”
“It won’t. I won’t let it,” Touron said. “I love her too much.”
“Then you’ll keep your mouth shut,” Orix said. “Tell her how you truly feel and you’ll lose her. Trust me. I know.”
Orix and Selas? “You two were a thing?”
“For a while.” His smile was wry, his eyes clouded with memories.
“You’re still in love with her,” Ginia said.
“Ginia!” Palia admonished.
Ginia winced. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s all right,” Orix said. “I love her. I always will, but what we had is over. It had to be, although I resisted at the time. But Selas, ever practical, logical, realist Selas knew that our romance had a shelf life. She ended it before we could get too serious.”
Touron pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes with a soft growl. “So if I tell her I love her…”
“She’ll end it with you,” Orix said. “I guarantee it.”
“You should end it,” Palia said. “Before you hurt her and yourself.”
Touron plopped onto the sofa. “I’m an idiot. I didn’t think…I just…”
“Fell in love,” Orix said. “It happens.”
There was rarely a happily ever after for an alpha female.
Born to fight. Warriors, not nurturers, they were made for the battlefield.
While the omegas made sure that the gargoyle race continued through procreation, the alpha females protected the nests—at least that was the way it had been.
Now they protected humanity. I was sure they found partners, lovers, but there was always the risk that their lover would be enraptured by an omega at some stage.
Always the potential of losing them, not because they wanted to be lost but because nature intended the males to pass on their seed, and as far as I was aware, alpha females couldn’t reproduce.
Touron pulled himself to his feet and lifted his chin. “I won’t tell her how I feel. I’ll just be with her for as long as she’ll have me and for as long as I can.”
Orix dropped him a nod. “Wise move.”
“I think we should all go to Arcadia,” Shar said. “I didn’t know Varsa well, but I respect Willowman, and we should support him.”
“Agreed,” Palia and Ginia said in unison.
“I’ll break the news of Varsa’s death to him later,” Orix said.
He’d planned on going to pick up Willowman tomorrow, but with Varsa’s death…it felt wrong not to tell Willowman right away.
“If I’m not back by midday tomorrow, hit the training room with Levi,” Orix continued. “He knows what the trials entail, and even though he can’t tell us, he can make sure you’re physically prepared.”
A queasy sensation unfurled in my stomach at the mention of Levi. I still had to apologize for treating him like shit the last few days. It was a much-needed conversation but not one I was looking forward to.
I was in the observatory when Levi arrived and watched him coming down the path carrying a rucksack and a duffel bag.
Watched like a creep from the shadows as he got closer, his frame highlighted in moonlight, but he stopped a moment before he’d have to go out of view.
Stopped and looked up at the tower as if he could see me. As if he knew I was here.
I stepped away from the window, pulse pounding as if I’d been caught doing something illicit, when in fact there was nothing wrong with watching the world go by.
I gave him an hour to settle into Serath’s old room—his room now—before gathering my courage and heading down to the fourth floor.
How many times had I made this journey? Less than a handful.
Each time to see my mate. To be with him.
Would his room still smell like fresh linen or had Orix had it stripped and cleaned like they’d done for Romi?
Leaving the air tinged with the tang of disinfectant.
The corridor was dark, but a strip of light shone from beneath Serath’s…Levi’s door.
I took a breath then knocked.
Levi opened the door a moment later, eyes widening a fraction at the sight of me. “Cameron…”
“Hey, I was hoping we could talk.”
“Of course. Come in.” He stepped back to admit me, but my feet refused to budge. I looked past him into the room with the neatly made bed. I’d slept on that bed with Serath, held him while poison tore at his body.
Levi groaned. “Shit, this was his room, wasn’t it?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t.” He ran a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, I’ll move. I’ll ask Orix for another room.”
There were no other rooms. “No. No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” I stepped past him into the room that smelled like fresh air and lemon fabric softener. Nothing like Serath. “I wanted to apologize for the past week. I’ve been awful to you, and I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
I set my shoulders and looked him in the eye, speaking from the heart and admitting my guilt. “Yes, I do. I had no right to take my anger out on you, to punish you for Serath’s death…to make you the villain. I…I’m sorry. Can we…can we start fresh. Friends?”
“Oh, Cam, we never stopped being friends, and there is nothing to forgive.”
His words unraveled the knots of awfulness inside me. “You’re too good, Levi. Too fucking kind.”
“Only to the people that matter,” he said. “And you matter, Cam. I promise you that I’ll get you and the others through the elite trials, no matter what it takes.”
“Orix said you’ll be training us tomorrow.”
“Yes, he spoke to me before he left. Told me about Varsa. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Again. Another loss. I fixed a smile on my face. “He was a good goyle. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“No, and we’ll make the bastards that are responsible pay.” His words echoed Curi’s, echoed my intentions. “Serath and Varsa and everyone else they took from this world will be avenged once we kill the alpha.”
It was the only thought fueling me now.
The two factions of graynites, Ignus’s agenda—neither would matter once the alpha who kept them all alive was dead.
And if I could strike the killing blow, then maybe I’d finally find inner peace. Maybe Serath’s soul, wherever it was, would find peace also.