Chapter 14
TOURON
T he goyle who opens the door to the Mason mansion is old and hunched over. “Can I help you?” His attention flies from me to Orix, and his eyes light up. “Master Albion, how wonderful to see you.”
“Benny, it’s good to see you too.”
Benny steps aside to let us in. “Mr. Mason is out at present, but you may wait in the parlor if you wish.”
“Actually,” Orix says, “we were hoping to see Selas before we head to the funeral.”
His face falls. “Ah, yes. Such a terrible thing.”
“It is,” Orix says. “But I hoped to make the journey less gloomy with a visit with Selas.”
“I’m afraid Mistress isn’t accepting visitors at present.”
My heart sinks. “Please. Can you speak to her and ask?”
His brow furrows. “And you would be?”
“One of my most promising initiates,” Orix says. “Selas had a strong hand in training him. I’m sure it would do her good to have the company, even if for a few minutes.”
Benny gives a curt nod. “I’ll see what I can do. Please take a seat in the parlor while I speak to her.”
He shuffles off up the steps, and Orix leads me across the polished wooden floors into a room with high vaulted ceilings and a large, airy feel.
A hearth crackles with a generous fire, and there are enough seats here to host several goyles.
A large gilded frame containing a family portrait hangs above the hearth, and I spot Selas right away.
She can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen in the painting, and her eyes aren’t milky but a rich shade of brown, but it’s the slight dips on the corner of her mouth that give her away—that almost smile that I love.
“I’m afraid Mistress has declined a visit,” Benny says from the doorway.
The pit in my belly yawns wide. She doesn’t want to see me…
Orix sighs. “Ah, a shame, Benny. Such a shame.” He pauses, index finger going to his lips. “But, since we’ve come all this way, maybe you can make us some of your famous tea?”
Benny’s eyes light up. “Of course. Right away.” He makes to leave.
“I’ll come with you,” Orix says quickly. “The kitchens are so much more hospitable.”
Benny presses his lips together in a suppressed smile. “You always did love the window seat.”
Orix leans in as he passes and whispers in my ear, “Take a right at the top of the stairs, fourth door on the left.” Then louder, “Touron, you said you needed the washroom? It’s the first door on the left when you get to the top of the stairs.”
He drops me a wink and places an arm about Benny’s shoulder to steer him away.
Heart in my mouth, I take the stairs to the top floor two at a time, then take a right. It’s plush and carpeted up here and smells of furniture polish. There isn’t much light, though; all the doors are closed and so are the drapes at the end of this hallway.
I hurry to the fourth door on the left, go back to make sure I’ve counted correctly, screw my courage into a ball that vibrates in the middle of my chest with a thump, thump, thump, then knock.
Three raps.
“What is it now?” Selas calls.
I take that as a cue to enter and crack open the door. It’s dark inside, but a sword of light lances across the room from a gap in the thick drapes, slicing across the expensive looking bedding on the large ornate bed.
Selas sits, propped up against a tumble of pillows, her dark hair loose and wild about her shoulders.
One leg is stretched out and covered in a thick cast, resting on more cushions.
There’s a book propped open on another pillow on her lap, and her fingers graze the pages, sliding over them as she reads.
They pause now, and she slowly lifts her head.
“I told Benny to tell you I wasn’t taking visitors.”
I swallow past the fist in my throat. “He did.”
“You snuck up?” The corner of her mouth lifts. “You must want to see me badly.”
“I do.”
“Okay.” She turns her head and sits forward so that her face is bathed in light, and I suck in a breath. The skin is puckered and swollen where the graynite sliced open her cheek.
“They’re not sure it will ever heal fully,” she says bitterly. “I’ll be scarred for life.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
She almost died because of toxin in the graynites talons.
Her leg, which had been broken in two places, was still in a cast. Goyles heal fast, but leg bones aren’t meant to snap this way.
Insides aren’t meant to spill out of torsos, but hers almost had.
The graynite tried to rip her open. So much blood…
so fucking much and Curi holding her together.
She sighs and sits back, casting her face in shadow once more. “You shouldn’t have come.” She turns away from me, as if she can’t bear for me to see her like this, and my stomach wrenches, twisting in pain because she’s hurting.
“I would have come sooner, but I didn’t want to push boundaries.”
“I’m glad you stayed away.”
I have to play it cool. I can’t let her know how much she means to me. I can’t let her know how much this…being here, seeing her, breathing the same air as her, matters to me. I can’t let her know I’m in love with her or I’ll lose her.
“I stayed away, yes, but…”
“But what?” she asks.
“It didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about you every day.” I know as soon as I say the words that they reveal too much. “I mean, everyone was…thinking…about you. We’ve been worried. Nothing is the same without you.” Fucking shut up, Touron .
Shit, she’s looking at me now. Right at me with beautiful eyes that gleam like pearls in a face so filled with light and beauty that her scars are barely visible to me.
“Oh, Touron…” She closes her eyes. “Sweet, sweet Touron.”
Oh no…She knows…She sees it. Of course, she sees it. ”I’m not in love with you.”
Her smile is sad and bitter all at the same time.
“You’re a terrible liar. You carry your heart on your sleeve, and it leaches into your aura so beautifully…
All the colors, all the wonderful colors that any female would be honored to see.
But not me. Still, you knew that, right?
I bet Orix had words with you. Prepared you for what is to come. ”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can still be together.” I sound desperately weak, and I hate it.
“Maybe…” she says. “Maybe if you were in love with me, but I wasn’t falling in love with you, then…maybe…”
My heart slams against my ribcage, once, twice, a third time as if it can’t believe what it’s hearing. “You…you’re falling for me?”
That smile again, filled with the aching longing of all the things she can’t have. “I am. But I don’t want to. Do you understand that? I don’t want any more pain, and if you love me, truly love me, then you’ll walk out of this room, and you’ll forget about me.”
“I can’t do that. I’m staying at the elite tower. Helping Cameron and?—”
“I’m not coming back,” she says. “I’ve filed for an honorable discharge. I’m done, Touron. So leave, and please, don’t ever come back.”
I want to argue, to make all the promises to never leave her, to love her forever.
I want to insist that it will be different this time, with us, with me.
But there is no escaping the truth of our natures.
If an omega binds me with her scent, then I will be lost, and Selas… Selas will be broken again.
I won’t do that to her.
I can’t.
I love her too much to be the cause of her pain.
“Thank you…Thank you for being my first. First love, first…Thank you.” I turn to the door and stop, my chest so tight I can hardly breathe.
“I need you to know that if there was a way to turn off my nature, to be free of it completely, then I’d take it in a heartbeat just to be with you. ”
“Goodbye, Touron.”
Her tone is thick with emotion, and it takes every ounce of will for me to walk out of the room. And as I close the door softly behind me, I hear her sobs, quiet and muffled, and for the first time in my life, I truly hate myself.