Chapter 25 Malik #2
Only when I was certain I could speak without breaking did I rise, turning back to face them.
“I was in agony with you both gone,” I said. “I missed you terribly. You would return, from time to time, to check on the children. But you ignored me.”
I let my gaze linger on Olivia. “Armand knew nothing. I kept our shared secret.” A mirthless chuckle escaped me. “He treated me as a brother, as if nothing had changed. As if I had not betrayed him in the worst possible way.
I swallowed hard, the name catching like a thorn in my throat.
“Isabelle,” I revealed. “Isabelle brought me the dagger.”
The words felt heavy on my tongue, as if even speaking them resurrected that moment. “I told her I didn’t want it. That she and Armand should keep it. I no longer cared.”
I cast a cold, unforgiving glare at Olivia. Her breath hitched as she lifted her gaze to mine.
She shrank back, huddling closer to Roman.
“Isabelle asked me, ‘What’s next now that we have the dagger?’” My voice rose with bitter recollection. “I told her to forget the dagger. That it didn’t matter, that none of it mattered anymore.”
I exhaled, shaking my head. “My heart was too crushed to care about relics, about missions. All I wanted was them. I wanted to find a way to be with them both. To love Armand and Isabelle freely.”
My lips curled into something that was not quite a smile. “But they looked at me with derision.”
I turned my gaze to Roman, searching his expression for recognition or understanding.
“Roman—excuse me, Armand—said, ‘There’s no way we can be with you. The village would object.”
I scoffed, the words still stinging even after centuries. “His face flushed as if embarrassed. As if he couldn’t even bring himself to look me in the eye. So, I told him—it would be our secret. The village would never have to know.”
Silence settled between us, thick and unrelenting.
I let out a breath, my voice lowering. “But Armand didn’t waver. He stared away from me and said, ‘Not in this lifetime, Malik. Not in this lifetime.”
I studied Roman’s face, reading every twitch of muscle, every shift in his gaze. Was it regret? Determination? Sorrow? Intrigue?
Or perhaps it was all of them.
Finally, Roman looked away.
A muscle in my jaw twitched. “Armand ordered me out.” The words were precise. “He said, ‘We brought you in. We cared for you. We made you part of our family. And you betrayed me. You stole my wife’s affection.”
I clenched my fists, fighting against the emotions threatening to drag me under. “He looked at me then, and I saw the full extent of his anger for the first time.”
My voice wavered, barely above a whisper now. “‘Now I know why Isabelle was so distant on our travels,’ he told me. ‘It took us months to repair our relationship.’”
I let the words settle and carve their way through the silence. Then, I turned my gaze back to Roman, my expression unreadable.
“I told him I couldn’t control the darkness.”
I tilted my head slightly.
“If I want something, I take it.”
The room fell into suffocating silence.
Roman’s jaw was clenched so tightly I swore I could hear his teeth grinding.
And Olivia lowered her gaze, staring at her lap as if my words were too much to bear.
Roman squeezed the back of his neck, tension radiating from every movement.
Olivia turned to him, her eyes filled with something that cut deeper than anger—remorse.
Remorse for ever having loved me.
I hadn’t thought my heart could bear any more pain. But this? This ripped something inside me that I had fought centuries to keep intact.
I couldn’t stay here.
“I’ll be right back,” I muttered, turning on my heel and striding out of the room before their presence suffocated me.
The cold air bit at my skin as I inhaled deeply outside. Overhead, the sky was beginning to pale, that fragile hour where night begins surrendering to dawn.
I tilted my head back, letting the vastness of the heavens swallow me whole. A sea of stars stretched endlessly beyond my reach, untouched by the fleeting trivialities of human emotion.
This pain was temporary.
This longing, this ache—it was only temporary.
Wasn’t it?
I exhaled, shoving the thought aside. I could endure this. I had endured worse.
With a sigh, I turned and reentered the house.
The sight that greeted me was predictable.
Roman and Olivia sat close, his arm draped protectively around her, her hand resting possessively on his leg—a silent message, an unspoken us against him.
Fine.
Let them cling to each other. It didn’t matter.
They still needed to hear the rest of the story.
I straightened, my expression unreadable as I strode back toward them. “I’m through cloaking the past. I’ll continue this story as it should be told, referring to each of you as you are—Roman and Olivia. No more past names.”
Roman nodded as if permitting me to speak, though his grip on Olivia remained firm.
I didn’t care.
I pressed forward.
“When you cast me out, I warned you—you were in danger. You had to move. The darkness would find you.” I flicked my gaze to Roman.
“But you stood your ground. You looked me in the eye and said, ‘We found the dagger, and then you decided to tell me you had an affair. What other option do we have but to cast you aside?”
“I begged you both to let me stay. I promised to keep my hands off your wife if you let me remain. Not for my sake—for yours. For the children. I wanted to protect you. But you wouldn’t relent.”
I forced myself to breathe, to temper the sorrow that curled in my chest. “So, I left.”
The silence in the room was thick, suffocating.
I exhaled, shaking my head. “Those of us who live in the shadows must accept a different set of rules when it comes to love, to relationships.” My voice was low, rough, edged with something I couldn’t quite name.
I let my gaze linger between them.
“Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
I wasn’t sure if I was telling them this.
Or reminding myself.
“After you cast me out of your home, I remained in the shadows.”
“I hid in the woods, in caves, behind copses of trees and boulders—wherever I needed to be to watch over you.”
I drag a hand through my hair before slumping into my chair. “You realized you weren’t safe the day you went to the village, Roman.”
I lifted my gaze to him, watching as recognition flickered in his eyes. “You overheard the whispers—villagers muttering about your Timeborne abilities, debating whether to turn you over to the Timehunters. And in that moment, you knew.”
A pause.
“You rushed home. You packed your belongings, threw everything into a wagon, and left with Isabelle and the children.”
I leaned forward, elbows braced against my knees. “I followed you.”
The silence in the room was thick, tangible, pressing in from all sides.
“But it didn’t stop there,” I continued. “The rumors followed you just as relentlessly as I did. Wherever you settled, whispers of a Timeborne in the area would surface. The fear of the unknown, the fear of power—it always led to the same outcome.”
I met Olivia’s gaze, my voice darkening. “Neighbors would betray you. They would run to the Timehunters and tell them where to find you. Once, you barely escaped before they came. I watched from the shadows as they ransacked your home. And then they burned it to the ground.”
I exhaled, the memory still vivid, seared into my bones’ marrow.
“And then one night,” I said, my voice quieter now, “I overheard you, Olivia.”
Her breath caught.
“You told Roman to find me.” My eyes locked onto hers, holding her in place. “You said, ‘We should have believed in him. We shouldn’t have cast him out.”
I turned to Roman, letting my words settle. “And you agreed.”
A bitter smile tugged at my lips. “But I couldn’t allow you to find me.”
I leaned back, shaking my head. “I had stayed hidden in the shadows for too long. And through it all, Olivia…” My voice turned ragged, raw. “My love for you both only grew. It became unbearable. A terrible burden. A hunger I could never satisfy, a craving to possess what I could never have.”
The weight of my confession dragged me down. I dropped my head into my hands, dark memories surging to the surface like ghosts that refused to rest.
When I finally lifted my head, my gaze found Olivia’s once more.
“And then you became pregnant,” I whispered. “Against my warning. Against my desperate pleas.”
A flicker of emotion crossed her face—something unreadable, something fragile.
“You both thought you were clever enough to escape the Timehunters,” I said, my voice barely above a breath. “That if you just kept moving, you could outrun them.”
My eyes darkened.
“But when the birth became imminent, you couldn’t run anymore. You had no choice but to stay in that house, in that place, in that moment.”
“And that was when everything changed,” he said quietly, his gaze distant.
“That’s when the Timehunters struck again.” My voice was cold, hollow. “It was as if they knew. As if they had been waiting for your moment of weakness.”
I forced myself to relive the night that had haunted me for centuries. “They rode through the village like demons, torches in hand, setting fire to everything in their path. They wanted to leave nothing behind. No survivors. No hope.”
My gaze darkened. “Your house was to be last.”
I turned to Olivia. “You had given birth that morning. You were asleep when they arrived.”
Before I could continue, Roman interrupted.
“I ran outside to stop them,” he recalled. “I fought as hard as I could.”
His words landed like a blow, heavy and final.
Then his glare snapped to me, burning with fury. “If you were sworn to watch over us—to protect us—why didn’t you intervene?”
A muscle in my jaw ticked. I stared at him for a long moment, letting his accusation settle between us.
Finally, I spoke.
“Because I had given up on you both.”
The admission tasted like ash.