Chapter 53
Chapter fifty-three
Annalise
Iknow something’s wrong the moment Aiden walks in the door.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t kiss me. Doesn’t even take off his jacket. He just stands by the desk, staring at the floor like he’s incapable of looking at me.
“Ace?” I ask quietly. “What’s wrong?”
He closes his eyes for a moment, and my brain goes into overdrive. Someone must have died for him to be having this type of reaction, but who? I was just with Matt, and Sasha has been texting me while she hangs out with Antonio, so I know they’re all safe.
“Ana,” he says, barely above a whisper. “We need to talk.”
My stomach drops. “Okay…so talk to me.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” he rushes out.
For a second, I don’t even absorb what he said. It’s like he’s speaking another language.
“Do what anymore?” I ask, my voice shaking a little. “Honey, you’re scaring me.”
I can feel Tyr listening now that my emotions have spiked, but he stays silent.
“This,” he says, finally lifting his hand to gesture vaguely in the space between us, “Us.”
I blink, stunned. “Aiden, what are you talking about? Everything was fine when you left yesterday. Did something happen on your mission?”
“Nothing happened,” he snaps, jaws clenching.
I take a step toward him, needing his touch to ground me because this can’t be real, but he recoils, stepping back into the wall like my touch would burn him.
A small, wounded sound slips out of me. “Aiden, please. If something’s wrong, just tell me. We can fix it.”
“You can’t fix this.” His voice cracks a little on the last word.
“Why? I don’t understand. Talk to me, please,” I’m begging, but I need him to give me something, anything.
“Believing that we could have any sort of future after here,” Aiden says, voice flat and controlled, “when you still don’t graduate for months—it was just—childish. Thinking we’d get assigned to the same duty station? That we’d somehow make long-distance work? It’s not realistic.”
I stare at him, stunned. “We have no idea where I’m going to be stationed—how can you decide that already means we’re not going to be together? How are we not worth fighting for even if we are separated?”
He doesn’t answer.
“And gods,” this time it’s my voice that’s cracking, “you’ve been talking about getting married for months, Aiden. Married. We love each other.” My chest aches. “You want to throw everything away just because you graduate a few months earlier than I do?”
Aiden’s jaw clenches hard, and something sharp that I can’t read flashes in his eyes before he collects himself, returning to the cold, distant look again.
“Annalise,” his voice turns quiet, pitying, “I think you misunderstood something.”
No. No, no, no—
“I never said I loved you.”
Tyr roars so loud, I’m not sure if it’s in my head or coming from outside.
My mind stutters, scrambling, desperate. No, he has—he must have. I start replaying every memory at lightning speed, searching for the words. I find moments. Promises of futures. But not that little phrase that means so much.
He doesn’t backtrack. Doesn’t soften.
“I’ve cared about you,” he goes on, voice tightening, “but you had to know we could never have a real future together. You owe the king ten years of service. Did you think I’d wait that long to settle down? To start a family?”
I take a step back, needing to lean on the footboard to stay upright. “You—” My voice trembles. “Aiden, you showed me you loved me every single day.”
“I liked you,” he says, still refusing to look me in the eye as he tears out my heart, “but I’ve never loved you; if I did, don’t you think I would have told you?”
My knees nearly buckle. The walls feel like they’re closing in, too small, too loud with the sound of my heart breaking into tiny pieces.
“Aiden,” I whisper, “Don’t do this, please. We are a family!”
His face twists, pained and angry, “You’ve never had a family that wanted you. You don’t know what a real family is, even. How could you ever think you could give me one?”
“Aiden, please—”
He doesn’t say anything, just sets my room key on the desk with a final click—and walks out.
The door gently shuts behind him, but the sound echoes in my mind louder than he ever could have slammed it.
Tyr is talking to me, reassuring me, threatening to go after Aiden, but I can’t move. My new foundation collapses beneath me as I sink to the cold stone floor, shaking, breaking, and unraveling in a way I didn’t know was possible while his last words to me play on an endless loop in my mind.
I barely register the sound of the door opening before Matt and Sasha rush into my room. Matt’s lifting me off the floor, pulling me into him as Sasha searches me for injuries.
“Lee, what happened?”
“I—it’s Aiden,” I manage to choke out, my throat raw.
Matt freezes, the tension in his body coiling, “Aiden?” he repeats.
“Did something happen on his mission? Is he okay?” Sasha asks from a few steps away.
I shake my head because I can’t do anything else. My chest heaves against Matt’s, my fingers clutching at his shirt like a lifeline.
“He broke up with me,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “He said he never loved me. That he couldn’t do us anymore. That believing we could have a future together was childish because I owe the king ten years of service, and he—he’s not going to wait that long to settle down.”
Matt stiffens. His jaw tightens, and I can feel the heat of his fury radiating from him like a storm about to break. “He said that?” His voice is low, dangerous, his growl almost matching Tyr’s, and it makes my chest ache even more, knowing the person I trusted could hurt me so deeply.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Sasha shouts in disbelief.
“He’s right, though, he never said he loved me,” I whisper, my words shaking.
Sasha’s anger rivals Matt’s, “That’s bullshit, and you know it. He’s been obsessed with you from the moment you met at the Staggering Ox. You don’t tell anyone that will listen that you’re going to marry someone you don’t actually see a future with.”
“I—I thought he loved me. I actually started to believe we could have a life together,” I choke out, my words shattering into a jagged mess of grief. “But he was right about that part, too. My family never wanted me, so how would I know what a family is supposed to be like?”
I shiver against Matt, tears soaking into his shirt.
“That fucking prick!”
I don’t even flinch when Matt yells, but as my eyes pinch slightly, Matt’s voice softens, though his protective edge never leaves.
“You’ve always been my family, Lee. And when you get married and have kids, whenever that may be, they will be the luckiest people, because you have the biggest heart and you love with every piece of it. ”
He kisses my forehead as Sasha rubs my back.
“Sash—will you pull her snacks out? All the unhealthy ones.”
She looks around the room, then turns back to us, “Yeah, but you’re going to have to tell me where they are. I’ve searched a few times and still can’t find them.”
I snort, and the disgusting boogers that come from my nose make us all laugh.
Putting me down for the first time since he walked into my room, Matt starts pulling handfuls of snacks from the hidden pockets I made at the base of the curtains.
Sasha lets out a loud gasp when that hiding spot is revealed. I can only imagine how she’d react if she knew all of the other spots, too.
The connection with Tyr starts to fade as I start to calm down, but I don’t want him gone.
He must feel that, though, because he says, “I’m flying closer; if it cuts off, it won’t be for long.”
We don’t get cut off, and Tyr stays with me in my mind until I fall asleep, squished between Matt and Sasha on my bed.