Chapter 24
Never again
LORIEN
For the first time in several centuries, I’m at a loss.
I don’t know what to do, or how to fix this.
I’ve tried, and as the oceans bear witness, I continue to keep trying.
But Jude will not hear me and he won’t talk to me.
He won’t let me touch him, and I’m certain that pressing the issue will only make things worse.
I have razed kingdoms and rebuilt them from the ashes. I have bartered with gods and bled for my cause. I have done the impossible more times than I can count.
But I do not know how to make him forgive me.
Not for this.
Not when every breath between us is filled with silence sharp enough to cut. Not when his eyes, once so full of trust, now hold nothing but fury and the ache of a wound I put there.
This cannot be forced.
This has to be earned.
And I have never known how to earn something I cannot take.
The hurt hangs between us like a shroud, when all I want to do is wrap him in a warm embrace, to let him feel the steady beat of my heart and show him that I’m here. That I’ve always been here, even when it didn’t seem that way. But I can’t, not when he shrinks away whenever I try to get close.
I have spent lifetimes taking what I want, what I need. I’ve drowned cities in fury, bent kingdoms to my will, and taken lives without a second thought. And I have never known this, never experienced this.
This fear is all-consuming, this horror is terrifying.
The anger in his eyes is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.
I’ve stood unflinching in the face of more dangers than I care to remember, and yet I almost fall to my knees with every wounded glance from him.
I reach out, my fingers hovering just above the space where he stood moments ago, before I came too close and he stormed into the bathroom. There’s a crackling tension in the air, like the calm before a storm, and I know it’s because I’ve broken something between us that can’t be easily fixed.
I’m not used to waiting. I’ve never been patient when it comes to getting what I want. But now, I must wait for him to come to me, to let me back into the spaces where I once lived freely.
I want to scream, to rail against the gods for letting me fall into this mess.
It won’t help, and so I sit in the shadow of my own mistakes, my fingers curling into fists as I try to gather the resolve to face him.
The gods themselves would tremble before me if I willed it, but now I’m the one reduced to a pitiful wreck.
Reduced to nothing by a human who has my heart and soul. Who’s defeated me without even trying. Who has more control over me than I’ve ever held over anyone else and will ever hold over him. And only now do I realize how hollow power feels when it’s not enough to heal the heart of the one you love.
I can’t make him forgive me with force, with gifts, or with any of the things I know so well.
The only thing I can do now is wait. And in waiting, I realize the one thing I’ve never truly understood until now: the pain of loving someone more than you love yourself. And how, sometimes, that love isn’t enough to heal the wounds we create.
“Jude?” I call.
There’s no response. There hasn’t been for days.
This is breaking me, and I don’t know if I can endure it any longer.
My voice cracks, a sound foreign to me, a reminder of just how far I’ve fallen. The last few days have been a blur of silence, of missed chances, of questions I can’t bring myself to ask.
Yet still, there’s no answer.
The absence of him, of his presence, is like an ache that spreads across my chest, tightens my throat, and pulls at the edges of my mind.
But even in the stillness, there’s a pull—something that tugs at me from the other side of that door. A whisper in the dark, soft and fleeting, as though he’s there, just beyond reach. It’s maddening. It’s devastating. It’s a punishment I deserve and I’ve got to find a way to bear it.
I move towards the bathroom, my feet heavy on the floor, the weight of the silence pressing down on me with every step. I place my hand against the door, feeling the cool gold beneath my fingertips. I’d give it all for one second with him, one moment when we were the way we used to be.
“Jude…”
My voice is barely above a whisper this time, fragile and uncertain, like I’m afraid of breaking us all over again.
And then, to my surprise, there’s a shift. A subtle shift, a soft intake of breath. Jude’s breathing on the other side, separated only by the goddamn door that I want to tear off its hinges to stop it coming between us.
I wait.
Because that’s all I can do. I force myself to stay still, to hold my ground. I don’t know when this will end, and I don’t even know how it will end. All I know is that the distance between us and the seconds that stretch into eternity are more agonizing than any battle or war I’ve ever waged.
But then, almost reluctantly, almost in spite of itself, the door clicks open. It’s the smallest sound, but to me, it’s everything.
The door creaks open, just enough for his face to emerge from the shadows.
His eyes are red-rimmed, his hair disheveled as though he’s been pacing or perhaps drowning in his own tears. He’s as consumed by his thoughts as I am by mine, and when his eyes meet mine, all I see is anger, pain and the darkness of despair that only comes from betrayal.
And I realize, maybe for the first time, that this is the battle I need to win. I won’t win it with power or force. I can only win this one way, and the brutal truth here is that the only way he’ll forgive me is if I’m honest. Completely honest.
Gods, this fight is about many things, but it reduces down to one fundamental thing. What’s come between us is a thousand little cuts, each one more vicious than the last, but this, at its heart, is a fight about trust.
“Please,” I rasp, my voice a quiet plea. “I never wanted to hurt you. I was trying to protect you. Jude, you’ve got to know…”
He says nothing.
His gaze is hard, but it flickers, just for a moment, with uncertainty.
It’s enough.
Enough to make me take a step forward, carefully, as if any sudden movement might send him running again.
“I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want you to be afraid. I didn’t want to tell you where I was going because I knew you’d want to come with me, and I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking your heart.”
I swallow hard, and there’s a tremor in my chest that I can’t hide.
“I’m lost, Jude. I’m so damn lost without you. Please. Help me find a way back to you. Just tell me what I have to do. I will do it. Whatever it is, whatever it takes.”
The words hang between us, thick with everything we’ve both left unspoken. The silence doesn’t feel so oppressive now. It feels fragile, like something just barely holding together, waiting to shatter or bloom.
Jude’s breath shudders, his fingers twitching like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t trust himself to. His silence is its own kind of violence, cutting sharper than any knife, and I—who have never feared war, never flinched at the ruin I’ve left in my wake—stand trembling in its aftermath.
Then he moves.
Not toward me, not away, but his posture shifts, his shoulders dropping from their rigid set, and I think and hope and pray that I see the first crack in his fury.
“You don’t get to do this,” he says, voice raw. “You don’t get to lie to me and then stand here begging for forgiveness when you don’t even understand why I’m angry.”
“I do,” I whisper, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever said. “I understand more than you think.”
His laugh is bitter and pain breaks through it, as a rawness breaks through it. There’s a pain that contains more grief than hurt. A hollowed-out ruin of trust, the sharp-edged agony of someone who’s lost something that they didn’t know they still believed in.
Gods, Jude believed in me—and like a fool, I hurt him.
“Do you? Do you understand what it feels like to wake up alone after we’d… I was alone, Lorien. Left with nothing but questions and the certainty that the person I was supposed to trust the most didn’t think I deserved an explanation.”
The words gut me. They should.
Jude’s not wrong.
I step closer, pushing against the jagged edge of his anger, knowing it could cut me, knowing I’d bleed for him again if it meant closing the space between us.
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to,” I say, forcing myself to hold his gaze.
“I left because I had to. Because I needed to find out if Helena left anything behind, even if it was the smallest thing that could tell us how her magic works. How it’s bound to you.
I had to know if there was a way to keep you safe from the kelpies, Jude.
They know how much power is locked inside you, and they will tear you apart to have it—and I will do whatever is necessary and a thousand things that are not to keep you safe. ”
His expression wavers. “You still should have told me.”
“I know.” I reach for him, hesitate, let my hand drop.
“But if I had, you would have come with me. And I nearly died, Jude. I barely made it back alive. You—” I stop, exhale hard.
“You don’t understand how much I would have destroyed if something happened to you because of me.
I would burn the ocean itself if it meant keeping you safe. ”
He flinches, his breathing ragged. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I do.” The admission is soft and the rage is his eyes ignites again. “As you’ve already decided this for me.”
The silence stretches. It isn’t the same as before. It’s neither cold nor brittle, not full of things neither of us dared to say. Now, it’s fragile, like the surface of a lake before a storm, holding steady only by some quiet, trembling force beneath. One touch, one wrong word, and it will shatter.
“You hurt me.”
I swallow. “I know.”
“And you’re not forgiven, Lorien.”
“I know.”
I want to reach for him.
More than anything, I want to wind my arms around him, hold him as tightly as he’ll let me, and feel the unsteady thrum of his pulse beneath my fingertips.
I want his body and his soul to relearn how to trust mine, and for his heart to remember the shape of me and see the spectrum of color we are when we’re together.
But it’s too soon for him, and he needs more.
He needs me to reach for him in a different way, and as he has taken other steps for me, it’s my turn to take this step for him.
“I am sorry, Jude. I am sorry you were hurt. I am sorry I did it. I am sorry for all of it, and I don’t care if you shout at me or fight me or even if you want to hit me again. Just, please, for the love of the Gods, tell me that there’s a way to undo what has been done.”
And then—finally—he moves.
His fingers twist in the fabric of my shirt, yanking me forward with a vicious desperation, and his mouth crashes into mine.
It’s not a kiss. Not really. It’s teeth and fury and the raw, aching need to hurt and be hurt, to punish and to feel.
His nails bite into my arms, and I take it, letting him press all his anger into me, let him break me, because at least it means he’s still here.
At least it means he still feels.
I groan into his mouth, my hands tangling in his hair, tugging him closer, swallowing every ragged breath like it might be the last he ever gives me.
He tastes like rage and sorrow, like salt and the sweetness beneath it, like the air I’ve been starved for.
I feel the moment his fury falters, the moment his grip loosens and his body softens against mine, because the fight isn’t what he wants.
Not really.
I press my forehead to his, my breath uneven. “Jude—”
“Shut up,” he rasps, and his voice breaks on it. “Just… shut up and never leave me again.”
“Never.” I let out a shaking breath. “Please, just let me hold you. I don’t care if it’s for a few seconds, if it’s here or in my bed. I just need to hold you.”
“I swear, Lorien, if you ever lie to me again, I will never forgive you.”
“I won’t.” It’s a vow, a surrender, a promise I will carve into my own bones if I have to. “Never again.”
Jude exhales sharply, like he wants to argue but doesn’t have the strength to. Instead, he presses his face into my shoulder, his body finally, finally melting against mine.
And Gods, he fits.
He always has.
Like the tide pulling against the shore, like the rhythm of a heartbeat, like something inevitably written into the bones of the world itself.
I wind my arms around him, holding him as tightly as he’ll let me, feeling the unsteady thrum of his pulse beneath my fingertips. His breath ghosts over my throat, warm and ragged, and for the first time in days, I let myself believe that we still have a chance.