Chapter 26 #2
“Because you are the first thing I have wanted for no other reason than wanting.” I take a breath, steadying the tremor in my voice, because this is the moment—the one that will either break me or make me whole.
“Not for power, not for gain, not for any destiny written in blood or magic. Just you. You are the choice I would make again and again, in every lifetime, in every world. Even if I had nothing to offer but my hands and my heart, I would still lay them at your feet. And if you walked away, I would chase you. Not to claim you, but because I cannot exist in a world where you are not.”
A breath passes between us. His shoulders are still tight, his whole body wound like a bowstring.
“I can’t do this,” he mutters.
And I watch as he races to the door, and I let him go.
Even though my heart breaks and my soul shatters.
Even though every instinct tells me to seize him and force him to face this, with me, for me, for us.
Even though I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t be without him, and even though it makes a liar of me.
And then he stops.
His fingers tremble on the handle, knuckles white. A muscle in his jaw clenches, and for a long moment, he just stands there, his back to me, his body caught between running and staying.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
The words are so quiet I almost don’t hear them over the thunder of my own pulse.
“Jude—”
“Say it again.”
I step forward, closing the distance between us, my hand hovering near his back but not quite touching.
“I am yours,” I say, the words softer this time, but no less true.
“And I do not want you for the magic you contain. I want you. As you are. As you always have been. As you are, whatever you become. In all your moments of elation and the dark hours of your despair. I want you and only you, no matter what you do or who you become. You are mine, Jude, and you are home.”
He turns slowly, and the look in his eyes steals the breath from my lungs. There is pain there, yes. Confusion, anger, fear. But beneath it all, there is something fragile and aching and searching.
I reach for him, just the lightest touch of my fingertips against his wrist, and it undoes him.
His breath shudders. His fingers tighten over mine.
And then, before I can say another word, he pulls me to him, his lips crashing against mine in a kiss that tastes of desperation and devastation and a love that ruins and remakes in equal measure.
“This is why we cannot lie, Lorien,” he breathes against my lips.
“I know, baby,” I rasp back. “I wanted to protect you from this. I thought I could protect you from the darkness that comes with me, from the dangers of what we’ve become and what you contain. And all I’ve done is push you away when all I want is you closer than anything.”
Jude’s fingers slide into the back of my neck, pulling me closer again. “No more hiding, Lorien. Not for either of us.”
My chest tightens and my heart hammers as Jude offers me a bargain I’m desperate to take. He’ll give me his soul in return for mine, his honesty for my truth. There won’t be any going back from this and I’ve never wanted anything more, nor have been willing to give anything so precious, so freely.
“Deal,” I say.
Jude’s eyes soften and our foreheads rest against each other, and for a moment, the world falls away, leaving just the two of us in the quiet intensity of our confession.
“We’re going to have to figure out how this magic works,” I continue, saying what is painstakingly obvious and excruciatingly painful. “I assume Helena intended for you to use her gifts, and we can’t keep stumbling through this blindly.”
“Is that why you left?” he asks.
I nod. “I thought she might have left something at the temple. I hoped there would be…”
My voice trails off, and I sink into him, my body collapsing under the disappointment of my defeat.
Jude’s arms wrap around me and for the first time in centuries, someone holds me, taking away the burden of kingship and the weight of my responsibilities in a gesture so simple yet so meaningful that it steals my breath.
“I don’t think the answer lies with you,” Jude says, his voice pensive, as if weighing a lifetime of unspoken thoughts.
“I think the answers aren’t out there, not exactly.
They’ll be closer to home. More intimate.
Something only you and I can uncover, not a place or a relic, but a truth that we’ve been avoiding. ”
His eyes flick to the ocean, distant and unreadable, as though searching the vastness for something just beyond reach.
“A truth I’ve been running from.”
The words hit me harder than I expect. I want to ask him what he means, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. There’s a vulnerability in his gaze—something softer, more terrifying than I’ve seen in a long time.
Jude’s eyes darken as he continues, a quiet certainty in his tone.
“I knew my aunt better than most. She didn’t believe in laying out the answers or making things easy, and she wouldn’t leave her secrets hidden away or written on some note somewhere.
She kept her secrets close and her truths even closer, hidden in places only a select few could ever understand.
She believed the answers were something you had to feel, not find. ”
He pauses, his gaze distant as he stares into the depths of the ocean beyond the window, as though seeking some unseen sign.
“And the greatest disappointment of her life was that I’d wasted mine looking for answers in all the wrong places, trying to make sense of the world when I wouldn’t accept its truth.”
Jude swallows and his eyes sharpen as he meets my gaze.
“This secret lies with me, Lorien. My aunt wanted me to discover it for myself, because once I do, I’ll know who and what I am.”