Chapter 16
Konstantine
The hell with all three of them , I thought, and not sparing even Arax a glance, I turned and walked away—not to my room as I’d stated, but back to my office, back to wallow in my personal perdition.
I paced and paced. I couldn’t sit still.
Whatever serenity I’d obtained since speaking with Apollo was gone, wiped out.
I was back to square one, wanting her one second, and the next, wanting her to get as far away from me as possible.
I was livid, more at myself than ever before for allowing my feelings to have so much power over my rationale.
I lowered myself onto my chair, willing my legs to cease their activity.
What had changed so much in a single day that’d had me revert so easily?
Cyrus came in without knocking, still licking his chops and rescuing me from myself, leaving the question unanswered.
“So,” he said airily, falling onto the couch in a way not unlike Drake’s mannerisms. “How do you feel about your gamma and best friend having a raging crush on your mate?”
He didn’t beat around the bush, my beta. It was a quality of his I admired, but even so, it was no less jarring to hear him put it to me as bluntly as he had. I made no motion to deny any part of it. I stayed silent and ran a hand down my face, staring at the back of his head.
“How long have you known?” I finally asked.
“Not long. I really only figured it out tonight,” he replied.
“How?”
He turned around and crossed his arms on the back of the sofa. “Well, Alpha, you haven’t exactly been your usual ray of sunshine.” He laughed. “I presumed it could have been because of a number of things, but tonight at dinner…” Cyrus made a face.
“Does Drake…”
He shook his head. “Drake’s blinded by all the hearts he sees in front of his eyes. I’m surprised that moron can walk straight.” He took a breath and continued. “The dude is really into her.”
He’s not the only one, I said inwardly.
As if he could somehow hear me or read my mind, Cyrus hedged his bets and asked, “What about you, brother. How are you doing?”
I couldn’t lie anymore, not to him and not to myself. It was taking too much energy… taking up too much space in my brain. “These have been the shittiest two weeks I’ve had in quite a long while.”
He came and sat opposite me and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Damn, Alpha, so the mate bond got you too? Welcome to the club.”
“Our situations aren’t exactly the same,” I snapped.
“Not what I meant,” Cyrus replied. “What you’re feeling right now? It’s what I feel any time Pen is away—or I’m away. It sucks, but I know I’ll be seeing her again soon. It’s how I get through it. But I know you’re not going to have the luxury of a reunion, are you?”
“No,” I said quietly.
I recounted to him what I’d planned on doing the next day. I’d ask Arax to agree to a rejection without a full explanation of what it signified. Saying it out loud made my stomach churn.
“I don’t get it.” I sighed. “I stayed away from her as much as I could, left her alone, tried to—” I stopped talking when I heard Cyrus snickering.
“Alpha, with all due respect, you’re full of shit.”
“Would you like to rephrase that, Beta?” My warning was veneered as a suggestion.
“No, I really don’t,” he answered, brazenly holding his head high. “Looking back, is that what you were really doing? Staying away? Leaving her alone? Because that’s not what it looked like to me.”
My glare was my only response.
“Let’s review,” he said, getting up. “You moved her to the spare room. That one.” He pointed at the wall adjoining my office with Arax’s quarters.
“You stuck Drake on guard duty out of nowhere, which might I say, worked out brilliantly.” He rolled his eyes as I growled.
“And last but not least, you’re waiting until the last minute to reject her.
Alpha, just be honest. You’ve got it as bad as your gamma. ”
“But I don’t know why!” I shouted.
“So you admit it,” he said with a smirk.
“Fine, yes.” I knew where he had been leading me from the start of this exchange, but I was too tired to play his game, too tired of keeping it a secret.
“I’m not going to beg to know your reasons. In fact, I’m sure I can guess most of them,” he said sympathetically.
“What then?” I asked.
“Are you sure you want to do this? She’s your mate. I know she’s not that great.” He laughed when I growled at him again. “But in all seriousness, it hurts. I’ve known a few people who’ve gone through with a rejection, your sister…anyway…It’s excruciating. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Do I tell him? I thought. Do I come completely clean about my feelings? Putting them into spoken words gave them so much credence, it made them real. It made what I was going to do a reality as well, a reality from which there was no going back.
“It’s not for me,” I whispered. “It’s for her. She deserves better than the crap that’s in my world. She doesn’t deserve to feel like an outsider till the end of her days, stuck in limbo between this world and her own. I wouldn’t turn her. I can’t think about doing anything so selfish.”
Cyrus looked lost for a minute or two. He quietly sat back down and stared into space. “I was wrong,” he said after some time had passed.
“How so?”
“You’ve got it worse than Drake—far, far worse,” he replied, then sat up and leaned forward. “Do what you feel is right, Stan. I’ll support you in whatever choice you make.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Cyrus.”
“This is heavy. The good thing is that what, the Fire wasn’t faulty here, was it? Is that also why she can see the territory? That hasn’t happened with other human mates, has it?”
“Not at first,” I replied. “The Fire didn’t recognize the mate bond, nor could they see the territory, not until the bond was… fully accepted by each party.”
“Any idea why it’s different in her case?”
“I’ve theorized it’s because I’m the alpha.” I shrugged.
“Right.” Cyrus grinned. “Alpha privileges.”
He got up and held out his hand. “You don’t need to tell me to keep this to myself. It’s not my business to share.”
I rose from my seat, grabbing the hand he offered, and we shook. “Appreciate it, Beta.”
We said our good-nights, and I lay on the couch, sprawled on my back.
I’d wanted to smother everything related to Arax deep into the well of my subconscious, but purging the truth had made it a little easier to finish out the night.
Morning would be here soon. We could say good-bye, and maybe, just maybe, we’d both be able to move on with our lives and forget.