Chapter 31 #2
“Because if I choose to live in the present and forgive my—” I choke on the word.
“Then what was the point? Of all of it? The distance I put between me and Pepper. The years I spent convinced I didn’t deserve a pack, didn’t deserve belonging, didn’t deserve anything good because good things were for people who hadn’t fucked up as badly as me.
” The sobs come faster now. “If I just get to be happy anyway, then all that suffering was for nothing. And I can’t—I can’t make it mean nothing.
Because then I’m just a person who threw away her family for no reason. ”
Full on ugly cry. Snot. Blubber.
This damn trial should come with an IV. I’m so dehydrated from crying.
“Oh, Ash.” Finnian is there first. Impossible, because Orion is faster and Kieran is closer.
And then they’re all there. Surrounding me. But I can’t—I can’t accept it.
“Stop,” I cry.
“No.” Kieran hugs me tighter. “Not until you realize that your choices are your free will and you made the choices you did for your survival. You didn’t throw anything away. You put it down because you couldn’t carry it anymore. That’s not betrayal. That’s being human.”
“I’m not human.”
“You were then.” His voice cracks. Just barely. Just enough that I hear it. “You were human and alone and surviving, and you did what you had to do. Stop crucifying yourself for not being omniscient.”
“I can’t.” My knees buckle.
But they’re there. Dropping to the soil with me. Holding me. Whispering murmurs as the tears flow.
The earth is cool beneath my palms. Wild Court magic humming through the dirt, through the roots, through me. And these three men, grounding me to something real when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.
“She would have died no matter what.” I say it like if I repeat it enough it’ll stop hurting. “In every timeline. Every version. Lucy dies and finds her mates in the underworld. That’s the fate. That’s the fixed point.”
My voice cracks.
“So why do I still feel like I killed her? Why does knowing it was inevitable make it worse? I put distance between us for nothing. I missed years with her for nothing. I chose isolation over family for nothing. And I can’t get those years back. I can’t—”
“You know,” Finnian’s leg props up as they surround me, his voice carefully measured, “perhaps you are a domino that had to fall for Lucy to find her fate.” He sighs. “Cause and effect. The universe doesn’t care about fairness. It only cares about outcomes.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be true.”
True. What even is true?
I don’t know how long we stay there. Long enough for my tears to dry. Long enough for the forest to shift around us, shadows lengthening, the air going cool.
Kieran’s hand finds my hair. Strokes once. Twice. A gentleness I wouldn’t have believed him capable of six months ago. A gentleness that still catches me off guard every time, because Kieran was built for war and here he is, soft as silk against my scalp, patient as stone while I fall apart.
“You have leaves in your hair,” he says.
“Sexy.”
“Devastating.” His voice is dry but his fingers are careful, picking out the debris. “The Wild Court queen, decorated in forest floor.”
“It’s a look.”
“It’s something.”
Orion produces a cloth from somewhere and wipes my face without asking permission. The fabric is rough but his touch is gentle, and I let him because fighting it would take energy I don’t have.
“You done leaking?” he asks.
“Probably not.”
“Fair enough.” He tucks the cloth away. “Let me know when the next round starts. I’ll be ready.”
Finnian doesn’t touch me. Just sits close enough that I can feel his warmth, his presence, the steady pulse of the Crown beneath his temples that I’ve learned to sense.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I don’t think you’re a domino.”
“You literally just said—”
“I said perhaps. I’m an academic. We hedge so aggressively it’s basically lying.
” His mouth quirks. “What I believe is that you made impossible choices under impossible circumstances. And you’re still here.
Still fighting. Still trying to be better.
” His eyes find mine. “That’s not a domino.
That’s a person. A person who’s harder on herself than anyone else would ever think to be. ”
“That’s not—”
“It is.” His voice softens. “You think you’re unforgivable because you haven’t forgiven yourself. But Ash, you’re the only one still keeping score.”
I don’t have words for that.
So I lean into him instead. Let my shoulder press against his. Feel him exhale like he’s been holding his breath for hours.
Maybe he has been. Every time I spiral, he holds back. Waits. Calculates the right moment to offer something that won’t make me bolt.
That’s Finnian. Centuries of patience deployed in the service of loving someone who doesn’t know how to accept it.
The forest has gone quiet around us.
Not dangerous quiet. Waiting quiet. Like even the trees know we’re changing.
We’re still on the ground. Still tangled together in ways that would be impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t us. Kieran’s hand still in my hair. Orion’s thigh pressed against mine. Finnian’s shoulder warm under my cheek.
Four people. One mess. No one pulling away.
“We should make camp,” Kieran says, but he doesn’t move.
“Probably,” Orion agrees, also not moving.
“The tavern’s only a few more hours,” Finnian adds. “We could push through.”
No one responds. The option hangs in the air like a question no one wants to answer.
If we stop, the tension breaks. One way or another. I can feel it building. The coil that’s been tightening between us since Orion and me in the trees, since Kieran’s almost-moment this morning, since Finnian’s shoulder under my cheek right now.
We’re a bomb with four fuses and someone’s been lighting matches all week.
I don’t know which of us will go off first. Don’t know if I’m ready to find out. Don’t know if I’m ready to not find out. All I know is that if we sit like this much longer I’m going to be moaning one of their names.
And yet, every time Orion touches me, I calculate how long until he realizes I’m not wild enough. Every time Finnian looks at me like I’m a revelation, I want to hand him a list of my failures. Every time Kieran chooses me over something else, I add it to the debt I’m terrified I can’t repay.
And still they stay. Still they reach for me. Still they drop to the forest floor when I crumble and hold me together with their hands and their presence and their stubborn fucking refusal to let me fall apart alone.
I don’t deserve this.
I don’t know how to stop wanting it anyway.
“Let’s keep moving.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “I can’t sleep anyway.”
Orion’s laugh is low, dangerous and knowing. “None of us can.”
“Then we walk.” Kieran’s hand slides from my hair. The absence of his touch is louder than his words. “We walk until we can’t think anymore.”
“Dramatic,” Finnian observes, standing and offering me his hand. “But accurate.”
I take it. Let him pull me up. Hold on a beat longer than necessary.
His eyes darken.
I let go.
“The tavern,” I say. “Before dawn.”
We just need to walk through the forest, at night.
We should have made camp.