Chapter Sixteen #2
“Not at all,” he responded, staring up as Pumpkin slowly moved along the branch above us. “In the centuries I’ve lived, I’ve witnessed many extraordinary things and learned about all sorts of magic. Traveling between worlds is not an unfamiliar concept.”
“It’s not?” I turned more toward him on the bench.
Onyx shook his head. “While I’ve not met anyone, apart from you, who’s done so, I’ve read about individuals who have.
People who have come from other worlds and brought knowledge with them.
Just as I’m sure there are people who traveled to the mundane world you speak of who brought ideas from this one. ”
I was speechless. I had mulled over the possibility of there being other people like me, ones who’d traveled to this world and vice versa. And Onyx had confirmed my theory.
“I’m far more interested in this mage you mention,” he added with a curious tilt of his head. “He owns a shop that appears to those in need?”
“Yep. My friend Kuya met him too. He was starving and lost, and Lupin appeared to him, giving him a warm meal and telling him to follow a lantern, saying it’d lead him to where he belonged. And it led him to Prince Sawyer.”
Sadness filled my chest at the mention of my friends. Would I see them again? Would I get the chance to talk to Sawyer and tell him we’re related? I’d like to think he’d be excited about it.
He also might hate me. Because of me, so much bad shit had happened.
A soft touch to my neck drew my eyes to Onyx. He stared at me with a tenderness that lifted that sorrow from my chest, replacing it with a fluttering warmth. My breath caught as he brushed his fingers along my throat and up to my jaw. His skin was cool against mine, yet set fire to my blood.
“So beautiful,” Onyx whispered before leaning in and softly dragging my bottom between his teeth. “And dangerous.”
Not the first time he’d called me that. Was he referring to my power? Still thinking I’d use my flames against him? Recalling that final vision from the elixir brought back that earlier worry. The fear that my powers were tied to some dark place inside of me. Dark instead of light.
“I don’t want to be dangerous, Onyx,” I said, gut cinching. “I just want to live a simple, happy life. Surrounded by the men I love with my entire heart.”
Wariness touched his eyes. “Is that what you feel for me? Love?”
“Y-Yeah.” A pressure enclosed my heart as I ghosted our lips together, breathing in his woodsy and smoky scent. The confession ushered in a round of tears that I fought hard to hold at bay. “I think I’ve loved you since the night we ate apple pie together in the kitchen.”
“Cobbler,” he corrected, a tremble in his hand as he traced my bottom lip with his thumb. “It was cobbler. There’s a difference, you know. A little bird told me as much.”
A tear slipped free, and Onyx leaned in, catching it on his lips. He kissed my cheekbone before pecking another against the edge of my eye.
My chin wobbled before a small sound escaped me. I wound my arms around him and held on tight, more tears surging forward as I buried my face against his neck.
For some reason, I felt… unsettled, that despite our bond being stronger than ever, despite Onyx no longer pushing me away, something would tear us apart.
And I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.
“Fate truly is cruel for placing you in my path,” Onyx said, his voice rough. “Allowing me to be happy.”
“Why is that such a bad thing, Onyx?” I tipped my face to look at him. “You deserve to be happy.”
“Because it won’t last,” he said. “Nothing good ever does.”
“Says who? Remember what I said in the cave? Enjoy the journey. You’re so convinced you’ll lose me that you’re holding yourself back. You’re keeping a wall between us and what we could have if you just trusted me.”
“I want nothing more than to embrace you fully, Evan.” He lowered his gaze to my lips, then followed the path of his thumb as he traced my jaw. “To let down my walls and welcome in your light. Your love. But in doing so, I’d only destroy that light. I speak not out of fear but from certainty.”
Irritation prickled at my scalp. “How are you so sure?”
He held my gaze for a moment, then averted it to the stream in front of us. Without a word, he stood from the bench and approached the water’s edge. Keeping his back to me.
“Onyx.” I rose from the bench and approached him, confused and with that unsettled feeling growing stronger.
Just when I thought I may have an idea of what he was thinking and feeling, he slammed the door of his heart closed and bolted it tight.
“Are you acting so weird because I said the L word? You don’t have to say it back to me. It’s okay. Really.”
Onyx breathed out. It was such a defeated, sad sound. “I once said you could have my body but never my heart. Do you remember?”
I nodded. “I thought you were just being stubborn.”
“It’s because I’m incapable of anything more than that,” he said, softer now. “Regardless of how deeply I wish to know your love, it’s a thing I can never have.”
“There you go confusing me again.” I grabbed his bicep and gently turned him to face me. He wore that insufferable mask again. Hiding what he didn’t want me to see. “Isn’t accepting our bond also accepting that love might come with it?”
“Not if I don’t allow for it to,” he responded, emotion bleeding through that mask. Fractures that revealed something raw underneath. “And I mustn’t allow it.”
I searched his face. A face that blurred as more tears welled in my eyes. “I… I don’t understand. Why is the thought of loving me so awful?”
“Because I’m cursed, Evan,” Onyx snapped, his expression like ice. His voice, however, rang of a deep hurt, scraping through his throat. “One I’ve lived with all these centuries and thought I had learned to overcome. But I was wrong.”
“Cursed how?” I asked, the frustrated sadness in my chest dissolving as confusion took over.
“One that will destroy the only precious thing I’ve ever had within my grasp.” There was a catch in his throat. “A little bird who’s brought me more happiness than I ever thought possible. A boy who’s beautiful and devastating all at once.”
“What do you mean?” There was a burning in my throat. It sank to my stomach and churned. “What exactly is this curse, Onyx?”
“Come to my quarters later this evening,” Onyx said, taking a step back from me. “Bring your mates. We have much to discuss.”
He turned back the way we’d come and left the greenhouse. Leaving me with a million questions and an ache in my heart.
***
I chose a bad time in my life to give up alcohol. As my men and I sat in Onyx’s quarters, no sound other than the pops of the logs in the hearth, I could’ve used some liquid courage.