Chapter 44 #2
I didn’t know that the queen doesn’t get to decide for herself. Every decision is for the betterment of everyone else, and it’s my duty to bear it all on my shoulders. I thought the crown was heavy before, but now I feel crushed beneath its weight.
My mother has held on for twenty-three years, her health unexplained by anything other than the strength of her love for me, and I can’t ignore it. I won’t give up on her. I won’t let her survival go unanswered, and I won’t let Weston make yet another sacrifice for me. He had already done enough.
This one is mine to make.
“When you are ready, Your Majesty.”
I walk toward Edmond, slowly closing the distance between us as I soak up the bit of dawn that is coming over the horizon. It’s the last one I will see for a while. Possibly ever.
With only a handful of steps left before the end of the plateau and the waiting Guardian, a sound echoes in the distance, pulling me from my fantasy of the heat on my skin. My steps falter, and I look around, trying to place what it is, when I hear it.
“Lennox!”
My head falls back, and my eyes squeeze shut as despair erupts in my chest. Even though there’s only one other person on the island, I would recognize that voice anywhere.
Weston’s footsteps pound as he roars my name again, and I turn back to the same path I ran along, just before he rounds the corner.
His feet skid across the slick dirt and grass as he almost tumbles to his knees, his clothes disheveled as if he barely threw them over his body before racing out of the room.
His hair is the same mess after last night, from time after time of me running my fingers through it.
Chest heaving and skin glistening with sweat, he rights himself, and his gait turns from frantic to furious.
His jaw is tight as his eyes narrow on me, standing helplessly before the wrath I know I’m about to incur, the same one I fought against so many times back when I was convinced he was my enemy instead of the best thing that has ever happened to me.
But this time, I don’t have the strength to fight back.
“I’m really fucking tired of waking up alone on my godsdamned ship.” He stalks toward me, and I watch the fury rise in his face as he gets closer.
“Weston, stop,” I say, my voice cracking as everything that I have been holding in surfaces.
Tension hardens his shoulders and the curve of muscle in his arms as he points at me. “You have something that’s mine.” His voice is low, and the growl in his throat makes me shiver. “Give it back.”
“Weston—”
“Give it back, Lennox.” His long strides have closed almost half the distance, and my breaths start to increase as panic takes over.
“Weston. Stop.” My words are firmer than before, but he ignores them. He can’t get any closer. He can’t touch me. Because I know with one brush of his skin I’ll collapse, and take back everything I already decided.
“No.” He stomps forward, now barely a few paces from me, but I need him to listen.
“I command you to stop!”
“You’re not the queen here, remember? You wanted me to treat you the same as everyone else, and now is no different!”
“Weston, please,” I plead, begging that he will see what I see, see the despair etched into my face, and understand why I had to walk away. “Please don’t make this harder.”
“You promised you wouldn’t take it from me.”
My fingers itch to touch the pocket in my vest, because I know exactly what he is talking about.
His ring. The promise I made him on the beach, when he told me that golden band was the only thing ensuring he could stay near me.
I remember the promise, and that’s the exact reason I had to break it.
“I have to.”
“Whatever you think you have to do, you’re wrong.”
I take a hesitant step backward, my body finally able to move under the hold of his commanding gaze, but it doesn’t matter.
He closes the distance, reaching for me, and before I can stop him, his hands wrap around my face, the momentum of his walk causing me to stumble backward as his body crashes into mine.
A soft whimper escapes my lips as my face crumbles when I look into his fierce eyes. “You’re getting a second chance, Weston. Don’t waste it.”
“Listen to me,” he growls, and his grip tightens.
“I don’t care what anyone before me has ever told you or made you feel, I need you to hear me right now.
You are not a waste. There is no second chance because I didn’t lose anything.
Spending my life beside you, whether you remember me or not, will never be a waste. ”
“I can’t let everything you sacrificed be worthless—”
“I sacrificed nothing, Lennox.”
“You lost everything for me!” My hands grip his wrists, squeezing tightly as I scream at him, but he doesn’t flinch. He holds firm, the unwavering pillar I’ve relied on for support, who even when I walked away from him, still holds firm, letting me rage at him, letting me hurt him.
And I need to hurt him. I need him to be able to move on with his life, to find happiness and not be trapped in the lost world we created here. The only way to do that is by replacing all the love with something else, and making the last thing he feels toward me be pain and hate.
“Saying you sacrificed nothing? That’s bullshit, Weston, and you know it!
You gave up your life for mine. You gave up time with my father, your only friend, and you’ll never get that back!
He’s gone! You lost your mother, then gave up your life with your father!
You walked away from your family here that you could have built a life with, all to serve a crown!
How could you say that wasn’t a sacrifice?
Everything you let go will not be in vain.
I refuse to let it be. And I will not let you continue to lay yourself down for everyone around you.
I am choosing you! I’m choosing your happiness over mine because you shouldn’t be the only one who only gets to do that! ”
His shoulders heave, and his jaw tightens, but his eyes don’t leave mine.
“I won’t stop you,” he grinds out. “I told you it was your choice, but please. Give me my ring back.”
After all that, after throwing everything I could at him to get him to see why I need to do this, he still doesn’t care. He fully accepts it—this stubborn, frustrating man—and can only see the part that will keep him bound to me, living in misery for the rest of his life.
If he can’t see it, then I have to give him no choice.
I know what I need to do. Nothing I said has worked, and he needs to be angry.
He needs to hate me. I want it to be easy for him to walk away and never look back, to move on and find love.
I want him to have happiness, even if my heart is absolutely shattering.
I pull his hands off my face and step out of his grip, putting distance between us and trying to breathe.
Squeezing my eyes shut, completely unable to look at him, I pull my shoulders back, holding my head high, and ignore the hot tears streaming down my face as I grit my teeth and push the words out.
“Weston Rowe—”
“Lennox.”
“I release you.” I choke on a sob.
“Lennox, stop.”
“From your oath.”
“Don’t do this.”
My voice holds firm as I muster all the strength I have left to open my eyes and meet his as I deliver the final blow. “Thank you for your service to the kingdom of Blackwood. You are free to live your life.”
“My oath wasn’t to the fucking kingdom. My oath was to you!” His roar echoes in my ears, and I flinch. It’s filled with the anger I needed, the anger that I will be able to walk away from.
“Then, as your queen, your devotion is no longer needed.”
“You can say whatever you want, but nothing will ever change for me. Ever.”
I sink farther into myself as I take a step back, my lip quivering slightly before I clamp my jaw together to stop it.
“Goodbye, Weston,” I whisper, but as I turn my back on him to face Edmond, his hand catches my arm, spinning me around until my body slams into his, followed by the grip of his hand in my hair and the crush of his lips.
And I break.
Every wall, every bit of strength I had disintegrates the moment his mouth is on mine, and I sob against him.
Body shaking, limbs weakening, chest heaving.
Everything I’ve held back surges through me.
I try to fight it, but I can’t. His grip is crushing, his movements rough, his lips and tongue demanding as he forces me to remember the depth of his feelings.
He kisses me until my body is consumed by sobs and tears, and barely slows even as he swipes them from my cheeks.
But as fierce and stubborn as he is, I know I am too.
He can’t stop me with his kiss. He can’t erase everything I’ve thought through and decided.
He can only make it harder. With everything I have left, I raise my hands, placing my palms flat on his chest, and push him away until I have enough room to breathe.
“This isn’t over,” he growls, repeating my words back to me, back when I thought he was saying goodbye on the night Dane stole all our hope.
The hope for a life together at home returned with Edmond’s lesson. Light always finds a way, but not this time. The hope is gone once again. At least for me.
“This time it is,” I whisper. My vision blurs as I look up into his eyes. All I see is pain, and it makes me choke on my breath.
Weston told me that people come in and out of our lives, and while there are some who we wish would stay longer, it sometimes isn’t meant to be.
When he said it, I never thought he was talking about us.
But just like Fin, and Sig, and Jorn, and Stass, and Mara…
just like Edmond, I’m so grateful that my determination to change my life brought them all into it.
Even though I might not remember, each of them has changed me to my core, and I wouldn’t be the queen I know I can be without them.
“Promise me you’ll find them,” I cry. “Promise me you’ll give them all their chance.”
The muscles in his cheeks tick as his jaw clenches shut, and I wait in silence before he finally responds.
“I promise.”
Pushing against his chest harder, I lean back, putting a little space between us before I reach down and grasp his wrist. His other hand presses firmly into the small of my back as he tries to tug me back in, to hold me in his arms as I fight against him.
But he lets me move his arm, and I flatten his palm across my chest, his fingers splayed over my skin as I cover his hand with mine.
“I’ll always feel it.”
“Don’t walk away.” His voice drops to a murmur, and the defeat I’m now watching creep over his face is evident. “Don’t. Please.”
Rivulets of tears stream down my cheeks, and I mutter the last words I want him to hear.
“I love you, Weston. You gave me everything. Thank you for saving me.”
His eyes fall closed, his chin dropping to his chest as the arm wrapped around my waist squeezes tighter, trying to pull me in again. I push him away, twisting out of his grasp and turning my back to him so I can’t see the helplessness that I know he’s feeling.
I feel it too.
I storm toward Edmond, my gaze focused on the man who practically raised me, who just watched me break his son’s heart, and I silently beg the gods that he doesn’t hate me.
“Take me back,” I command, but my voice shakes until the last sound.
I fist Edmond’s cloak, clutching onto him while dropping my chin to my chest and squeezing my eyes shut to block out every piece of the world around me. I sob into Edmond as the familiar pull of magic washes over me.
And I leave Weston and Dawnlin behind forever.