Chapter 19
Talin
I'd been sitting on Aunt Judy's front steps for an hour, watching the sun sink lower in the sky.
I shivered a bit. The jeans, short-sleeved shirt, and vest I was wearing not enough to keep me warm as the temperature dropped again.
The tears had stopped somewhere between last night and today, leaving me hollow and aching.
Get out.
His voice echoed in my head, cold and final. As did the look in his eyes when he'd said it, like I'd taken something precious and shattered it beyond repair.
Hell, maybe I had. He needed my blood, but that didn't mean he needed to be around me otherwise.
My life stretched out before me. It was the same lonely existence I'd always imagined, only now it was way worse. Because now I knew what I'd be missing.
The front door opened behind me, but I didn't turn. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Couldn't pretend everything was fine when I'd just destroyed the one good thing in my life.
"Talin?" Alice's soft voice drifted over me like a soft breeze. "What are you doing out here all by yourself?"
"Waiting." My voice was raw, scraped thin.
Fabric rustled as she sat beside me, her flowing skirt spreading across the weathered wood. We sat in silence for a moment, watching the shadows lengthen across the garden.
"You want to tell me what happened?" she asked gently.
"Nothing happened."
Watching a bird fly across the sky, she said, "Okay."
I followed its flight, blinking my dry, burning eyes against the setting sun. "I fucked everything up. That's what happened."
"With Elias?"
Just hearing his name sent pain lancing through my chest. "He kicked me out."
Alice's hand found mine, warm and steady. "Why?"
Her familiar touch opened the dam, and the words came pouring out. The fight, the accusations I'd thrown at him, the way his face had gone cold and hard before he'd ordered me to leave. By the time I finished, fresh tears were sliding down my cheeks.
"I just... I couldn't stop myself," I whispered. "All these thoughts kept spinning around in my head about how he didn't really want me, how it was only fate, how one day he'd wake up and realize he was stuck with someone like me and—"
"Stop." Alice's voice cut through my rambling, uncharacteristically sharp. She turned to face me fully, her brown eyes intense. "Talin, you're not afraid Elias doesn't want you. You're afraid he does. And you never thought that would happen, so you don't know what to do with that."
The truth of her words rang through me. My chin fell to my chest, a sob tearing from my throat as fresh tears flooded my eyes and fell down my cheeks.
Alice's arms wrapped around me, pulling me against her as I fell apart.
"I just don't understand how he could want someone like me?" I gasped between sobs. "Who looks the way I do, when he's so perfect? How can he want this? How can he want me when I wake up every day hating what I see in the mirror?"
Alice didn't bother to argue with me, she just held me tighter, rocking us slightly as I cried into her shoulder. Her love pulsed around me, warm and comforting, creating a cocoon of safety on Aunt Judy's front steps.
"When this happened," I choked out, "they told me I might die. That the cancer was aggressive, that even with surgery I might not make it. And all I could think was at least then I wouldn't have to grow up knowing I'd never be normal, or beautiful. Knowing I'd never be wanted."
"Talin—"
"But I lived." The words tasted bitter. "I lived, and I learned to deal with what I looked like and what my life would be.
To hide it. To never let anyone close enough to see.
To pretend I didn't care that no one ever tried to climb the walls I'd built around myself.
And then Elias just... crashed through all of them like fucking King Kong. "
I pulled back, sniffling and wiping at my face with shaking hands.
"He kissed my scar, Alice. He kissed it and called me beautiful and I wanted so badly to believe him.
But how could I? How could I believe that someone who looked like him, a vampire who could have anyone for Christ's sake, would choose this?
" I gestured at myself, at the vest that hid what I couldn't bear to show.
"Fate chose for him. Not his heart. Not his desire.
None of this would've happened if I'd never gone to that club and asked for his help. "
Alice took my face in both of her small hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. There was something fierce in her expression, a strength reflected there that I rarely saw from my soft-spoken cousin.
"Listen to me," she said, each word deliberate. "He sees you, Talin. All of you. Your scars, your power, your strength. And he's still there. That's not fate—that's his choice."
"But—"
"No." She shook her head firmly. "I know everyone has started mating up, and whether that's fate trying to protect us or that damn djinn trying to destroy us, we'll never know.
But I've watched him for years. Years, Talin.
The way he looks at you when you're not paying attention.
The way his whole body turns toward you when you enter a room.
That's not obligation. That's not anything forcing him.
That's a male who'd already chosen, and fate just gave him a little nudge in the right direction. "
Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks, but these were different. These carried hope, fragile and terrifying.
"Do you care about him?"
I nodded. There was no sense denying it. "Yes," I whispered.
"Has he ever said anything or acted in a way that told you he wasn't attracted to you? That he didn't care about you?"
I shook my head.
"Then why are you so determined to push him away?"
The question hung between us, heavy with a truth I didn't want to face.
"Because I'm terrified," I finally admitted.
"I'm terrified that if I let myself believe it, if I let myself have this, it won't be real.
And it'll destroy me when he wakes up one day and realizes that.
I'm just…" Closing my eyes, I tried to form the words to describe what I was feeling.
How I'd felt for so many years. "I'm just so fucking angry at my own body that some days I can barely look at myself. "
Alice wiped at my tears, her touch infinitely gentle. "You know what I see when I look at you?"
I shook my head, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
"I see a survivor," she said softly. "I see someone who faced death at fourteen and won.
Who carries the scar that proves she's stronger than anything life threw at her.
I see a woman whose power is so vast it terrifies our aunt, who can walk between dimensions and pull people back from the edge of death.
And I see my cousin, who is stubborn and brave and yes, angry sometimes, but who loves so fiercely she'd walk into hell itself to save the people she cares about. "
A broken sound escaped me, something between a laugh and a sob. "Now you sound like Elias."
"And you know what else I see?" Alice continued, her voice gaining strength when I tried to brush off her words.
"I see a woman who is so convinced she's not worthy of love that she'd rather destroy it herself than risk someone else doing it for her.
You're not protecting Elias by pushing him away, Talin.
You're just breaking both your hearts because you're too scared to believe you deserve to be happy. "
"What if you're wrong?" The question came out small, childlike.
"What if I'm not?" Alice countered. "What if he wakes up every day for the rest of eternity grateful that the gods gave him you?
What if your scar doesn't make you less than, what if it makes you more?
What if he's not lying when he says you're even more beautiful for having survived?
More precious for being unique. More his for trusting him enough to show him. "
I thought about Elias on his knees in front of me, pressing reverent kisses to the evidence of my survival. The way his eyes had gone dark with desire, not disgust. The way he'd worshipped every inch of me like I was something holy instead of broken.
"I hurt him," I whispered. "I threw his feelings back in his face and accused him of only wanting me because of the bond. He'll never forgive me."
"You don't know that." Alice squeezed my hands. "But you'll never find out sitting on these steps feeling sorry for yourself."
A weak laugh bubbled up. "When did you get so wise?"
Her expression grew distant. "We all have our scars, T. Some are just more visible than others. But hiding from the people who want to love us despite them—or because of them—that's not protection. That's punishment. And haven't we punished ourselves enough?"
"But he told me to get out," I said quietly. "What if he meant it? What if I ruined everything?"
"Then you fight for it." Alice's voice turned fierce again.
"You tell him the truth. That you're terrified and so in love with him it's eating you alive.
That you said those things because you couldn't believe someone like him could want someone like you, but that you're willing to try.
That you're willing to let him choose you every day if he'll let you choose him back. "
"I do love him." The words slipped out, simple and devastating.
"Good." Alice smiled, the expression soft and knowing. "And it's okay to be afraid. Fear means it matters. Fear means it's real. It means it's worth fighting for."
The sun had nearly set, painting the sky in shades of amber and rose. Soon we'd need to go inside, face the coven, begin our assault on Marcus's binding points. But for now, we sat on the steps, two cousins who'd always been more like sisters.
"What if he doesn't show up?" I asked, the fear creeping back in. "What if he's already decided I'm not worth the trouble?"
"He'll be here." Alice's hand found mine again. "And after tonight, you fight for him the way he's been fighting for you since the moment you walked into that bar."
I closed my eyes, feeling the constant ache in my chest that'd been there since I walked out of his room. The thread between us was strained but not broken. Hurt but not severed.
Maybe I hadn't destroyed everything, after all. Maybe I'd just damaged it.
And maybe damaged things could be repaired, if you were willing to do the work.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Always." Alice stood, pulling me up with her. "Now come on. Let's go inside before Aunt Judy sends out a search party. We have places to be, spells to cast, and a djinn to stop. And then you have a vampire to grovel to."
"I don't grovel," I protested weakly.
"You will for him." Her smile turned knowing.
As we walked toward the door, I felt something shift inside me. Not healing. That would take time. Not wholeness, either. I might never feel truly whole.
But something...
I loved Elias Noire with every broken, scarred piece of my heart.
Now I just had to be brave enough to tell him.
After we saved Alex. After we stopped Marcus. After I found the courage I'd lost somewhere between a hospital bed at fourteen and a vampire bar at twenty-six.
After we survived, I'd stop running from the one person who'd never asked me to be anything but exactly what I was.
Scarred.
Powerful.
His.
If he'd still have me.