Chapter 18 #2
Fear thrums through me as I wonder whether I’ve misinterpreted everything that happened between us up on that mountain. “Well? Answer me.”
He opens his mouth and closes it again. “This is difficult for me.”
“For you?” I shout, trembling from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
He rakes both his hands through his loose hair and swears under his breath. All the whites are showing around his eyes. “We should talk about this after my rut. I’m not saying any of this right.”
Talking later is the last thing I want. I have many, many words to say to Stesha right now.
“Why are you confused about this? Do you think I’m completely stupid, and I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been staring at me for the past two years?
You never look at anyone the way you look at me, and yet you stand here and pretend like you don’t care for me.
Don’t crave me. Is it because of the oath you made to my father?
Am I not beautiful enough for you? Am I too young for you, even at twenty, soon-to-be twenty-one?
We are going to talk right now, and you are going to tell me once and for all why you behave like I’m the only woman in the world and still pretend like you don’t want me.
” By the time I am done speaking, I’m shrieking at him, and my hands are curled into fists.
He stares at the ground for a long time as though he’s trying to summon a shred of explanation from somewhere. Finally, he raises his eyes to mine, and says, “I have believed I’m fated to another. I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
Stesha couldn’t have winded me harder than if he’d punched me in the guts.
Another woman. Of all the reasons he might have for not wanting me, I never once considered that there might be another woman in his heart.
I haven’t forgotten what Zabriel said to me all those years ago, that Stesha could be waiting for an Omega, but I stopped believing that as I felt all his yearning looks while we were separated.
Bile curls up my throat, and my stomach spasms. Stesha wants another woman.
I’m not blind to his faults. His surliness and his exacting standards.
The total and complete adoration that he has for his dragon that might make a woman feel second best if she wasn’t a dragonrider herself.
That he would make a difficult mate and drive his partner mad with his moodiness and inability to say what he’s thinking.
But I have lived with him for years, I have known him as a boy and as a man, and I know that he will never change.
I don’t want him to change. This frustrating, proud, infuriating man lives in my heart, and he always will.
If he was trying to push me away because he believes he doesn’t deserve me, I could bear it, but to hear that he was holding another woman in his heart while I was in his arms up on that mountain? It’s utterly devastating. Like I don’t know him at all.
“You have believed you’re fated to another? What does that mean? Who is she?”
His jaw works. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try harder,” I cry, my voice hoarse and cracking.
“I have always been happy with you. I realize now that it’s been selfish, that happiness, because I can’t make you happy in return.”
“You don’t want me because you believe your heart belongs to someone else. Just say it.”
“Zen…” He reaches for me, but I take a step back, out of his reach. I’m too angry to be touched. I want an explanation, not to be comforted by him.
“Who is she?” I demand.
His expression is bleak. “I don’t know. An Omega. I’ve never found any trace of her.”
I want to rip my hair out of my head and scream. Zabriel was right all along. “What if you’re mistaken? If she were real, don’t you think you would have found her by now?”
“I have asked myself this. I hate this feeling. I have begged the gods to be rid of it.”
He looks utterly devastated, but my hurt and anger have burned away any sympathy that I might have felt for him.
Why can’t he just choose me? If he truly cared for me, he should be able to choose me.
“Just say you don’t want me. Admit it. I want to hear you say the words.
I don’t want you, Zenevieve. I’ve never wanted you, and I would rather wait for someone else I’ve never met.
Say it, and maybe this time my heart will listen.
Say you don’t want me because you’d rather pine for a woman who doesn’t exist.”
Stesha has been so slow and careful about choosing his words, but now his retort bursts angrily from his lips. “She does exist.”
There’s a flinty glare in his icy blue eyes. All the breath is stolen from my lungs. Stesha believes with every bone in his body and every drop of blood in his veins that he has a mate, and I’m not her. He’s furious that I’ve denied she exists. He’s jealously protecting a woman he’s never even met.
I should walk away while I have a tiny shred of my dignity intact, but I can’t make myself move.
There’s too much hurt and anger swirling in my heart.
This man was holding me in his arms just a short while ago, and my insides still ache from the thrusts of his cock.
I bear his teeth marks in my flesh. I want to punish myself some more for believing I could have him, and my humiliation is not yet complete.
“So where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have some theories,” I seethe.
The wind is blowing tendrils of hair into his face. “I believe she’s so far away that I’ll never find her.”
There’s an ominous ringing in the back of my mind. My stomach heaves again as though I’m going to throw up. “You think she’s dead, don’t you? You’re torturing us both over a dead woman.”
How can I compete with a dead woman who will always be perfect in his mind?
Stesha reaches for my hands, his expression pleading. “My heart is filled with sorrow that I have hurt you. Give me a chance to make this right.”
Sorrow. There’s nothing in Stesha’s heart for me but sorrow. The last flutter of hope that I will ever be his whole world as he is mine dies. I turn and walk blindly away from him.
“Zen.”
I hear him following me. I turn and put my hands on his chest and try to shove him away, but he is a solid wall of muscle that doesn’t move. “Leave me alone.”
Minta, I call in my mind. She catches hold of Stesha’s cloak in her teeth. I turn and run, and I don’t hear him following me.
As soon as I’m over the dragon bridge and out of his sight, my stomach and chest heave painfully, but instead of throwing up, I start to cough. Racking coughs that cause my throat to burn and my eyes to stream.
I manage to make it back to the barracks and crawl into bed. With the blanket over my head, my body spasms and shakes. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop myself from coughing. My insides feel like they’re on fire.
“Zenevieve, are you unwell?” Someone places a cool hand on my brow. I open my eyes and see Tish bending over me, her face etched with concern.
I open my mouth to tell her that I was caught in an avalanche, and now I am sick with a fever. As soon as I try to speak, I cough harder than ever into my hand, and I feel wetness suddenly coat my palm.
My eyes widen as I stare at my hand. It’s covered in blood.
Scarlet red blood.
It bubbles up my throat and drips from my lips.
Tish gasps, and calls over her shoulder, “One of you, fetch a Temple Mother for Zenevieve.”
A few minutes later, I see a familiar, matronly woman in scarlet robes leaning over me. Mother Linnea checks my pulse and my eyes and lays a hand on my forehead. Then she peels back the shoulder of my shirt to examine my neck and shoulders and mutters a curse.
“What’s happ-happening to me?” I choke out. I feel like I’m dying. My mouth is filled with the tang of blood.
Mother Linnea calls over her shoulder, “Can one of the Alphas please carry Zenevieve to the Flame Temple? I need to treat her there.”
“I’ll take her.” I recognize Sundra’s voice, and a moment later I feel myself lifted up in her strong arms.
I cough the whole way to the temple, struggling to breathe, panicking because I feel like I’m drowning.
I’m laid down on a pallet somewhere away from the main room.
Mother Linnea calls orders to the maids, who undress my outer clothing, wipe the blood from my face and hands and give me something strange-tasting to drink.
“Just a sip,” Mother Linnea cautions me, frowning at my neckline where my collar is loose. “Too much could be dangerous.”
The medicine coats my throat and soothes a little of the burn in my chest, but my breath rattles in my lungs. She takes the cup away and gives me a cloth to cough into.
I hold it to my lips as I cough and cough for several minutes, and soon the cloth is soaked with blood.
Mother Linnea gives me a fresh cloth. “First, I need you to understand that you’re not in trouble. I’m going to ask you some personal questions, and they may seem strange or prying, but I want to make sure you get the right treatment. Don’t speak. Just nod or shake your head.”
I nod, showing her I understand.
“Thank you, Zenevieve. Have you been intimate with an Alpha while he was in a rut?”
She’s already seen the dragine marks on my shoulder. I nod.
“For how many of his ruts?”
I hold up one finger. I cough into the cloth again, and I’m frightened by how much blood spills from my lips.
Mother Linnea purses her lips. “I will not judge you, Zenevieve, but I must know the truth so I can treat you. How many of his ruts have you spent together?”
I insistently hold up one finger as I cough.
She sits back with a frown. “That is strange. Your symptoms indicate that you are suffering from lavish sickness, but that’s not possible if you only spent one rut with him.”
My eyes fill with tears. It’s not lavish sickness.
If I had been Stesha’s lavish, then maybe all this pain would be worth it.
We were only together for a few hours, which is far less time than a Beta needs to spend with an Alpha before she gets lavish sickness.
Cariss was adored for many months before Dandro broke her heart.
I cough harder than ever into the cloth and point at the cup of medicine that Mother Linnea is holding, aching for some relief.
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Zenevieve, but I fear this is lavish sickness, and so I can’t give you any medicine. If you don’t cough, your lungs will fill with blood, and you will suffocate and die.”
My lungs keep spasming and my throat burns. Is there really nothing that can stop this agony?
Mother Linnea is silent for some time, sunk in thought, and then her eyes light with suspicion. “Zenevieve, may I please know the name of the Alpha in question? No, don’t say his name. I think I can guess.”