Chapter 67 Elias #2
And she hadn’t found anything yet. Depending on who built the manor originally, there could be hidden assets throughout, but from what we could tell now, only Black would know.
“Could the witches have built it?” Ivy asked, drawing me out of my thoughts as we made it to the bridge.
More water filled the creek, which we knew now fed a large lake behind the manor.
There were structures back there, like a pavilion and what might have been sheds, though Kingsley and I weren’t sure.
We just knew it was a dumping ground for materials Black had dragged out of the house.
I moved in closer to Ivy, keeping an eye on her as we walked over the bridge. “Possibly, though we’d probably find more signs of the coven that lived here.”
She nodded slowly. “We—I mean, Adrian and Rowan—would feel the magic, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah,” I replied, clearing my throat, glancing over her head at a dirt track between the tree line and creek. “Look, there’s a path that follows the creek. Want to take it?”
Something loosened in her shoulders as she looked at me. “Yeah.”
For several moments, we walked in silence. Out here, it was like we were in an entirely different world, one untouched by the war being waged on the mainland.
“I doubt you wanted to talk about the manor,” I said after a while, keeping my eyes on the path ahead as it declined towards the back of the house. “What’s wrong?”
Ivy sighed loudly, scrubbing a hand down her face. “I’m…sad,” she started slowly, dropping her hand after a moment. “I’m sad and I don’t feel right.”
I stopped, pulling her to a halt with me and turning her to face me. “Why?”
“You would know if we still had our bond,” she murmured, head cocked.
A lump formed in my throat, the guilt I’ve been shoving down rearing its head again. “Angel—”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did.
” She closed her eyes for a moment, forehead dropping to my chest. All I could do was wrap an arm around her.
“You haven’t said anything about the pregnancy.
You or Adrian, and these are your babies. I guess I expected something—”
“I’m sorry,” I said, voice low. The guilt became worse, flooding me painfully. “I’m not going to speak for Kingsley. He has his own shit to work through, things he still needs to talk to you about. I won’t pretend like I don’t have shit to work through, especially knowing what I know now.”
“Which is?” she asked softly, looking up at me.
I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat as I stared into her dark eyes. The darkness I’d spotted when we found her was there again, shadowing her expression. Her eyes were full of doubt and fear.
I hadn’t realised how badly I’d fucked up before by not going to her about this. But it felt so obvious now.
She should never have been left to deal with it alone.
“I was born in the compound,” I said, squeezing her hand as she sucked in a breath. “The thought of my own child being born there…it might have fucked with me more than I expected.”
Ivy blinked, tears filling her eyes. “Do you…do you want to know what Dante was going to do?”
I could tell she didn’t want to say it aloud, whatever it was, but I knew it wasn’t something she should have been holding onto all by herself.
“You can tell me,” I said, giving her a nod. “I’m here for you now.”
The words spilled from her lips shakily; Dante’s plan to split the twins at birth by handing one over to us and using the other as leverage in the cages. She explained how Dante had wanted to give us Adrian’s child while using mine as another soldier in his ranks.
It took everything in me not to let the rage out or vomit.
Every word had me wanting to fall to my knees.
And even worse, all the shame I’d been trying to hide came out in full force.
She’d been holding onto this for days because I hadn’t wanted to talk to her about it.
Because I’d been so buried in the guilt of not knowing, of not figuring it out sooner and protecting her from it, that I’d ignored what she so desperately needed.
“I am so fucking sorry, Ivy,” I said, voice guttural in my own ears, hoarse with the threat of tears. “I fucked up, and I am so sorry.”
Ivy dropped my hand and wound her arms around me, trembling with her own tears. “I couldn’t let him do it.”
“I know,” I whispered, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” I said, holding her tighter. “Not only should I have known, but I should have talked to you about this before.”
Ivy sniffled as she made a choked sound. “It would have been nice to talk to you or the others. I feel like only Xerxes or Thor get it because they were there with me.”
I stiffened, but she was right. We hadn’t made it easy for her to come to us. We hadn’t been there at all, not really.
I’d tried to give her space to heal, to give her room to open up, and instead all I’d done was push her away. It hadn’t mattered that I’d been by her side from the moment she came back to us, it didn’t matter that I’d been her shadow, had slept beside her.
As her mate, I’d failed to see how badly she’d needed me to be the one to open up to her, and that was a failure I would own.
“What do you need from me, Angel? Want me to take you back inside? Want to talk through this more?”
She shuddered, pulling back enough to meet my eye. Tears filled her eyes, ones she didn’t try to hide. “I want to know you’re with me. I want to know both of you are. But without the bond, I need to know.”
“Know what?” I asked, dropping my forehead to hers.
“I need to know you’ll be here when I break,” she whispered as her lips brushed mine. “Because I know it’s coming. And I can’t hold myself together anymore.”