Chapter 51
Thealina
Her cackling laugh rattles my bones. The way she keeps her body intimately turned into Rafe like an attentive wife would makes me see red and green.
Fury and envy; never a good combination.
But do I even have the right. I’m so confused right now, everything in me begs me to run.
To process all that’s happened. To protect my breaking heart even though it was never whole to begin with.
But with Rafe, I got close. Close to a healed heart, a whole heart. Only for it to be ripped apart so viciously for saving Sam.
I can’t look at him with regret. I’m glad something good came from this. He’s alive.
Not missing. Not dead. Not dust… alive.
He’s older now. A scar running along his jaw, a few lines in the corners of his eyes, and he’s bigger, broader. But he’s Sam.
And Sam’s alive.
I don’t have to go back to try again.
Or maybe I should. Get this blackmailing wretch away from the man who, for a small period of time, felt like mine.
I can’t blame Rafe either. The younger version of him had no idea I existed, no idea of the future we were navigating. But I still feel so angry, it’s not warranted but I do, I feel lost and lonely and fucking angry.
And then he jumped away from me, like I was diseased. I understood why the moment Sam pulled me into his side. They both did what they did to protect me—from her.
But it hurts.
Hurts to see a woman so close to a man I yearn for, even before I met him. The images of them together weaves away in my overthinking mind. Wrapped around each other, naked. Sweaty and euphoric. Exchanging vows, declarations of love and solid rings.
My ability is a gift; I saved Sam, but oh so cruel because now I lose Rafe. Maybe I was always supposed to lose him. Maybe he was never mine.
“You don’t eat?” she says, pointing to the full plate in front of me. “You look like you could do with some food. You think this man…” She swirls her fork in Sam’s direction. “… will stick around when his woman could snap in half with a single step.”
Both Rafe and Sam slam their hands on the table, some cubes of cheese falling from the platter.
Something envious and bitter inside me wants to say: ‘If that were true, I’d have snapped in half when I grinded on your husband’s cock.’
I’ve actually put on weight and continue to do so. So, her comments don’t bother me, I’ve had worse, and I sense that annoys her with the way her jaw clenches.
“You will not speak to my guest like that in my home.”
She doesn’t like how protective these men are of me, and I relish in it with a light lift to the corner of my lips. She notices, her eyes telling me she knows she has what I want. And mine telling her not for long
It’s a farce, because I don’t believe for one second I get to have Rafe. But I refuse to have another person belittle me, make me feel worthless.
“Relax, honey. All in jest. And we’re husband and wife, what’s yours is mine, and all that.” She waves a hand in the air, filling in the saying, brushing her curly red hair over one shoulder.
Her words are a blade slicing between my ribs. Slowly. Agonisingly. The way she’d said husband and wife, laced with ownership, nauseates me.
Just go. Just go and do what you always set out to do.
The portal is closed now, and the walls close in by the second.
“Oh, I have something special planned for tonight,” she coos in his ear, her voice low, seductive, but I heard. Heard loud and clear.
Those closing walls now suffocate. It was vain and foolish to think I could claw something back from the past without a sacrifice.
For Sam, Rafe’s heart is that sacrifice.
I grab the cup in front of me, taking a sip of the serum before pushing it into Sam’s face. Not Rafe’s. He’s not mine. But Sam’s, because he’s the only one who can help me.
He takes the cup and downs the remains without stalling, without asking questions, just knowing what I need. Self-aware and intuitive, like the man across from me, the one who holds my heart. The one sitting next to his wife.
‘Get me out of here.’
Sam nods once, intertwining our fingers, playing his part well. We stand, and I don’t miss how he sneaks the bottle of linking serum into his side trouser pocket.
“Been a pleasure. Rafe if you don’t mind, we need to get back.”
“But we…”
“Rafe.” Sam’s tone hard and sharp, he doesn’t need to say more for Rafe to understand. His head drops to his chest before he nods, steels himself and pushes up, walking to the wall and powers up the portal.
I never wanted to say goodbye to him a second time, but something about this one feels final. I’ve a chance to go back, re-write my timeline to have my tongue, my freedom and no painful memories of what never came to be.
Rafe can’t hear me, he took the linking serum too long ago, but he leans into my ear. Sam uses his large body to block any visual Ava may have.
“This isn’t over, Lina. Not for me. Let me fix this,” he chokes, and I kiss the side of his mouth, a lingering kiss that fills my hollow heart with pain.
‘Goodbye, Rafe.’
When he straightens, I can’t meet his eyes.
Sam smacks his shoulder as brothers do and pulls me through.
We arrive in the office in Valandor, and I don’t look back.
I can’t. I came to Rafe for a reason. To get my tongue back, not get myself mixed up in yet more drama I have no right being involved in.
If he wants to undo his marriage that’s a choice Rafe must make for himself, not for me.
Just like I’m choosing myself.