AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You don’t understand.” Evelyn managed a small whisper.
Kade shook his head. “Perhaps. But I do understand there is something between us. My plan tonight was to come clean as well. To tell you who I am. The truth. And that I want to be with you—”
“We can’t be together.”
Kade stilled. “What?”
Evelyn swallowed, crossing her arms. “You have to understand—there are reasons I left.”
“Ah, yes . . . why did you? Because I still haven’t figured that out. From what I’ve seen, it’s not because you don’t care or aren’t a protector.”
Evelyn’s heart skipped a beat. She blinked back tears. “Kade . . .”
His brows furrowed and his voice came out small and weak, unlike she’d ever heard it before. “Did you leave because of me?”
“No.” Evelyn shook her head wildly. “No, I would’ve married you, had every intention of doing so.”
“Then come back with me, Evelyn. Please.” Kade stepped toward her and reached for her.
Evelyn retreated, backing away from his outstretched hands. “You don’t understand. I lost my flame!”
Her admission came out in a blurt, shame showering over her as her most coveted secret came to light.
Kade’s eyes widened. “No . . .” His brows scrunched together. “I’ve seen your flame. It’s magnificent—”
“It left me, Kade.” Tears made Evelyn’s voice break. “The day my parents died, it went out and I couldn’t reach it and . . . they died. I hadn’t wielded it in two years until the day at Castle Connacht only weeks ago.”
Kade’s sun-kissed skin had gone pale. “But it’s back.”
“No.” Evelyn paced, arms locked around her middle as the truths spilled from her. “It left me again at Lake Glenn. I barely got it back in time. Even now . . . I can’t feel it, Kade. It’s not a part of me like it used to be. Like the prophecy says.”
“That’s not possible.”
Evelyn scoffed and stopped dead in her tracks. “What’s not possible is my place in the prophecy. I can’t fulfill it without my flame. You and I both know that.”
Kade opened and closed his mouth. “We will figure it out. We can fix it.”
Evelyn blinked away the tears stinging her eyes. He didn’t say it outright, but she heard him loud and clear. Fix her. Fix her brokenness. Fix her lost flame, the power that differentiated her in the prophecy. She’d never told anyone for this very reason—seeing Kade’s judgment, his doubt, was worse than what she’d ever imagined…
“You don’t think I’ve tried?” Evelyn jabbed her finger into her chest. “For two years I’ve traveled to every temple, every library, everywhere, to figure out how to get it back. I don’t possess this Goddess-given gift foretold in the prophecy. I am not . . . I am not what Sorin needs. I can’t defeat the darkness.”
In two long strides, Kade was in front of her. He cupped her face in his hands, making her look at him. Evelyn held back tears, looking upon the man—no, the werewolf. The one she’d kissed in the rain. Drank whiskey with under the moon. Fought against demons with in a ruined castle.
Kade leaned his forehead against hers. “We won’t tell anyone. No one else has to know. Only you and me. Just us.”
The word us sent goosebumps up Evelyn’s arm, grasped at her magic, sounded like the chorus of peace and truth and joy all in one.
But as Kade’s suggestion sank in, Evelyn’s heart dropped. No one else has to know. He wanted to keep her lost flame a secret, and yes, Evelyn hadn’t told anyone, harboring it alone. Except going back home, pretending she was worthy of the prophecy, was different. Wrong. Shame wrapped around her bruised heart like a wretched thorny vine. Lying to the people of Sorin would only mean that there was something wrong with her, that Kade saw something wrong with her. Her lost flame would become a dirty little secret they kept to themselves, all while still putting their homeland at risk.
She pulled away from his embrace. “There can’t ever be an ‘us.’ What do you think will happen if vampyrs discover my flame leaves me?” Evelyn didn’t wait for Kade to answer. “After all this time, why did you even come after me?”
Kade threw out his hands. “I left to find you, to convince you to come back home. I just . . . I wanted to show you we could work together, that we could fulfill the prophecy and fulfill our duties.”
Convince. Duties. Prophecy. Evelyn’s stomach churned with bile.
“Do you not hear yourself, Kade? You came to look for me because of the prophecy. I can’t help you, not when my flame leaves me.”
Kade ran his hands through his hair. “And what is your plan, exactly? To keep running from your duty like you did two years ago?”
