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"The fact that you think I only love one part of you makes me want to force feed you untoasted marshmallows, Malakai Virex."
I made a face, already feeling the gross non-melty texture on my tongue. "Anything but that, my rose."
"I love every fucking part of you," she went on as if I never spoke, her voice rough and coarse with a sexy little growl in it. "There's not a single part of you I don't love, so I don't care if you need space to process your grief, or if you need me closer than ever, or if you need to plan an emotional support bank robbery. Just—tell me what you need."
"I thought we were banned from crime and fights," I pointed out dryly.
"I'll break the rules for you," she replied quickly, her face softening, her stormy eyes big and bright with pain—my pain. "I'll break every rule for you."
My breath caught. I lifted a hand, skimming my knuckles along her jaw and trying so fucking hard not to fight the burning in my eyes. I was terrified to let the emotion out. It would run through me like a hurricane and leave only wreckage but—Haley needed me to be open. So I unclenched my jaw, let out a ragged exhale, and allowed a scalding tear free on my next blink.
"If I—" I began but didn't know how to put my fear into words. Haley's fingers ran through my hair, gentle now. "If I accept that you're back, if I let all this shit festering in my chest out—there's no going back, there's nothing to protect me, I'll be weak and exposed and—I'm fucking scared, Haley. I'm scared to lose you and scared to die because I won't survive losing you a third time, and I'm scared what losing us both will do to our family and I'm just—I—"
A tear burned a hot line down my cheek, and I screwed my eyes shut when Haley kissed it away, her lips lingering on my skin.
"If I don't talk about this, I don't have to face it. I don't have to admit that we're damned, and there's no doubt something else will come to kill us. If I lock everything inside, I can pretend we'll be fine, I'll never lose you and—"
I throttled the words in my throat.
"I can't help you," she finished, kissing my other cheek. "If you don't talk about it. The pain won’t go away, but you'd have to face it alone. I'm your mate, Kai. This is the whole point of my existence; to help you shoulder your burdens and kick the shit out of your problems and make you happy when the whole world falls apart. I'm your mate, Kai."
I tipped my head back against the shower wall, releasing a hard breath. She was my mate—and I was hers. It was my job to protect her and make her happy, too.
I feathered my thumb across her cheek and felt it like a kick to the stomach when her eyes welled. "So how do we kick the shit out of my problems when we're not allowed to kill the bastard who created them?"
"We do the opposite. We stay very fucking far from him. We never see him again."
"I want him to suffer," I confessed, forcing myself to speak my thoughts. "I want to torture him, over and over, until he screams and cries and feels even one iota of the torment I've felt since I lost you. No, fuck that—since Aphrodite kidnapped you on his obvious command. He owes too much for me to let it lie."
Haley dropped her gaze. "You sound like I did when I got us killed, when I pushed for us to kill Locke before he could hurt us. We can't do that again."
I sighed, the wind knocked swiftly from my sails.
"No," I agreed. "We can't."
Everything started that day. Locke killed us, separating us from Haley, from Wane, creating Wynvail to trick us into freeing the titan bastard from his prison, leading to everything that happened in Olympus. Every nightmare that had happened could be traced back to the trap Locke sprang around us in the Damned Realm.
Another rough breath punched out of my lungs. I felt the humanity returning to me, the numbness wearing off completely until I just felt weak. Hollow and broken and weak.
"So, no revenge," I said, settling my arms around my mate again and allowing myself to appreciate that she was warm and solid under my hands. I'd never been a coward, so why was I so scared to fully embrace her? Why was I holding back? It wouldn't protect me. It wouldn't make it hurt any less if she was ripped away from me. "What do we do instead?"
Her shoulders slumped, and I realised my rose had walls of her own up when all her fierce protectiveness gave way to something weary and exhausted and sad. Her pain pressed on my soul, compounding my own, but she had five souls full of grief and agony in her chest.
"Make pancakes? Beef stew? Spaghetti?" she suggested, so tired it was hard to hear.
I pulled her against my chest and squeezed tight, curving my hand around the back of her head and dropping a long kiss in her hair. "You unknowingly entered into a bargain by making me talk about my grief," I told her, dropping my next kiss on the beautiful arch of her black wing.
"I did?"
"Mm," I agreed. "You're now bound by the terms and conditions of our bargain to let out your own emotions. I know you're holding back because you're worried about all of us, but you're carrying our grief on top of your own suffering. There's no way death magically wiped away all your stress of being imprisoned and then fighting for your life. You're still in survival mode, no matter how well you're hiding it, and I'm willing to bet your emotions are even more fucked up by killing yourself and then coming back. Correct me if you're wrong."
She sniffled, and my heart lurched when hot tears met my shoulder, scalding compared to the now-balmy warmth of the shower.
"I'm tired of fighting, Kai. I'm tired of feeling scared and exhausted and waiting for the next god or monster to show up and attack us. I've had enough."
I stroked down her wings with slow, gentle touches, choking back my own agony at her words. They made me murderous, made me want to hunt down everyone who'd ever harmed her, cut them apart, and rip all their organs out through the gaping slashes.
"Definitely beef stew," I said when I'd controlled my rage. "You need comfort food. So stew, dumplings, and let's have spaghetti, too. Fuck it. We can have pancakes, cake, and ice cream for dessert."
