Arabella didn’t move, her gaze unmoving as she stared down at her hands. I gripped the back of my chair, leaning over the table to yell at her, but she held up her hand. “I know the catastrophic losses that will occur today. Hell, I’ve seen Lachlan’s armies. There is no winning this war, Kalen. Not anymore. Helia is a lost cause. Aethion is a lost cause.”
“Then why did you bring me here? Why did you drag me with you when everyone I care about was left behind to be sacrificed? We have to fight!” She flinched as my words landed amongst the tension, but she still didn’t move.
“Because we cannot win,” she whispered again, tears springing to her eyes. “Because I was trying to make things right—tosaveyou.”
“I don’t need to be saved,” I spat. “I never asked for that, and certainly not from you.”
Rage filled her honey eyes, the darkness in them swirling around her irises. “You would ask me to stand by and watch you die while I do nothing?”
“It would be fitting, wouldn’t it? For you to putmydeath behind you after what you’ve put me through for the past one hundred years.” I shook my head, running my hand through the strands. I was hardly holding on to myself and my anger. “Did you think I would thank you for allowing everyone else to die? Or perhaps that it would force me back into your arms?”
Arabella stood in one powerful motion, the chair falling behind her with a thud that could have rocked the small cabin. “You don’t get to monopolize grief, Kalen. You are not the only one who has suffered over the past century! Leaving you was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done, harder than walking away from my sister—my own flesh and blood!” She barked a cruel laugh. “Even on the days I wasn’t in my right mind, when Lachlan clouded my memories with sadness and forced me to relive the worst days of my life, Istillthought of you—of where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with. Gods, you consumed me, Kalen. Every day and every night.” And then her arms looped around my neck, and she pulled me into a devastating kiss.
It was everything I’d ever wished for, and everything I knew I couldn’t have. She coaxed my mouth open with the soft prod of her tongue against my lips to deepen the kiss. My heart pounded inside my chest, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of fear or adrenaline. There was a fine line between the two, as far as I was concerned. It didn’t take long to wrap her in my arms and pull her body to mine. Her lips tasted like tears, the salty presence not deterring either of us as we devoured one another.
I leaned forward, my hands sliding under her ass and lifting her into my arms. She moaned softly at the way my fingertips dug into her skin, holding her body so tight, as if she’d disappear before my very eyes. I sat her gently on the table, our kisses turning soft, though our grip on one another never lessened. I’d waited one hundred years to kiss her again, and here she was in my arms as if time had never passed. It was natural. Simple, even. And even though I never wanted it to end, I had to make it stop.
With a gentleness I didn’t know I was capable of, I pulled myself back. She rested her forehead on my heaving chest, clinging to my body. I ran my hand up and down her spine, relishing the feel of her and forcing myself not to ravish her here on the table. There was no time for this—for useless fights that would only cause us to go around in circles, or for us to lose ourselves in one another’s embrace.
“I have to go back,” I whispered. “My family needs me. Those people need me, the ones who can’t defend themselves, and even the ones who can. I can’t walk away from them.”
I extricated myself from her, but she clutched my arm. Her claws dug into the skin, cutting into me.
“Wait!” she exclaimed. “Please, just wait. I can’t—I can’t lose you again, Kalen. Please don’t go,” she cried. “I’m sorry. I’m so godsdamned sorry.”
Her small frame shuddered against mine, sobs forcing excruciating cries from her chest. She could barely breathe, color staining her cheeks as she hyperventilated. Her chest rose and fell in rapid beats, horror-filled eyes meeting mine. “I can’t lose you again, Kalen. I can’t go through another hundred years of this incessant pain clawing at my chest.”
I watched her, unsure of what to do or say. Where did this leave us? Where were we supposed to go from here? None of that mattered, though. Not when the people I loved were going to die. I couldn’t stand by and let that happen.
I placed my fingertips underneath her chin, tilting her head up. Golden eyes glistened, genuine horrors swimming in their depths of things I could never comprehend. “I have to go back, Bella. I can’t live a life knowing I hid away while those I loved were butchered. If they are lost, then I will be lost with them.”
“But what about us?” she pleaded. “We could run away, start over somewhere far away. Kalen, we could have the life we always dreamed about. Please don’t ask me to take you back there.”
“What kind of life could we live if we let everyone perish? I can’t have that on my soul, Arabella. And I won’t sit idly by and wait for this world to go to hell. Do you think Lachlan will stop at Helia? At Aethion?” Realization dawned , and I knew she understood.
Lachlan would never stop. He was power hungry, and this was only the beginning. He wouldn’t stop until the world was under his command.
“I would never ask you to die for my friends, but I ask that you take me back and allow me to fight at their side. You know I’ll find a way, eventually. And I may be too late, but I will not leave them to suffer alone.”
She wrapped her hands around my middle, placing her head on my chest. I could feel her heart thrumming through her skin. “If I go back, there’s a chance he will force me to do terrible things, Kalen. Our broken bond is fragile. He could draw me in with little effort.”
“You don’t have to go, Arabella. I’d never ask that of you—”
“I’m not leaving your side again. Not until you force me to leave.” She looked up at me, hardly a trace of darkness swirling within her eyes. It was the clearest they’d been since I’d found her again. She’d said it with such conviction, it was hard to argue.
I didn’t know where this life would take me, or what would happen between us if we survived the day, but I knew one thing with absolute clarity.
Arabella and I were bound to one another, our fates intertwined, and if one of us went down, then the other would surely follow.
Chapter35
Damien
Empty. Hollow. Aching.
No matter how hard I tried, I could never escape this unending agony. They consumed my every waking thought, often dragging me from sleep when the nightmares became too much.
Today was no exception.
