My lower lip trembled.
Moira brushed her fingers over my back. “I'll give you a moment.”
She jerked her head at Garrett. His jaw tightened, but he gave her a sharp nod. They walked several feet back and waited.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come. There was so much I wanted to say, and yet, every time I tried before, Caelan would slap me down, shred my self-confidence, and the words would dry up.
He took a step outside the main house, his eyes still glowing.
My feet were rooted to the spot. I swallowed hard and watched him approach.
When he stood less than three feet away, he stopped. “Evie.”
“Caelan.” My voice cracked.
His gaze dropped to the spot in my chest where the mating bond rested. His eyes flared before he dragged them back to my face. At first, his face went completely blank, but then he sighed and tilted his head to the sky.
A tear welled at the corner of his eye. “Well,” he said, his voice a low rumble in the silence, “I've really fucked this up, haven't I?”
I couldn't say anything. He had. He really had. And now it was too late.
Another held my heart.
“I would have loved you forever,” I whispered. I'd said this to him before, but he'd always dismissed me, tossed my words aside like they were nothing.
This time, Caelan's jaw tightened. His nostrils flared and he nodded once, a sharp slice through the air. “I know. That's what makes this all feel so much worse.”
He exhaled. “I was so angry, Evie. I had all these things I wanted to say—vicious, terrible things. But when I saw you walk through those wards—” He cut himself off and ran a hand through his hair.
“When you walked through, shining and happy, that mating bond a beacon to every shifter within a mile, all those words dried up in my throat, and I felt…” He exhaled. “A horrific sense of loss. Something I'm not sure I'll ever recover from.”
We both expected for this meeting to end in a brawl, and part of wondered if we would both walk away at the end of this, but I had not expected this raw honesty from him.
Sometimes, events in your life burned a path right through your soul and nothing you did would make the wound heal. That was Caelan for me. Our relationship had been a meteor streaking through a starless sky—there one moment and burned out the next, only a lump of ash left when it was all over. He would always remain in my heart. I was not the type of woman who stopped caring about someone I'd loved as much as him.
But things were different now. And from the sadness in his eyes and the tightness in his jaw, Caelan realized it as well. There was no going back for us.
“I won't apologize for Rowan.” My voice was rough and husky. “I did not plan for him and made no preparations for what happened between us.”
Caelan's eyes burned with gold.
“He was my friend first and as much as I resisted what came after, I was as helpless to resist as the moon's call to gravity.”
He swallowed hard. “Few resist a mating bond,” he gritted out. “But yours isn't just a mating bond, is it, Evie?” His teeth flashed. “Leave it up to you two to forge something never seen before.”
The sadness in his words felt like a knife to my heart. Revealing Rowan was my fae mate as well would hint at something other in Rowan's heritage. Not my secret to tell, so I merely smiled. “Perhaps Chimera have their own form of bond, too.”
He took my words at face value. “As you can see, no mate has come to save me from myself.” Caelan swept his hands out across his property. “We've had no visitors except for the goddess who wanted to tear my heart out. But we have had an exodus of people.” His jaw tightened. “And I suppose I should scratch another's name off my list as my new Second hasn't returned and I no longer feel him through the bond.”
I winced. “He insulted the wrong person at the wrong time.” Not an apology, but an admission. We were well within our rights to answer such an assault with death, though I would have preferred to handle the slight another way. Garrett did not leave me time to process a thought, much less a new punishment.
Caelan sighed. “Unsurprising. Schute was an asshole.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder. “Garrett's doing?”
He already knew the answer. “He moves like lightning.”
Caelan nodded. “I've never seen anyone faster, not even with the Lords. I am surprised he stays with you when he could be Lord of his own territory.”
A scoff from behind. I had to catch myself from rolling my eyes. Of course they could hear us.
