Marcus began to weep. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it. I’m— I’ve beenblindsided!”
Kallie huffed. “Charlie’s blind. You’re just a fucking moron.”
Marcus dropped to his knees. “You can’t leave me, Kallie! We’re mates. We’re?—”
“Don’t,” she warned. “We’re not mates anymore. I don’t have any obligation to you. I’m never going to let you touch me again.”
Sobs broke from Marcus’ chest, and he turned into a blubbering fool at her feet. “I’m sorry. I’ll do anything. I can change! Just give me one last chance.”
“You had your chance. You didn’t want commitment, so I gave you exactly what you wanted.”
Marcus wailed. “I didn’t want this!”
“Marcus…” I started, but he turned on me.
“Leave me alone,” he snapped. “How could you do this?”
“You couldn’t make up your mind. Kallie wanted this, and it’d be wrong of me to say no. I didn’t do this to hurt you. I did this to help her,” I replied.
Marcus got to his feet. He stood so close to me I thought he might try to throw another punch.
Instead, he sneered, “You know what, Charlie? I thought you were like my brother, but you’re no brother of mine. Now that you’ve done this, you mean nothing to me. Just… go to hell.”
I gaped at him. How could he say that after everything we’d been through? How could he throw our friendship away, when he was the one who’d caused all this in the first place?
Marcus shoved past me. His footsteps echoed down the hall as he ran away. I turned to go after him, but Ava grabbed my wrist.
“Let me,” she offered. “You’re the one who broke the bond. I need to be the one to talk to him, because he won’t listen to you right now.”
My shoulders sagged. I wanted to be there for my friends— both of them— but it seemed impossible, and that was more than devastating. To help one friend, I had to hurt another. There’d been no good way to solve this, and the damage had been done. This was a permanent decision, and now, it was over with. The only thing left to do was pick up the pieces.
Ava followed Marcus, and Oberi flew behind her. Silence settled over the balcony until Kallie turned to me.
“Thank you, Charlie,” she said in a stronger voice than I’d heard her use all night.
“Are you sure this is what you wanted?” I asked.
“Yes. This was the right decision.”
“How is this going to affect your powers?” I asked. “I know fae magic is closely linked to their mating bond.”
“Now that the bond is broken, my powers won’t be as strong as before, but it’s worth it,” she admitted. “I’m certain I wouldn’t be able to time travel right now, but I’ll be able to once I recover. My demigod magic will regenerate my powers eventually. It just…sucksthat I never got to see how strong I could really be, because Marcus and I never secured our bond in the first place.”
“You’re strong without him,” I told her. “You don’t need him to be everything you were born to be.”
“I know. I’m glad for it.”
Then Kallie did something unexpected… she pulled me into a hug. Tears rolled down her face and soaked into my shirt. “Thank you so much.”
I hugged her back. “I’m really sorry, Kallie. I wished this could’ve ended in a different way.”
“Don’t be. I know I made the right choice,” she whispered. “Now, I’m finally free.”
Chapter Ten
AVA-MARIE
This was a fucking disaster. And I’d been involved in enough shit shows to know when things were going south, and when things had ended up in the pits of hell, and this was absolutely the second one.
