It’s said so quietly, so low, that I know no one else could have heard him. But it shatters my entire heart and soul anyway. My own eyes well up with tears, and I rest my cheek against his chest and listen as his heart breaks into a million little pieces.
“I’m going to miss you, Julie,” I murmur. “I’ll never miss anyone as much as I’m going to miss you.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, Jeremy is grabbing Julian by the shoulders, pulling him toward the door.
“What? No! Hey—wait! Atlas, listen, I can help! Please,pleaselet me stay with you!” He’s pleading now, desperate as he struggles against his father.
But Jeremy manhandles his son, pulling him further away as he thrashes.
I can feel the hot tears as they run down my face; Julian’s eyes never leave mine. As Oscar opens the front door, allowing Jeremy to pull Julian through, he continues to beg.
“I’ll have Oscar deliver your things,” Father says over the sound of Julian’s shouts. “I’ll send you an address—there is a little house in town that I own, and you can stay there until you sort everything out.”
Jeremy just nods, his face solemn as he drags Julian away.
The last thing I hear as the heavy wooden door slams shut is Julian’s final cry: “Atty, please. Don’t let them do this.”
Silence engulfs the inside of Chastain Castle. A minute or two later, the sound of tires against gravel sounds from outside, but from within the walls is a deafening quiet that makes my head spin.
Julian is gone. He’s gone.
“Atlas,” my mother calls, approaching me hesitantly. Her gaze is knowing and sad, as if she, too, can feel my devastation. “It’ll be okay.”
“Don’t fret, darling. We’ll find the cure and fix everything,” Father chimes in, smiling from where he’s standing a few feet away.
But I don’t care about that right now. All I care about is the fact that Julian is gone, and that gauze over his eye and his horrible cries are the last I’ll see of him.
“Alright,” I whisper.
I know there is a high probability that I will never escape this incubus; in fact, I knew this even as Julian was still here. The information was just easier to bear with him by my side.
My eyes flick back to the closed front door, my heart aching.
It feels as if a piece of me will remain here forever, shattered and bleeding out on the floor where Julian stood, right at his feet.
Mother was right; I love him. I love him so fucking much that not having him here, even as it’s for the best, might just kill me before this curse ever does.
Julian
25
I AM DEVASTATED. THEREis no other word for the emotion coursing through me.
I knew there was a possibility that I would never get to fuck Atlas again—he could be so finicky, and nothing was ever set in stone. But I guess I never considered that there would be a chance that I wouldn’t have himat all. That I would be forced away from Chastain Castle.
Well, that’s untrue. I knew the moment I touched him that our involvement could end this way. But not because I was protecting him; not because I carethat fucking much.
I am being punished for cherishing him.
I’m being tossed aside because I have feelings for him that suffocate and scar me.
I should be there. I should have Atlas tucked under my arm twenty-four-seven, his entire being constantly within my line of sight. No one else is going to do it, clearly. They let him rot in that tower with that bastard touching him endlessly.
I will never be able to stomach it, to forgive his family for that, no matterwhattheir reasoning may be.
Every time I close my eyes, I see it: I see the terror and disgust on Atlas’s face as he took in the incubus’s appearance for the first time.
There is no way he will enjoy it now. That semi-peaceful limbo he has existed in, where he could stomach this curse due to the pleasure he received, has been shattered and stubbed out.
