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At least he no longer had to contend with that unwanted desire.
He'd weaned himself of his fixation. There was a tarnished nobility in him that wanted to believe he'd been able to let his want of Elise go because she had given her heart to another of his brothers - a brother-in-arms who would kill for her, die for her, just as she would for him. Tegan and Elise's love was unbreakable, and although Chase had never lowered himself to test it, the simpler truth was, his thirst for pain had since replaced Elise as the primary object of his obsession.
Yet he still found himself holding his breath as she drifted farther into the chapel and found him hunched in its back corner, his spine wedged into the angle of the stone walls. Silent, she walked the short distance between the two columns of wooden pews. At the one closest to where he crouched on the floor, she seated herself on the edge and merely stared at him. He didn't have to look over at her to know that her pretty face would be etched with disappointment. Probably pity as well.
"Maybe you didn't understand me," he said, little better than a snarl. "I don't want to talk to you, Elise. You should leave now."
"Why?" she asked, staying right where she sat. "So you can sulk in private? Quentin would be appalled to see you like this. He would be ashamed."
Chase grunted. "My brother is dead."
"Yes, Sterling. Killed in the line of duty for the Enforcement Agency. He died nobly, doing his best to make this world a safer place. Can you honestly say that's what you're doing?"
"I am not Quent."
"No," she said. "You're not. He was an extraordinary man, a courageous man. You could have been even better than him, Sterling. You could have been so much more than what I see before me right now. You know, I've heard how you are on missions lately. I've seen you come in like this too many times, torn up and volatile. So full of rage."
Chase stood up and stalked away from her a few paces, more than ready to be finished with the conversation. "What I do is my own business. It's none of your concern, nor am I."
"I see," she replied. She rose from the pew to approach him. She scowled, slender arms crossed over the front of her. "You'd rather everyone who cares about you simply left you to bleed alone, is that it? You want me and everyone else to just let you sit in a dark corner somewhere and feel sorry for yourself."
He scoffed and swung a hard glare on her. "Do I look like I'm feeling sorry for myself?"
"You look like an animal," she replied, her voice quiet but not so much so that he would mistake it for fear. "You're acting like an animal, Sterling. I look at you lately, and I feel like I don't even know you anymore."
He held her confused stare. "You've never known me, Elise."
"We were family once," she reminded him gently. "I thought we were friends."
"It wasn't friendship I wanted from you," he answered flatly, letting her absorb the frank admission he'd only had the balls to dance around politely until now. When she took a wary step back toward the open aisle, he chuckled, self-satisfied. "Feel free to run away now, Elise."
She didn't run.
That single backward step was all she allowed. Tegan's mate was no longer the sheltered waif who had pledged herself to Quentin Chase. She was a strong woman, had been through her own brand of hell and back, and she hadn't broken. She wasn't about to break for Chase now, no matter how forcibly he tried to push her out of his life.
As if to prove it to himself, he closed the distance between them.
He was filthy with blood and grime; even he could hardly stand the stench of himself. But despite the scant inch or two that separated him from Elise's pristine beauty, she didn't turn away. Her expression was one of sadness and expectation, even before he opened his mouth to say the words that would free him of this last fragile tether on his past.
"The only thing I ever wanted from you, Elise, was to spread your legs and - "
She slapped him hard across the face, a solid crack that echoed in the quiet of the chapel. Her pale purple eyes glittered in the candlelight, swimming with unshed tears. Not a single one fell, not for him.
Probably never again, by the stricken look she held on him.
Chase withdrew, a staggered step backward, the ringing bite of her hand still hot on his skin. He brought his fingers up to touch his stinging cheek.
Then, without another word or thought for what might lay ahead of him, he vanished from Elise's condemning stare - and fled up the chapel stairwell, into the wintry night outside - using all the speed his Breed genetics could offer him.
Corinne stood at the edge of a wide marble terrace patio that overlooked the snow-filled rear courtyard of the Order's estate on ground level. Alone for a moment while Gabrielle fetched coats for them inside the mansion, she tipped her head back on her shoulders to draw in a long breath of cold December air. The winter sky was dark and cloudless above her, a fathomless sea of midnight blue speckled with bright, glittering stars.
How long had it been since she'd smelled the crisp, faintly smoky scent of winter on the breeze?
How long since she'd felt fresh air against her cheeks?
The decades of her imprisonment had crept by slowly at first, in the days when she'd been determined to mark the time, fighting every second as though it may have been her last. After a while, she'd realized it wasn't her death her captor wanted. For his purposes, he'd needed her alive, even if barely. It was then that she'd stopped counting, ceased fighting, and her concept of time had blurred into a single, never-ending night.
And now she was free.
