Page 78 of Those That Defy the Realm

“I… I can’t… I need time to process this.” Claire turns, heading towards the door.

Rory is immediately on her feet to follow, and I’m right at her back trying to get to my girlfriend.

She’s spiralling and I don’t know which way to turn. This is a situation where I could easily coerce her. But I realise that she may have seen my words as ambivalence. I know her fucking ex made her believe she’s not worth the time, not worth wanting forever with. Does she still think that about me and Ash? That we’re only with her because she will only be temporary in our lives, even if we’re in the majority of hers?

Fuck.

“Claire, wait,” I call after her.

She doesn’t stop. I follow her through the outside door and manage to slip around both females when we’re in the open space, using a burst of my supernatural speed.

“Claire, please. I love you.” I hold a hand out to halt her but don’t touch her. “I want to be with you. I just want this to be your choice, and no matter what you choose I will still love you.”

“Henry, please just let me leave. I want to go home and think about it. Alone.” Her final word punches me in the chest.

Watching on as she walks away from me takes a strength I didn’t know I possessed to remain rooted to the spot. My fangs extent, the voice in my head is pure vampire. Don’t let her leave. Claim. Mine.

“I’ll take her home,” Rory says, appearing at my side. She touches my arm gently, no doubt finding it hard as granite with how much I’m tensing every muscle in my body. “Let me talk to her.”

My gaze breaks from Claire’s back to the red headed female at my side. My friend. My leader. But is she someone I trust enough with this?

Blinking, I shake some sense into myself. Yes, of course I trust Rory in this. Rory knows what it’s like to have this bombshell dropped on her. I might be turned but my circumstances were wholly different. For me, it was to become a vampire or die on the battlefield.

For Claire it’s about giving up a perfectly good life. Rory might have had it forced on her, but she went through the same thing of finding out that her entire lineage wasn’t who she thought they were.

“Please.” It's the only word I can manage. But I think Rory feels the weight behind it, of how much my future, all our futures, ride on this. We’re suddenly at a huge fork in the road and I don’t know which path we’re going to be heading down.

Rory doesn’t wait for me to say anything else, and I watch as she runs off after her friend. I wait until I see the car, with Rory at the wheel, driving down the track, followed by a second vehicle with two others of the pack, before I return to the out house.

“Are you okay?” Antares asks as I slump back on the couch.

“What do you think?” I growl at him.

Antares holds his hands up in a surrendering motion. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have brought up the human thing. It just seems simple to me. You all want to be together, so why wouldn’t you want that for as long as possible.”

“I do!” I snap at him again. “But I’m not about to force this existence on her. It’s not exactly an easy life having to hide what you are from the world. Even more so considering she’s female.”

“I’d like to see anyone take her from you and Ash.” Antares laughs.

On that front, he is one hundred percent correct. Human or vampire, I’ll kill anyone who harms her in any way or tries to take her away from me. I’ve not felt the murderous side of myself in decades, since the war ended. Even the fight to take out Ty’s old pack was a means to an end, but the thought of other vampires trying to claim Claire if she turns makes me want to peel their skin from their bodies.

“They wouldn’t get near her.”

“See, simple. Turn her, mate her—and him—and then live happily ever after.” Antares makes it sound so simple.

“Only if she wants that.”

“Urgh.” Antares stands in exacerbation. “Fine, I guess free will is a thing. I’m telling you, it's highly overrated.”

Pulling my sternest face, I let him know my feelings on that subject. “You don’t mean that.”

“No, of course I don’t. But wouldn’t it make everything easier. We could all just follow the paths that fate throws at us and trust that it’ll all work out.”

This time I laugh, because he is right. Somehow, we’ve both now found ourselves in a situation where fate has intervened and we have no control over it. “Things not going well with Atlas, I take it?”

“He’s almost the entire way across the continent right now, what do you think?”

“Isn’t he there as Ty’s bodyguard?”