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"This isn't about any of that," Rayne says, still glaring down at the other man. "It's about this prick having a chip on his shoulder."
Onyx rises from where he was sitting, and I swear the tension in the room grows tenfold. While Dusk I can trust enough to not start an all-out fight, I don't have the same faith in Onyx. If he gets involved in this, they're all going to end up hurt. And that's the last thing we need right now.
Lifting my chin and putting out my hands, I say, "Stop this right now! I'm not kidding!"
Onyx moves to stand near me, eyeing Rayne.
Dusk looks back at him, and Onyx signs something that I'm sure isn't good.
"You're right," Dusk says. "Maybe the dead man should go back to the main cave so we can all relax."
"No." Everyone looks at me. "You are not kicking him out of this cave. Because if he goes, I go too, and I don't want that. And I don't think you guys want that either.”
Dusk shakes his head, his expression one of disbelief. Like my words are a betrayal. “Let’s get out of here. I need some fucking air.”
They walk out of the cave without a backwards glance at either of us, and I have the miserable feeling that they think I was taking Rayne's side. I wasn't. I just don't want there tobea side. I don't want it to be me and Rayne versus them. We're on the same team. They just need to realize that, and Rayne's behavior isn't helping.
“Fuck, Rayne.” I’m torn between the man I know as my truest mate and the men who say I’m theirs.
He shrugs. "It's not my fault the beasts are so unreasonable."
I glare at him. "They're not beasts. They're men. Men who have saved my ass more times than I can count. Men who care about me."
His cocky demeanor falls away. "This is hard."
"I know." My gaze holds his. "But has anything ever been easy between us?"
"Between us? Yes." He gives a small smile. "It's the rest of the world that hasn't made our romance easy."
I wrap my arms around myself. "Rayne, you know I love you, and that I've missed you. Missed you more than words can say. But things are already hard enough. Can't you just make them easier?"
His face says it all. He knows he's fucked up. “Come here.” He holds out his hand and there’s nothing I can deny him, not after I lost him. Not after the hole he left in my heart.
I take his hand. He grabs some new blankets and lays them down by the fire. Then he sits down and pats the space next to him, all the tension gone from his body, from his expression.
I sit beside him, and he wraps an arm around my back as we stare into the crackling fire.
"I missed you so much," I admit.
He kisses the top of my head. "I missed you too."
I relax, closing my eyes, taking a moment to pretend we're not in the middle of the woods. Or in the middle of a war. Or that Rayne's existence has complicated things with Onyx, Dusk, and Phantom. I just lose myself, imagining that everything is back the way it once was.
He’s in Adrik’s body, but he’s Rayne. He smells like Rayne. Sounds like him. I’ve missed him with all the parts of myself that are responding to him right now, to the devastation of my loss, to the possibilities of his return.
Opening my eyes, I look at him, and he looks down at me, that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes. The one that always made me laugh. The one I imagined never seeing again. I kiss him and it’s perfection, soft and sweet and filled with happiness, just the way it always was, until he pulls back and puts his hands on my shoulders.
His sigh is loud in the silence of the cave. “Ann, I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to stay here.”
"What?" I was gone for a minute, lost in my fantasy, and his words are like a bucket of cold water.
"I'm a ghost. Ghosts don't stay around forever."
The fact that he’s back at all is a miracle I’ve only just begun to digest and he’s talking about leaving or not being around, which is the same in my head.Why? Why do we need to talk about that? Why do we need to think about it? Can't he just pretend along with me?
"One day, there's a good chance I'll be gone again."
“Don’t say that.” It feels like he's twisting a knife straight through my heart.
