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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Stephanie
Iknew I was pushinghim. Maybe even too hard. But there was no turning back now. We’d come this far and we had to see it through.
Errok’s shoulders shook with his ragged breaths. His sight stars were going wild – a tempest of broken starlight turning everything to chaos. His lips twitched, his fangs flashing, and his arms shook as he dug his claws into the bed.
We were at a breaking point. I could feel it. If he turned away, now, if he pushed me away again and retreated into his shield of bravado, I wasn’t sure we’d ever find our way back to this place.
It has to be now.
I knew he was afraid. Because I was, too. Just like I’d told him. I was terrified that he would back away from me. That I’d never again get a glimpse at his deepest inner truth. That I’d never get a chance to really learn to love him. And I was even more terrified of just how wrapped up in him I’d become. It had happened so fast, and I was still reeling. Free-falling through the winds of his storm.
I held onto him more tightly, needing to anchor myself to him. One arm stayed tightly looped around his neck. The other moved down until my hand was once again over the place his wound had been. His heart beat, strong and hard, under my touch.
“Where does it hurt?” I asked again.
He gave a broken moan against my throat. I expected him to say “Nowhere,” again.
But he didn’t.
“Everywhere.”
“Errok...”
My mouth searched for his, but he drew back a fraction of an inch. It was as if now that he’d started talking about his feelings, he couldn’t stop.
“It hurts everywhere because you are everywhere,” he rasped. I jolted when his hands clasped against my waist. “You are all I can see. All that matters. But I’m scared of losing you the way my father lost my mother. And I’m even more scared that I’ll never even have you to lose in the first place. I’m scared that no matter what I do, it will never be enough. All my instincts have led me astray. Everything I thought I knew of love has been crushed under your little foot and all I can think to do is lie down and ask you to crush me again. And that is terrible. And it is wrong. Because I am a warrior – a Gahn – and this is not the way.”
“Then what is the way?” I whispered, fighting back tears at his onslaught of tumbling emotion.
“You are supposed to rely on me and me alone. I should always be strong for you.”
“We’re supposed to rely on each other,” I told him softly.
He made a bitter sound. “Have you ever once had to rely on me? Have you ever evenoncecome close to needing me?”
I hadn’t. I knew I hadn’t. Being independent was important to me, and I’d needed him to know that I wasn’t going to let him stomp into my life and rule it. But at the same time, I now knew I’d been hurting him the same way he’d hurt me when he’d told me not to sleep in his cave anymore. He’d never gotten the chance to take care of me, to be strong for me, because every time he’d tried in his over-the-top (and often offensive) ways, I’d essentially slapped his hand for doing so. In some ways, he’d really needed that hand-slapping. But in others... In others, I realized he was doing his best with the meager tools he had. He thought I’d love him back when he met me, and I didn’t. He thought the things his culture valued – strength, pride, and masculinity on steroids – would woo me. But they hadn’t. Just as he’d said, every instinct had led him astray. And left him utterly adrift.
“Well, I need you now, Errok,” I told him. “And I need you to know that opening up and telling me how you feel is a sort of strength. I think you’re stronger now, in this moment, than I’ve ever seen you before.”
His fingers tightened on my waist.
