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Clearing my throat, I dug my fingers into my eyes, rubbing away the sudden sting, activating images of smoking pelts and the rancid stench of seared meat.
I doubted I would ever get such smells and memories out of my mind.
Use them.
Wield them.
If I continued drowning in death, perhaps then I would have the endurance to kick Eleanor from my shores before Drake arrived.
Dropping my hands, my gaze caught Eleanor’s.
She stood in a simple teal sundress that skated around her knees. Her hair hung in seaweed coils over her shoulders. Her lips were swollen from mine. Her nipples still pebbled beneath the dress.
But it was her eyes that gutted me.
Those incredible silver eyes that’d once haunted my dreams and now doomed my future.
She knew.
She always knew.
She knew the moment she met me that I was hers just as I knew she was mine.
No matter what lies I fed her. No matter what fiction I tried to sell as fact, she would argue and defeat each one.
We could battle for hours, days, years.
We could battle until we found ourselves at a fucking altar, promising to live and die together.
The flash of her in a white dress with bare feet and an orchid in her hair, walking in the shallows of my shores, coming to marry me on my beach.
Fuck, I could barely stand.
My stomach fisted into an agonising ball.
She couldn’t hate me for this.
After all, I had warned her.
I warned her so many fucking times that loving me was not a wise choice.
Her dress swayed around her knees as she moved toward me. My own knees threatened to send me crashing to the floor. The fact that she wore clothing and I wore nothing kept me extra exposed: a man with nothing else to play but still determined to somehow win.
“Sully…” Her eyes sprung with tears, knowing without words everything I thought. “Stop.” She cupped my cheek, making me flinch. “Stop torturing yourself with lies you know are pointless.”
I captured her wrist, pulling her touch away. “They’re not pointless if they achieve what I need.”
“What you need is me.”
I huffed miserably. “What I need is for you to be free.”
“I am free.” She smiled sadly. “I’m free because I’m with you.”
Skittles and Pika flew into the wardrobe, bravely venturing to see if the aggressive lust between us had dispersed. The aggression might’ve faded, but our lust would never dim. It existed between us in every stare, sigh, and stroke.
Fuck…I can’t do it.
You have no choice.
Arming myself against the perfect image of Eleanor as Skittles descended trustingly onto her shoulder, I swallowed back my heartbreak.
Pika chirped, sensing my despair, and landed on my head despite my wet hair. He tugged at my strands, making my heart bleed harder.
I would still have one thing that loved me.
I’d survived my entire life with just a parrot’s love.
I could survive again.
Balling my hands, I said as coldly and as carefully as I could, “Our time is over, Eleanor. I won’t disrespect you by lying. I won’t stand here and attempt to make you believe I never loved you. But I will demand loyalty and obedience. I’m not asking, I’m telling. You are leaving tonight. You may remember me, but you will never see me again.”
I braced myself for her tirade.
I held an invisible crutch so I wouldn’t fall into a worthless beggar at her feet.
But a fist hammered on the door, real life intruded, and the clock finished its final countdown.
Tearing my gaze from hers, I cupped my cock for decency and stormed to face my fate.
Chapter Eight
PAIN.
There were different levels of it. Different methods of it. Different versions of different reasons full of different deliveries.
But this pain?
The pain Sully had just punctured me with?
I couldn’t breathe around it. I couldn’t see beyond it. I’d honestly never felt such catastrophic, claustrophobic…
Pain.
Not because I believed he didn’t love me. Not because he’d dishonoured me by trying to make me swallow a lie. But because he was resolute, resigned…deadened to his decision and already suffering the accompanying agony.
He can’t do this.
He can’t end us.
It was unthinkable.
Stumbling forward, I clutched the doorframe as Sully marched naked with Pika on his head to answer the door. For anyone else, the image would be comical. For Sully, it made him all the more royal. All the more regal and untouchable.
Keeping his hand between his legs, he swung open the door, his back straight, his muscles locked.
A guard I’d seen lurking around the gardens during my weeks here bowed his head in respect. “Your clothes, courtesy of Mr. Moor.”
Sully took the bundle. “Tell him thanks. His inability to keep his nose out of other people’s business has proven to be convenient.”
The guard nodded. “He also advised that the men are at their posts. We’re ready.” Pulling something from his waistband, he placed it on top of Sully’s clothing. His eyes didn’t stray from his boss’s face; the fact that he was nude didn’t seem to faze him. “Your weapon, sir.”
