AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I love Levi, Teo, but that doesn’t mean I love you any less. Because I do, Teo. I love you.”
He stops his pacing and just stares at me.
“In all the times I fantasized about you saying those exact words to me, none of them ever included you saying you loved another man too.”
“I can’t control how I feel, Teo. I can’t just make it go away. Love doesn’t work like that.”
“You want to know what doesn’t work?” he counters, visibly upset. “Loving two kings at the same time. A heart isn’t something you share like that.”
Now I’m the one who is starting to get pissed off.
“Wait, so what happened to being free? Ever since I arrived here, you’ve been drilling into my head how free you and your people are, but this is a hard limit? So you’re telling me that a woman can share her body with innumerous men at the same time as long as her heart isn’t on the table? What kind of freedom is that if you are constricted in who you want to love?”
“It’s not the same thing.” Teo frowns.
“It is to me. I love you. I do. But I love Levi, too. And that’s just something we’ll have to deal with.”
“You can’t have us both, kitten. Levi will cut my throat before you even have the chance to ask,” he explains in a pained tone.
“I’m not talking about Levi here. I want to know where your heart lies.”
“With you. Always with you,” he says defeatedly, as if my love is both a gift and a curse.
I hold out my hands for him to take.
“Then isn’t that enough? For now at least?”
He bows his head and kisses the inside of my wrist.
“It will have to be.” He sighs. “But I won’t be making the journey west with you.”
“Teo—” I try to pull my hands away from him, but he keeps his hold.
“You spoke your truth, now please do me the courtesy of allowing me to speak mine. I won’t be following you west, not to hurt you or punish you for not choosing me. I’m not going because I prefer to remember you here… in our little slice of paradise. I’ve thought long and hard about this, kitten, and my mind is made up.”
My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach as if he’s already saying goodbye to me.
“Will you come up north once my visit with Atlas is over?” I ask, already dreading his response.
“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “I really don’t know.”
“What will happen to us then?”
He leans in and places a tender kiss on my temple.
“That, my queen, is a question only you can answer.”
Chapter 50
Katrina
I stand back as Anya and Inessa bid their tearful goodbyes.
“I’m going to miss you,” Inessa sobs in her friend’s ear.
“Don’t cry, Inessa. You’ll make me cry if you do. It will only be for a couple of months. Soon I’ll be back north with you,” Anya tries to console as her own tears stream down her cheeks.
They both hug each other tightly, neither one wanting to let go.
