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Our gazes locked, and my wolf surfaced, shaking off his bonds. He fed off Vin’s anger.
“And what about when I’m gone? Have you thought past the next years?”
“What if you don’t fucking die?”
There it was. I didn’t know how to break him of this delusion.
“Fine. I’ll be fucking generous and say I’ll live a full life. It still wouldn’t be more than a few decades. What if I made it to a hundred? How fucking long will you live after that? Hundreds of years. Until the fucking planet explodes. Until you kill yourself. Will you want everyone to know you loved one of my kind? Will you want that mark to follow when I’m gone? I don’t think so. I think of you and only you. How this will affect your life after I’m gone. Because if there was only me to consider, I’d do it right fucking now. I’d show the world who you belong to. I don’t give a fuck that you’re not a wolf.” My chest heaved, and my heart hammered in my ears.
Wrong time to lose my temper, with the summer solstice so close and the call of my wolf at the surface. Too much magic in the air to restrain him. I bit back the change, clawing into my human skin, long enough at least to finish this argument.
My words hadn’t seemed to calm him. Like he’d taken everything I’d said and twisted it to fit his narrative.
“For a man who told me to wait for his next life as much as you did, you think so little of me that you believe I won’t come to find you wherever your soul settled? I found you once, and if you exist, I will find you again. Even if you don’t come back to this world I will find you.” He shook his head. The disappointment creased his brow and pressed into the firm line of his lips.
“How we don’t know what exists after this and if it does and if I follow Fenrir to the underworld how will you chase me? Killing yourself for a maybe?” One life was enough. I was tired. I couldn’t face another, and it felt like not wanting more time was also letting him down. There was no winning here. I couldn’t make everyone happy.
He fisted a hand in my shirt. Anger was not the reaction I expected. “I knew before you walked the earth, your soul was bound to mine, and I know this life won’t be enough.” He believed this, truly, in his bones.“Where ever you go I will be able to feel you, and I will find you, I can promise you this. One life will never be enough with you.”
I ignored the hand in my shirt, lifting my own to brush the place on his neck my mark would go. “Then what do you care about a mark?”
“That’s what you’re not understanding. I refuse to give in to your line of thinking. I will not indulge your fantasies of an end. This can’t be it for us. I will bind myself to you in every way possible because you are it for me. There is no one else. You are everything.”
“I know. There will never be anyone else for me.”
“Me, either. So I want you to stay. Don’t will yourself away from me so fast. Choose to stay.” His voice was raw, and it hurt more than his claws ever could.
“I’m not willing, I’m accepting.” I shoved him for the insinuation.
“You’re treating it like a fucking fantasy that will save you. You’ve let the words of some old woman seal your fate. I just want you to pick us for once.” Vin released me and dropped his hands to his sides. “Stop promising me bullshit.”
“I am choosing us. I am here. I am claiming you as my mate. I’m trying to save you suffering so you can be with someone else when I’m gone.” I held back my emotions. I couldn’t do this today. The veil was too thin.
“You wrap yourself in a fantasy so you don’t have to face this reality. Our reality. You deny me the things I ask for and claim some fictional lie to yourself about me moving on to give yourself an excuse to feel better about dying. I’m fucking tired of it, Dominic.”
“Fuck you. My people are as old as yours. You think we’d know.”
He straightened up. “No, that’s where you’re wrong. Your kind is young. Reborn, maybe, but they don’t retain memories while mine do. We stay. We keep records. We watch. My kind had the forethought to stay out of your war. But you all return.”
“We can go in circles about this all day. It’s faith neither of us can prove one way or the other.” I deflated.
“If we only have even half a year left, I want it. All of it.” There was conviction in his words. He believed them even if I did not. “To the fullest extent of us. All of it. The rituals. The mark. I want everything we’ve denied ourselves.”
“I’m trying to use this life like it’s the only one I get. To keep the promises I made to my people before I knew you existed. I’m going to love you like this is it. This is the time I get to show you. I don’t want to pretend I have time I’m not guaranteed. I want to give it to you here and now.” It was as honest as I could be with him, and I hoped it was enough.
“Then why would you deny me your mark?” His words hurt.
“I never denied you. I was trying to explain why you might not want it.”
He turned his head, and it felt like a blade sliding between my ribs. “No, you told me it was for my own good, like that would be better.”
“I didn’t tell you any such thing. I thought about it and then shared my thoughts when you pressed. I’d never deny you anything you wanted,” I told him with all the conviction in my chest.“I want you in this life and every one after. I’m trying to make the rest of your life easier, not deny you.”
“I don’t want easy. I want you. I want you to fight for every minute with me. I want you to fight for me as hard as you fight for your people.” He closed his eyes, his body wracked with sorrow.
I stepped into his space. “I’m sorry I’ve ever made you feel like I don’t choose you. I am choosing you. I’ll do my best. If life is afforded to me, it’s yours.” I closed my eyes, wanting to believe it, but it felt impossible. “I won’t waste what we have left.”
“Thank you.” The words were so faint I wasn’t sure if he’d said them or if it was the wind whistling past my ears, playing tricks.
