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How was I supposed to leave the lodge the next day and go on acting as if I wasn’t missing a whole, damn part of myself?
“Darius?”
I folded her tighter against me. “Yeah, baby?”
She was quiet for a long moment, long enough that I raised my head. Her warm, brown eyes rose to meet mine and the shadows in them tightened the muscles in my gut.
“We need to talk.”
I stroked back a wisp of hair off her cheek, letting my fingers linger.
“What is it?” I asked.
She returned the gesture, her cool fingers skimming the curve of my cheek down to graze my jaw. She traced the line down to my chin. Her beautiful face was so thoughtful, painfully so, as if whatever she was about to confess into the universe would break her heart.
“The day after tomorrow,” she whispered so low I almost didn’t hear her. “When we leave here and go back.”
I hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Talking about it made it real, like it wasn’t something inevitable and I could simply stop it by ignoring it. I knew the responsible thing to do was have that conversation, to iron out the fine lines of our situation, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Even after she’d gone to the island with the girls and I had the lodge to myself for hours, wandering it aimlessly, wandering the surrounding forest, debating joining them just across the lake, I couldn’t plan a future without her in it. My very soul had refused. Yet every version of her staying with me, standing by my side resulted in losing her in a horrificand tragic scenario that ripped at my heart. In every version, the conclusion had always been the same — it was better having her in my life at a distance than not having her in the world at all. That was the only way.
I nodded. “Okay?”
She drew in a breath to steel herself against whatever conclusion she’d come up with. “I did some thinking while I was out with the girls today and I think I finally understand that…” she licked her lips, eyes focused on the hollow of my throat as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet my eye, “that this is how it has to be, right?” Her eyes were pleading and hurting when they carefully lifted to mine, and I fucking hated it. “This is what’s best.”
“What do you mean, Kami?”
“I’m not like you and Lavena, and the girls. I’m not … Liya,” she dropped her gaze again, missing the furrowing of my brows, “your world and mine are different and I don’t want to be a liability.”
I caught her chin and lifted her face to mine. The jostle dislodged a tear and it slid down her cheek.
“What are you talking about?”
She sniffled. “I’m a danger to you.”
I could only stare at her, bemused.
“I make you vulnerable,” she went on quietly in a flat, logical tone I really didn’t like.
“You think you make me vulnerable?”
She raised wet eyes to my face. “Don’t I? You’ll always worry about me, worry if I’m safe, worry if I’m late or if I don’t get to my phone in time and you won’t remember to keep yourself safe. You’ll be too preoccupied with me, and I could never … if anything happens to you…”
She wasn’t wrong … entirely.
She made me vulnerable.
I would always put her life above my own.
I would take a bullet for her without being asked.
But she was also right that I would worry. Every time I didn’t hear from her, every time she was a minute late coming home, my world would crumble until she was in it again safe and whole. I would watch the shadows around her and never pay attention to the ones around me. I would throw myself between her and every evil with zero regard to anything else.
And that couldn’t happen.
I had an empire relying on me, other lives, so many other lives trusting me to care for them, protect them. I had a family trusting me to make the hard choices. My legacy, the legacy built on the Medlock name for generations, a foundation of years built on blood and sweat needed me to stay focused.
I loved Kami.
I loved her with the rage and chaos of an ocean storm. It was violent and desperate, and endless, and all-consuming, but it was also dangerous.
