AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her eyes were deep pools in the dim light and mirrored everything I felt. The grief, sadness, and loss I’d known for a decade were right there, reflected at me painfully. But the need, desire, and love that spilled from me found a companion in her too. It was nestled within the bond that had always existed between us.
My heart pounded in my chest as the weight of my need to kiss her, claim her, forced me to my knees. I had to earn that right. My knees hit the uneven stone of the path, but I gritted my teeth and bore the sharp pain. My arms wrapped back around her waist and I rested my head under her chest. I had no problem prostrating myself in front of her. I would do a lot worse. Had done a lot worse. For her.
“I’m so sorry, Ava.” The words ripped free in a burst of pain I could no longer contain. “The words are meaningless, I know, but they’ve been tearing me apart for ten years. I’m so sorry we failed you.”
“River, no.” She tried to lower herself to her knees in front of me, but I wouldn’t let her kneel on the rough floor. Seeing her hurt in any way was too much right now. I wrapped her tighter and pulled her down into my lap. Holding her close and breathing her in. That wasn’t what I had practised saying at all.Shit, I’m messing this up.
“I’m the one who has to apologize,” she said, her voice cracking at the end.
I looked down at her in shock. “Why the hell would you need to apologize?”
She looked at me, confusion swimming in her shining eyes. “Because I…I left you both. Without a word, and I think it broke us.”
She started sobbing, rivers of tears spilling over and tumbling down her face. The pain in her eyes was so real and jagged, it burned me to my core.
“No, no, Ava.” I tried to brush her tears away, but there were too many of them. So I tucked her under my chin and rocked her as she cried. My heart tore in two as I felt her tremble against me while she sobbed out her pain.
I stroked her back gently until she quieted a few minutes later. Then I lifted her chin and looked deep into her tear streaked eyes. “Ava, you did the right thing. You weren’t to blame.”
“I should have talked to you.”
“You tried, little bird. You insisted we’d never make it on our own. You begged us to hear your uncle out. We didn’t listen to you. We tried to make the decision to run for you. But it wasn’t our place. Ryder and I were young and stupid. We thought we could take on the entire world and win. Keep you safe from any threat. You knew better. So did your mother and your uncle.”
“It still wasn’t right, leaving and not saying goodbye.”
“If you had tried to tell us goodbye, we would never have let you go. Your uncle knew that and I’m sure your mother suspected. Ryder would have picked you up and run away with you, and I would have been guarding his back. Being without you when you were at school in the city was hard enough. The thought of being without you for ten years was more than we thought we could bear.”
We’d known Ava her whole life. We were inseparable whenever she was at the farm. Ava’s dad passed away when she was young. Her mother worked as a lawyer for a non-profit legal aid center and they lived in a tiny apartment in the city, but she’d come stay with her uncle every school holidays. Our family owned the farm next door to his, and her uncle was best friends with our dad.
I sighed, thinking back to that terrible time. The dark despair I’d felt at the thought of her at the Palace without us to protect her. “We should have been stronger for you. Listened to you.”
“You were only fifteen.”
“And you were thirteen, but you were stronger than both of us.” I smiled sadly down at her. She was even stronger now, even though I sensed she couldn’t see it. She not only survived the Palace, but she convinced them for a decade she was the perfect omega princess. When I knew she was anything but, she was a free spirit, a wood sprite, who only adapted to her cage to keep us safe.
She shook her head, denying her strength, but it was the truth. She loved being outdoors growing up, always trying to climb as high as us, run as fast as us. Her pride and her huge smile when she pushed herself and reached us always made us grin. She never knew that we always slowed down so she could catch up, and picked trees we were sure she could climb. The only thing she loved more than running wild outdoors was the animals around the farm. Yet she’d put herself in a prison for us.
“Ryder and I always knew you were ours. Even in the innocent way of kids.” I lifted my hand and gently dried the remaining tracks of tears from her cheeks, wanting to make them disappear. Her life should be full of laughter and smiles, not tears.
Everything we had done for the last ten years, what we had turned ourselves into, was to make sure we could keep her safe when we eventually got her back. Nothing else mattered to either of us.
“Ryder’s so angry at me.” She sounded resigned.
“Not really. Sometimes grief and fear can look like anger.” Ava had snuggled into my chest, instinctively seeking my scent for comfort, but she gave me some side-eye now. Clearly, I hadn’t convinced her. I needed to talk to Ryder. I’d wanted to talk to her alone this first time, and he knew that, but I wouldn’t make another move without him. We were a package deal.
“If you don’t believe me, ask to see his tattoo.”
She shook her head before she took a deep breath, and her forehead furrowed. I knew whatever she asked next was going to be important.
“Is that why you and Ryder never contacted me?” She wasn’t looking at me now. She’d focused her gaze squarely on her lap, but her voice trembled with suppressed emotion. “I hoped you’d get word to me somehow. Or my uncle would. But I never heard from anyone from the moment I crossed the Palace doors. Not even my mother. I knew we weren’t supposed to see our families, but lots of other girls got snuck cards and letters, some even got presents. I kept wishing for something, anything, but eventually, I lost hope.”
Fuck. Did she not know? How did she not know?
“Ava.” I hesitated as I tried to gather my thoughts. “Didn’t anyone at the Palace tell you about your mother and uncle?”
“What about them?”
My heart shattered. “Ava, have you spent the last ten years thinking we’d abandoned you?”
