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He made her weak. Hewasher weakness. Despite her best efforts, he’d become something more to her. He had power over her.
So, she made him pay.
She accelerated the process of carrying and birthing the thing inside of her. Within three days and nights, she expelled a squirming pink creature from her body, which Byakko took away immediately.
Somehow, he fed it and kept it safe from discovery and harm. It grew rapidly into a boy, who preferred to stay in Beast form the moment it learned to transform. The better to stay hidden, perhaps.
Byakko gave it the name Goya. Seven could have cared less.
What she did care about was how Byakko’s attention became divided between them. She resented the creature she birthed for the way Byakko showered it with unconditional love.
A love that was restrained when he was with Seven, as it never had been before.
She took it from him anyway. Reveled in a dark satisfaction at how he couldn’t help loving her, couldn’t help baring his soulto her when they mated, yet she gave him nothing in return. Even less than the affection she gave him before.
Now, she showed her fury at his betrayal. She purposely hurt him and laughed at his pain.
Six noticed how she treated her once treasured pet. Her twin didn’t say anything, merely watching her with fathomless eyes.
To the other gods, nothing had changed. Byakko was still her fiercest protector, her best warrior. Only Seven knew he was weakening day by day. He hid it from others, but he couldn’t hide it from her.
It hurt him now, when she took pleasure from his body. He always tried to hide his eyes from her, but she always made him look. It was his punishment, she told herself. To show his endless, hopeless love for her, while seeing nothing but indifference and disdain reflected back at him.
Until one day, he began to die, the pain he carried too much to bear. The countless wounds he sustained to protect her no longer healed.
An Immortal who was dying. Seven could hardly countenance it.
She told herself it wasn’t true. He would recover with time. One couldn’t die of a “broken heart.” Who’d ever heard of such a thing!
She tried to treat him better. Gentled their coupling and even put some repressed affection into it. Tried to be with him the way they used to be. Before his betrayal and the birth of thatthing.
It didn’t work.
Over the course of thirty days, his life force withered rapidly away.
She tried to hold on to him, tried to keep him with her. But he was becoming lesser before her eyes.
And then…
He was gone.
With the extinguishing of the Purest, brightest soul, her secret was ultimately revealed…
“Regret is a difficult burden to carry.”
Michael started at the sound of Tal-Telal’s voice, just over his shoulder. He was so wrapped up in watching Ben, lost infeelingshe didn’t understand, that he didn’t hear the other man approach.
Quickly, he tried to regain his composure.
“I don’t have regrets,” he denied. And applauded himself for sounding completely calm and careless.
“Being human means having regrets,” Tal said quietly.
It was on the tip of Michael’s tongue to say that he wasn’t human.
But…he kind of was.
He’d been stuck in three human forms for three years now. He’d be lying to himself if he thought he wasn’t also catching those dreaded human emotions.
