Brie
“What about us?” My voice hangs in the air between us. The room goes so quiet and still I can feel the Asteria gliding back into open water, the rocky, uneven bounce of sailing through the shallows finally settling.
I wait for him to tell me to come with him. I wait, and wait, my heart squeezing with each second that passes, but I already know he won’t.
His eyes already paint his answer clearly.
He’s sacrificing the family he was given–the family he loves that loves him in return. He’s not going to ask me to make the same mistake.
My body slumps against the weight of it, like I’m being dragged underwater, unable to fight the current. I’m exhausted. I’m in pain–physical and emotional pain, like my heart is being plucked from my chest and tossed into the ocean to drown.
I promised myself, long ago, that I’d never beg and plead on my knees to be loved. I would simply accept my fate. I knew my worth to the world the moment I was old enough for the tabloids to start questioning my future mate and the future alliances that union would make. That’s when I knew all eyes were on me, the eldest sister of the future Queen Maeve.
My duty is, and always has been, to her.
Logan’s duty has always been to the kingdom his parents died for, nothing else.
He reaches out and smooths his thumb over my cheek, brushing away a tear. I shiver, leaning into his touch as he caresses my face.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he says softly, his voice breaking over the words. “When we’ve both had some rest and the opportunity to shift.”
I pull away, turning my body to face the bedroom door instead of him. “This has nothing to do with shifting–”
“You’ll be thinking with a clearer head.”
I close my eyes, biting my tongue to stop from lashing out at him, from telling him all the emotions battling for dominance and threatening to explode into a fireball bigger than the one his expert maneuvering during the royal armada’s assault produced.
“Brie?”
“What?” I turn to look at him over my shoulder. His eyes are glassy, and his mouth is slack with unspoken words.
He tilts his head slightly to the side, mulling over whatever he’s about to say before exhaling deeply, his eyes meeting mine. But he shakes his head, mumbling, “Just don’t lie down for a while. You probably have a concussion. I’ll be back with food and medicine.”
“I don’t have a fucking concussion,” I grumble under my breath, but he’s already leaving, the door snapping shut behind him.
I sink into the window seat, watching the waves rush past the boat, the water sparkling and crystal clear all the way to the horizon.
I wonder what Maeve’s doing right now. I press my fingers to the glass, wondering what she’d do in this situation. Probably nothing. I don’t think Maeve is capable of romantic love. She doesn’t understand it, even when it comes to our parents. She curls her lip and snarls at any man who looks in her direction with a curious glance lately.
She wouldn’t understand why I’m so torn to shreds. My mate found me, and we ended it. Yet, fate kept us together, proving at every turn that we made the wrong decision.
But fate hasn’t stopped either of us from continuing to think logically about our situation, no matter how badly it stings.
Emberfyll was his home. He’s spent his entire life preparing to go back, and now he has a real shot at making it happen.
But when I think of home… I think of him.
My eyes pinch shut as a sob tightens my chest, my hand curling into a fist against the window.
* * *
Logan
She’s crying. Whimpering, actually, trying to stay quiet. I wish she’d let it out. I wish she’d scream and curse the world for the hand she was dealt, but Brie is still the composed aristocrat she’ll forever force herself to be.
I lean against our door, repeatedly running my hand over my face, unable to tear myself away, yet unable to go back inside. I’ll snap. I’ll actually lose my fucking shit if I have to look at her, mangled with tears in her eyes, knowing I’m the cause.
Jake, the teenage deckhand whose father is one of Alex’s high ranking wolves on the Artemis, clears his throat from the middle of the staircase where he’s been perched for Goddess knows how long.
“What are you doing?” I ask–and not kindly.
The kid pales for a split second before puffing out his chest and gripping whatever he’d been holding in his lap, which turns out to be a pile of bandages and some of the herbal remedies Jackson, the grouchy old healer, packed aboard the Asteria.
“For the princess.” He stretches his arm through the railing.
“Take it to her. I need to speak to the Beta.” I do not want another man in her room, even one who likely hasn’t grown his first chest hair, but that’s just my wolf talking–howling and screaming not to walk away from her door. Jake’s shocked look when I pass him on the stairs burns into my back as I throw open the door to the deck and storm out, scanning the crew for Sawyer.
He remains at the helm where I left him, looking worn but thankful just to be alive. His look of careful cheerfulness fades when I walk up the stairs to the helm, motioning for him to move so I can look at the map.
He says nothing, but I can feel him watching me, inspecting the tightness in my muscles and the furrow of my brows. I keep my eyes on the map, my finger gliding in a nearly straight line toward Tempest Valley, through a second, narrower straight… but a straight shot nonetheless.
“We’ll be there in six hours at the latest,” Sawyer says, sighing around the words. “You were right. I bet Alex is pissed right now. He takes great pride in his navigational skills.” His chuckle is stolen by the stiff, steady wind helping the Asteria glide effortlessly toward home.
I spend the rest of the morning on the deck, staring at the water, wondering what the hell I’m doing and why. When I spoke to Alex about Emberfyll, wanting to know more about the veil around KiloKilo, things had just clicked into place for the first time in my life. It’s the same magic. The same impenetrable field. Alex had been excited, damn-near buzzing with energy when we hurriedly hatched a plan in the dead of night while under duress from the knowledge the royal armada would be catching up to us eventually.
It’d be perfect. A sign from the gods, honestly.
But then I ended up in bed with Brie, and everything I thought I wanted, everything I thought I knew, failed to matter.
I can’t take her away from her family. I can’t ask her to come with me and sacrifice everyone she loves and her home in the process. We can get into Emberfyll, of that I’m certain, but once there… we wouldn’t be able to get out.
She’d be stuck. She’d be with me, my queen, my mate and Luna of her own kingdom but at the cost of everyone she knows and loves.
“You fucking bitch,” I whisper to myself, cursing the Goddess for doing this to us. She had to know, didn’t She? When She interlaced our souls knowing that Her divine plan would either tear us apart or force us to make choices that would break us beyond repair?
I find Brie right where I left her, but asleep.
“Shit. Brie? Brie, I told you not to fall asleep–”
She snarls and swats my hand away, but I haul her upright, her body cast in the midday sunlight pouring through the windows overlooking her perch–the window seat.
“I’m fine, really.” She sniffles as she bunches her hair into a bun on the top of her head, tying it off with a ribbon. She won’t meet my eyes. The bridge of her nose is horribly bruised, and her under eyes are yellow with the beginnings of what I know will be two black eyes.
I crouch, balancing on my heels while knitting my hands in the fabric cushion she’s resting on, but she moves away, crossing her arms under her chest. “Are we there yet?”
“We’re about to go through the strait. It’ll be rough for a few minutes, but then we’ll be in Tempest Valley.”
“What then?”
“We stay a night or two, ready the ships with supplies for a much longer journey, and cross the veil. Alex is within mind-link range and said he believes the royal armada won’t have time to regroup and send out new boats by the time we’re on the water again, so we’re safe.”
She looks out over the water, the sun turning her brown eyes the color of polished mahogany with flakes of honey within. “And then you’ll go to Emberfyll?”
“I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“I do.” She faces me, giving me an expectant look. “I want to talk about it right now. I think it’s a terrible idea.”
“You know why I have to. And you have to go home.”
“Will I ever see you again?” she asks, suddenly tearful, that carefully crafted dam finally cracking. “Or is this just it? We were mates, Logan. Why would She choose us if this was always the outcome?”
Come with me. Come with me. Come with me.
“I don’t know.”
She turns back to the window, swallowing hard. “I just need to shift. You’re right. Everything will be clearer when I shift.”
I hope she’s right because I’m ready to crawl out of my skin. I’ve been on the cusp of throwing caution to the wind and marking her for days now.
I rise and sit on the opposite side of the window seat, stretching out my legs, boxing her in against the window with my size alone. She hugs her knees, her lower lip quivering as she starts to come undone at the seams. I feel it in my chest–the same pain she’s feeling. The confusion, grief, and utter heartbreak neither of us have been able to put into words so far.
“I miss them,” she whispers, her voice cracking painfully over the words. “I miss my parents.”
I reach for her, taking her hand, silently inviting her to come closer, to come to me, and she does.
I gather her in my arms, resting my chin on the top of her head as she cries silent tears into my shirt. I close my eyes against the pristine, turquoise water. My hand drifts down her back and back up again in gentle, lazy strokes as she clutches my shirt. She smells like everything I love, everything that ever made me feel calm and at home.
Going back to Emberfyll feels pointless if she’s the sacrifice I have to make to get there, but I’m so close, and she… she wants to marry an Alpha.
I’m not an Alpha again until I set foot on those shores. I won’t be who she truly wants until then, and I can’t stand the idea of her living with that regret for her entire life if I do stay.
She slumps against me after a few minutes, her grip on my shirt going slack. She’s asleep–fast asleep on top of me, lying between my legs. She fits perfectly, like she was built for me, and I… wonder if the Goddess was trying to tell me something by matching us.
“I’ll come back for you,” I tell her, opening my eyes to lush greenery as the boat passes through the strait. “One day, I’ll come back for you. I swear.”