“Karl, I’m sorry, but this is a kind of marriage I’m not willing to have. You push me away, you never let me touch you, you don’t tell me what’s wrong, tell me how I can help you… What do you expect me to do? Spend my days locked up in this apartment, reading and watching TV, then humbly putting my blindfold on when you want to have sex?” She shook her head and a tear ran down her cheek. “I’ll pack my things and wait for Matt to take me wherever you want me to go.”
She closed the door behind her and left him there, shocked and speechless.
***
Karl stood there for a couple of minutes, not quite able to process what was happening. Claudia, his bride, the woman he loved, had just walked out on him. And he couldn’t blame her. The moment he realized he couldn’t hold anything against her, the things she had said, nor her attitude, was the moment when his anger melted and what was left was pain and guilt. He had driven her away. But that was what he had always wanted, right? To keep her at a safe distance so she wouldn’t get contaminated with his… his… shame.
“No,” he whispered. He rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair, this time pulling harshly. “No.”
He couldn’t let her go. It would have been for the best, but he simply couldn’t. He was selfish like that. He had always been selfish, arrogant, self-centered, and incapable of controlling his temper.
“Claudia!”
He stormed down the stairs and he was in her room in a matter of seconds. She yelped when the door banged against the wall. The door handle left a huge hole in it, the paint peeling off and falling to the floor. Now, Karl was standing between her and her freedom, his chest rising and falling rapidly in the rhythm of his breathing. She took a step back and squeezed the clothes she had been packing to her chest.
“Claudia, please don’t leave. I don’t want you to leave, I never meant for it to sound that way.”
Seeing that he wasn’t particularly angry, her shoulders relaxed a bit.
“This isn’t working, Karl. I have to. I understand, okay? You needed a bride, now you have one. We don’t have to be together. I just have to exist so your pack and clan can rest assured that you’ll have heirs one day. I can very well exist at Schloss Blackmane.”
Her words hurt him more than anything, and he knew that was it. He couldn’t keep his feelings bottled up anymore. He took a step towards her, his hands raised in front of him to show her he meant no harm, he just wanted to talk, to sort it out.
“This is all my fault. I knew it all along, I was just not ready to admit it to myself. I shouldn’t have treated yo
u the way I have. I am a horrible, horrible man, and I’m so… so sorry. You deserve better. Every time I look at you, I remember that you deserve so much better, and I can’t forgive myself for having taken you out of Alma Venus. I should have never bought you. One day, a good, honest, responsible man would have come and taken you into his home, and he would have loved you and respected you all his life. I took that chance away from you, and it tortures me every second.”
Claudia placed the bundle of clothes on the bed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“What are you talking about?”
Karl shook his head. He was screwing everything up. Badly. There was no way he could do this right. He had never done it before, and he was doomed to fail epically.
“I’m talking about the fact that I’m not the right man for you. That’s why I don’t want us to go through the mating ritual, that’s why I can’t let you turn into a hybrid. I care too much about you to trap you in this marriage… You might not see it now, but you’ll understand one day. I don’t know how to be a good man, Claudia, let alone a good husband and father. I will ruin you.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“This has nothing to do with anything. I never said I’m unhappy with you, and I never even thought our marriage wouldn’t work. That is… until you pushed me away completely and refused to tell me what’s wrong.” She let her arms fall to her sides and took a couple of steps towards him. They were so close now that if she rose on her tiptoes, she could kiss him. “What happened that turned you so cold and bitter? Please tell me, Karl. That’s all I ask of you. Let me in, and I will do everything in my power to help you, to be right where you need me to be. I love you, but love isn’t enough. Relationships are also built on trust and honesty.”
“You won’t love me when you find out what I did.”
“Try me.”
They looked into each other’s eyes for a long time. Claudia was being patient, aware of the fact that this was the first time she felt like she was actually getting somewhere. Karl was trying to sort out his thoughts and decide if he could really tell her what had happened during the war. He was sure she would leave then. Not to Schloss Blackmane, but to Alma Venus. There was no way a woman like her would want to stay married to a monster like him.
“Baby, please tell me.”
That word… “baby”… turned his resolve to mush. It was the first time she was calling him “baby”. Women had called him that many times, but it hadn’t meant anything. Coming from Claudia’s full, delicious lips, the word melted his heart and made him weak in the knees. He knew then he would do anything this woman asked of him. She wanted the truth? He would give her the truth even if it broke him to pieces to relive those awful moments, to confront the dark side of his soul. He took her hands into his and guided her to the edge of the bed. Claudia followed him and sat down. When they were seated next to each other, looking into each other’s eyes, Karl finally started talking.
“I’d like to say that I was a different person 100 years ago, but I can’t. I’m still the man who went to war and killed thousands of humans.”
Claudia took his hands into hers and squeezed lightly.
“It was war,” she said. “And the humans started it. You only did what you had to do to protect your faction and all the shape-shifters.”
“No. I did more than that. I killed innocent people, people who couldn’t defend themselves, because I was… angry.”
He averted his gaze and took a deep breath. If he kept looking straight into her dark brown eyes, he would eventually bail. Instead, he focused on the window behind her, on the image of the bleak sky. The day before had been nice and sunny. Today it would rain.