I don’t have the courage to tell him that my looking for a way was always a lie. I never looked because I never wanted to be separate from him. Which means there may actually be a way. “If there’s not, then I will link you to someone else.”
He glares at me, a murderous stare that would have previously intimidated me. Now it only pisses me off. Fuel on the flames of rage burning higher and higher inside what’s left of my soul.
“I don’t want to be linked to anyone else.”
“You may not have a choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
“Until there’s not,” I retort.
The space between us feels more like miles than yards, and I hate it, even as I know it’s necessary. For two decades, I’ve forced distance between us. Pushed him as far away as I possibly could while still maintaining mild contact.
Hell, if I hadn’t needed his blood, and he hadn’t needed mine, I would have left this fucking city to burn itself down. Watching him with other women on his arm, feeding from them, sleeping with them—it was far more painful than I ever could have imagined. He’s the only thing that kept me here, though I imagine he believes as everyone else does—that I stayed to help the local supernaturals.
The truth is, I can help anywhere I go. And for the first time since convincing myself to stay, I wish like hell I’d run away. What has staying gotten me? A broken heart, more bruises than I can count, the inability to fall in love, and the worst of them all—it’s now cost me my soul.
Swallowing hard, I force my gaze away from his. “I can’t live with this weight, Tarnley. We can find you someone else to bond with, just to keep you alive.”
“You’re not fucking getting it, Bronywyn.” He moves closer to me, hands tightened into fists at his sides. A muscle in the side of his neck bulges, the vein in his forehead more prominent now in his anger. “You are the only reason I want to live. The only reason I bother drawing my next breath.”
“The bond—”
“Doesn’t mean shit to me if you aren’t the one I’m tied to.”
“It makes you feel things that aren’t real. Things you felt for Allison.”
“Things I feel for you. Only for you.”
I shake my head, refusing to hear his words. How many times must my heart take this abuse? I’m damned to always want what I can’t have.
First, there was Mal. A wizard whose only crime was loving me, and for that, he was relieved of his life by the one and only bitch who is currently making my life miserable.
Then, there was Elijah. He used me, through no fault of his own, because he’d lost his damned mind when he lost his fiancée.
And now. My gaze drifts back to Tarnley, who is still standing in the same spot, staring at me.Tarnley.A man I fell in love with sometime back when he and Elijah were friends. There was always something about him, though I didn’t realize it until after the stars for Elijah cleared. And believe me, I know how bad that sounds.
But he was always there. Even after Elijah and I parted ways, I would see Tarnley in passing, or he’d come to the clinic whenever he was in town.
When he relocated here, it was the happiest day of my life. Even if I thought it was a pretty crazy coincidence, especially given that I knew he’d mated already, and she was nowhere to be found. “You are a good man,” I tell him. “An honorable one. I expect you to do the right thing, when and if, the time comes.”
“I won’t kill you, Bronywyn. You’ll have to gut me first.”
Now there’s a plan,the voice in my head coos. Shadow magic lurches beneath my skin, and my stomach churns as I force it back down.
No.
He wants to put us down, it tells me.
You won’t touch him.
I can and I will.
In demonstration, the magic surges forward, and inky purple sparks fly off my fingertips. I stare down at them in complete awe as they sizzle and snap between my fingers, a magical web that I know, without a doubt, will kill anything it comes in contact with.
My eyes meet Tarnley’s now. “See what I’m made of?” I ask, though it terrifies me how little emotion is in my voice.
“I’m not afraid of you.”