Page 7 of Bryce

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Imade it as far as my quarters before the pressure in my chest was too much to bear. Once the door was closed and locked, I leaned against it, shaking, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Why did it have to be him? What was the purpose of suffering further torture? As if being without him wasn’t enough. As if questioning myself for having ever growing so close in the first place wasn’t painful.

As if every single memory of every single moment wasn’t enough to twist my heart until I wondered if it would continue beating, and when it did, how it could possibly do so.

No one else knew. Not even Leslie, and I’d long since fallen into the habit of telling her everything. Even she hadn’t the slightest idea of what Bryce and I had become back in St. Lucia.

It wasn’t shame that tied my tongue. I was ashamed of nothing, not a single minute.

For once, I’d had something of my own. Something that was only mine. A precious, fragile thing which required care and protection. Like a baby bird.

A rarity for one like myself, who’d shared every aspect of existence with my clan from the day I was born. Living and working together, sharing our burdens as well as our joys. I would not have traded that for the world.

But once. Just once. Something for me.

“Isla?” Leslie’s voice jarred me back into the present. “Are you all right?” She knocked just behind my head, where it still rested against the door.

I cleared my throat. “Fine. A bit… queasy, is all.”

“Anything I can do?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be out soon.” I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and wished I’d told her of Bryce, no matter how private our moments together had been. The sacrifice of a bit of privacy seemed like nothing when compared to the idea of not being so alone in my heartache.

Why did Mary send him? Why him?

In my misery, there was no avoiding the memories. One after another they came, flooding my mind. Watching the sunrise with him at my side. Spending hours waiting for him to be free of his duties, hours of anticipation. Having something to look forward to all day long, wishing with every fiber of my being for time to speed up.

And when we were together, the breathless joy of it. Joy only intensified by the secret nature of our trysts.

And that final night.

And everything I hoped he would say.

Everything I hadn’t heard, would never hear. Knowing then that he’d never been serious about us, that I was nothing but a diversion. Something to pass the time.

I knuckled away a hot, stinging tear and asked myself why I should waste another moment on him. I’d cried enough, had I not? I’d asked myself time and again what I could’ve done differently. How I could have guarded my heart better.

How I could have made him care for me just a little more.

Another knock. “Isla, we’re holding a meeting in the game room.” It was Iris, who sounded just as surly as ever. For once I could relate.

“I’ll be right there.” It was an excuse to get over my emotions, at least, and the opportunity to surround myself with my kin. They would be my shield.

And if any of them had told me that the day would come when I’d want them to shield me from Bryce, I would have laughed myself sick. Life tended to turn on a dime. One would think I’d understand that better, having lived so many years.

Knowing how suddenly things could change.

I splashed my face with cold water from the bathroom sink, then, as an afterthought, I pulled a brush through my hair and added a bit of gloss to my lips. Let him see what he left behind, I thought with a vindictive smile.

My dragon remained quiet through all of this, which came as a bit of a surprise. She normally had quite a lot to say and cared not whether I wished to hear it. Many was the time I’d wished life were really as simple, as clear-cut, as it was for her. Good and bad, right and wrong, no shades of gray. No nuance or subtlety.

As if my thinking about her stirred her from slumber, she came to awareness in the back of my mind as I walked down to the game room, the only space large enough to hold all of us at once. My senses sharpened, allowing me to pick out the scent of my kind versus the humans, the fae, the witches. The lions.

Three of them, the other two were familiar faces. We’d crossed paths at the resort, though much of those early days was still a blur of pain, confusion, weakness after we’d all suffered testing in the lab. That evil place. The resort had been paradise after such horrors.

Paradise which Bryce’s presence had only sweetened.

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