Page 84 of Feathers From the Sky

“But I have to watch it, Gwyn. If he had to suffer like that, I should suffer with him. Someone who loves him should hear his last words.”

My nose stings, and I force my lip not to quiver. Seeing him hurt like this hurts me now. I wish it didn’t. “They deserved their deaths. Would’ve deserved worse.”

He shrugs, pulling his hand out from beneath mine. The moon lines his tension-filled face. “That’s not the issue, sweetheart.” The bite is back in that single word, and my chest feels tight.

“Then what is?”

“You. When you confronted that bitch. I could feel your pain, and it took everything in me to not rip her to shreds. I wanted to tear her limb from limb, wanted to watch you do it. Wanted to fuck you on her goddamn corpse. But that rage, that anger, thatfirewasn’t meant for you. It was supposed to be for my goddamn little brother. Do you realize how much of a piece of shit that makes me?” I reach for him, unable to say anything, but I think better of it. He jerks away from my extended hand just as I lower it. “You took my fucking anger and displaced it. I’m never going to forgive you for it.”

“Roman, I—” He holds up a hand, cutting me off.

“This is done, Gwyn. You got a good goddamn deal out of it, didn’t you?” His laugh is cruel. “I knew your plan all along. I just didn’t think you’d succeed. You made me care enough about you to let you live, but that’s it. You’ll get no more from me.”

“It might have been my plan, but—”

“For fuck’s sake.” His grip is rough on my bicep, and he turns me around. “You need to go before I change my mind and take you to the compound.” His voice cracks, and the emotion in it creates a fissure in my heart. I imagine it moving in slow motion, spreading uncontested. In the days since I Ascended—before that if I’m honest—Roman has curated a level of security I knew I could never rely on. Yet losing it is tectonic. I can barely stand my ground. It takes all my strength to turn and face him. He towers over me, and I’ve never seen him more somber. No hint of mischief I’ve grown to expect. No understanding in his warm eyes.

I can’t stand it.

“Roman, tell me the truth.” I feel an anxiety attack burgeoning. My breaths are coming too fast, too shallow, and my entire body feels too tight, the veins beneath my skin being pulled taut. I’ve never asked a more important question in my life, and his answer could change everything. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want this. That you don’t wantme.” His hand hasn’t let go of my arm. “Be sure of your answer, Roman. Because after this moment, you’ll never get another chance.”

A heartbeat. Two. Three moments pass. His expression doesn’t move even a fraction.

“How could I, sweetheart?” Everything stops. If he were to press his ear to my chest in this moment, he would hear the echoes of my shattering heart. His jaw juts out, and I watch his tongue run over one of his fangs. “No matter how beautiful the fractured parts might be, I’m not about to risk everything for someone so broken.”

30

ROMAN

I’ve never hadsuch a visceral reaction to regret. With Remy, I’ve wished things went differently. I’ve agonized over every decision I ever made. I’ve lost my appetite, been unable to sleep, but it doesn’t compare to how I feel now.

My body revolts, rejecting the horrifying things I just said to her. Goosebumps prickle my skin, my stomach roils, and everything aches. Physically, my body reacts to my words like an infection. If only it could burn my guilt away with a fever. Sweat out everything I’ve ever felt for her, so watching her reaction doesn’t hurt so fucking bad.

Gwyn’s mouth falls open, and her porcelain jaw trembles. Those warm eyes go dim, and I want to take it back. But I can’t. It wouldn’t matter anyway. The cruelest words I could think of have already crossed the threshold of my lips. It’s a chemical reaction when their evil meets with oxygen and what we could have had decomposes within a few syllables.

No matter if I meant them or not, they’ll leave a stain on her heart. Even if I could keep her, even if I changed my mind, she won’t have me. Not anymore. I’m just another asshole on her long list of people who haven’t cared enough to see her for more than her mental illness. Who haven’t loved her enough to stick around and see it through.

I hate that just as much as I hate why I had to make her believe it. Everything I’ve done for the last seven months was to find Remy—at first to bring him home, and then to avenge him. And when I finally had the chance to do it, every fear I held about myself regarding my brother was proven to be true. Acting recklessly, I killed everyone who might have hurt him, who might have been able to tell me about his last moments because she had distracted me. My disloyal thoughts had turned to the woman who stands crestfallen in front of me now. My traitorous heart had only wanted to avenge her, and thoughts of my brother had fallen away.

She might have seen my capacity for goodness, but it doesn’t count if it’s at my brother’s expense. It doesn’t count if I hate her for it. And it certainly doesn’t count if I spew a bunch of bullshit at her to make her get as far the fuck away from me as possible. Just because I might’ve believed Gwyn for a time, it doesn’t make it the truth.

I’m not capable.

I will never be the kind of good that the people I care for deserve. So it’s better to deal with it now, safer to deal with it now, before she thinks she can count on me. Before she meets the same end as my brother. Before my hands grow weak and drop the broken parts of her I desperately want to carry. It takes every ounce of my willpower not to pull her close and say anything to fix what I’ve done. Instead, I drop my grip on her arm, and start toward the entrance where Margot and Nico wait.

“Fuck you,” she whispers from behind me.

Might as well twist the knife.

I turn to face her as I continue walking backward to the car. “Timing doesn’t seem right, does it? Although thatwasthe best part.”

I hope to whatever higher power there is that ghosts aren’t real. That my mother doesn’t see me desecrating her final resting place with the words of someone I don’t recognize anymore. Someone Gwyn almost convinced me I wasn’t. I pray my mother’s ashes got caught on the wind and took her far away from this tree where I pay my respects. I have ruined the place I go to speak to her—one more casualty I can add to my list. With blackened hands and bitter heart, there is nothing I touch which doesn’t end up destroyed.

But Gwyn is the ghost in this graveyard, her hair an inky black stain on the wind. Her pretty little dress is muted in the dark, and when the breeze grabs it and pulls it up, I can see pale, plump thighs I’d much rather be nestled between. Her arms clasp the other, pulled close against her body.

“Coward,” she says, jaw clenched.

At least she sees me now for what I am.

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