“My magic could come back. Any day it could and what then?”
He lifted his hand, brushed my hair back, his eyes scanning my face. “Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to be separated from you?”
I gulped, feeling that need rise in me more at his touch and fighting to get control of it, to get control of me. “You left. You left Montefore.”
He nodded. “I wanted to give you space. I thought it would help.”
“Did it?”
He winced. “It didn’t help me.”
I looked away. His eyes, his hand on me, all of it was too much.
“Why did you come?” He asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” I hung my head.
He let out a low breath, his hands dropping to my waist in that only too familiar way that he’d held me so many times before.
That pull between us, that bond, surged all the stronger.
He let out a groan and I knew he felt it too.
I blinked and the tears dropped down my cheeks. “Don’t.” I murmured.
“I love you Alice.”
I shook my head. Not wanting to believe it and yet that grief inside me latched onto the words anyway.
“I love you.”
“Stop.” I whispered.
“I won’t. Not until you listen. Not until you see. I didn’t trick you. I didn’t sleep with you to get your powers. I slept with you because I love you. Because I have been in love with you from that first moment I saw you, from that first moment our eyes met.”
“How have you?” I gasped. “You hated me.”
“I hated you and loved you all at once.”
“I don’t want you.” I snarled slamming my fists into his chest. “I don’t want this bond. I don’t want any of it.”
His arms wrapped around me, pulling me in tight against his body. “Yes you do. You can feel it as well as me. You can feel the pull between us.”
I hung my head burying my face in his chest despite myself.
“How can I ever trust you?” I whispered.
“I will never ever lie to you again.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t enough. And yet I was so exhausted from fighting it, from fighting us.
“What else do you want me to say? You want me to go on my knees? You want me to beg before the entire castle? I’ll do anything Alice, anything you ask of me.”
I sobbed into his shirt. “I know.” I replied. Only I didn’t know how to fix this. How to even move on from what he’d done. What we’d become because of it.
He pulled me back lifting my chin so that I looked at him.
“I’m so sorry.” He murmured stroking my hair. “I am so sorry.”