Page 164 of Eldritch
Numb, I climbed a few steps. Paused. Climbed three more and paused again. “How?”
“I breached the boundary. I changed your fate.” He was quiet for a moment, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that he stood staring off, his expression more troubled than before, if that were possible. “You’re my mate.”
The words reverberated in my mind, and my knee buckled, but I caught myself before stumbling. I exhaled a shaky breath, my heart hardening at the ease with which he’d said it. “How is that possible, when I’m mortal?”
“The night I kissed you in that cell. The moment I crossed that boundary, you were chosen by the gods. Marked by Death.” His gaze shifted toward my shoulder, where I’d seen the glowing mark weeks ago while bathing.
I let his words sink into my skin like a dull blade. “Then, it wasn’t fate that brought us together. It was deception.”
His brows tightened. “I couldn’t let them burn you. I wanted—needed—the gods to know you were mine.”
The anger inside of me clenched down on my emotions, locking its jaw over my heart. “They longed to burn me for a crimeyoucommitted,” I snapped.
“And that is my only regret in all of this.” He advanced a step, and so did I, only backwards, keeping some distance between us.
“The visions you had, they hadn’t happened yet. Which means…had you not seen them, my mother might still be alive.”
He shook his head. “It’s true, I saw visions that hadn’t come to pass, but your mother wasn’t present in them. You still lived with your adopted family. The villagers still shunned you as they do now. What I did had no bearing on the events prior.”
“How do you know! What you did could’ve changedeverything.” Tears prickled the rims of my eyes as I stared down at him. “You say the gods are cruel. Perhaps this is all punishment. Perhaps in another life, my mother wasn’t meant to be captured. Enslaved. Maybe I wasn’t meant to bethe lorn!”
“I wish I could tell you that I was sorry for having interfered. That, had I remembered your face, I would’ve made a point to keep my distance. To let you live in peace. But I can’t,” he said through clenched teeth. “Knowing what you were to me, what youare, it would’ve killed me. I know that now. My selfish nature hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve been apart from you.” Lips pressed to a hard line, he shook his head. “The gods have decided. Fate could change the path a thousand times over, but in the end, it’ll always be you and me. You are my mate.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You are. My mate. You’ve always been mine.” He reached out for me, but I pushed his hand away.
I didn’t want to be touched. Didn’t need his affections. I needed space, a quiet darkness to collect my thoughts. To understand what it all meant without the weight of his gaze on me. I needed to breathe. “I am no one’s.”
The restraint in his muscles, the way they shook, in spite of his stoic face, told me I’d struck a sensitive chord. A quiet rage swirled in his eyes, but he tamped it down. “You have every right to be angry.”
“Iamangry!”
His gaze remained steady as he carefully set the sack of food onto the step and advanced toward me again. Before I could step backward, he grabbed my arm. “Take it out on me.”
Brows furrowed, I shook my head. “Have you lost your senses?”
“Hit me. Cut me. Whatever it is you need to do.”
More tears prickled in my eyes, and I wriggled my arm to break free of his grasp, but he tightened his hold. “I just need to be left alone.”
“I’m not letting you wander about this place while angry.”
“In case you missed it, I just found my father. I don’t need you stepping in on his behalf.”
He moved another step closer until his towering body eclipsed mine, and he held my arm pressed to his chest.
“Let go of me,” I warned. When he failed to move, I snarled and clawed at his grip. “Unhand me now!”
“Give me your anger. I deserve it.”
Tears slipped down my cheek, and I wriggled again. I pushed him, but he didn’t move. Like steel, his body remained unyielding. “You should’ve let me choose.”
“Choose what? They would’ve found a reason to burn you for something. They never bothered to know your heart.” He drew a dagger from his hip and held the pointed end of it over his own heart. “Do it. Shove it into my chest.” He forced my palm over the hilt. “I’d sooner suffer the pain of this blade than see the hate in your eyes.”
More tears slipped down my cheeks, and I shook my head, wriggling my hand free of it. “No.” I refused because, as much as the images of what could’ve been tormented me, as much as it angered me to know that I had been punished for something he’d done, deep in the marrow of my being, I still cared about him.
Even if his confession had turned the entirety of my world upside down, I still couldn’t bring myself to hurt him for it.
