Chapter 136 My Cormac.
MERRIELYNN.
Cormac wouldn’t stop moving.
He’d been pacing back and forth across the cave for the last twenty minutes, wearing a path in the floor, his hands dragging through his hair over and over until it stuck up in all directions.
“We need to inform his family,” he said, his voice getting rougher with each word. “His mom—goddess, his dad—” He stopped mid-sentence. “And Juniper. She ran. We need to find her or—”
“Cormac.”
He didn’t hear me. He just kept pacing and spiraling deeper.
“Cormac,” I said louder this time.
He stopped pacing but his eyes were fixed somewhere past me, still lost in his own head.
I got up and walked over to him, putting myself directly in his path so he had no choice but to acknowledge me. When he still wouldn’t look at me, I reached up and cupped his face in both hands, forcing his eyes to meet mine.
“You need to calm down,” I said softly.
His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, the whites streaked through with broken capillaries from all the crying and the exhaustion and everything he’d been holding inside. Looking at him like this, with his face in my hands and his defenses completely stripped away, I saw him at sixteen again.
The boy who used to climb through my window after his father had torn into him about something.
The boy who’d looked at me like I was the only good thing left in his world.
I pulled him down into a hug and wrapped my arms around him.
For a second he just stood there, every muscle in his body locked tight. Then he sank into me, his arms coming around my waist and holding on so tight I could barely breathe.
“I missed you,” he said into my hair, his voice cracking apart. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”
I held him tighter, feeling his heart beat race against my chest.
“I need you to know something,” he said, and the words came out fast and frantic like he’d been holding them in too long. “When I ended things with you...when I broke up with you on that field, it wasn’t because I wanted to. It was never because I wanted to.”
My throat tightened.
“My father told me to do it. He said if I didn’t break up with you, he’d make sure you didn’t survive the year.” His arms tightened around me. “And I believed him because I was terrified of what he’d do to you if I didn’t listen.”
I could feel him shaking against me.
“But I had no idea he went behind my back with Valtor,” he continued, his voice breaking. “I didn’t know they were working together. I didn’t know any of it. I swear to you, Merrielynn, I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t,” I whispered.
“If I’d known—if I’d had any idea what Valtor was planning—”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes desperate. “None of this is okay. I broke your heart. I let you think I didn’t love you anymore.”
“But we’re together now,” I said, reaching up to smooth his hair back. “That’s what matters. We found each other again.”
His eyes searched mine and they were so full of emotion I didn’t know how he was holding all of it. Pain and relief and grief and love all crashing into each other.
We stood there in silence, just looking at each other, trying to figure out how to exist in this version of reality where we’d found each other again but lost so much getting here.
We had time. That was all that mattered.
––•––
Hours later, I stood under the spray of the shower and let the hot water beat against my skin until it turned pink.
I’d called Emorie earlier. The second I’d heard her voice, I’d started crying and couldn’t stop.
She’d wanted to come over immediately but I’d told her I needed time. Just a little more time to process everything before I had to see anyone else.
The water ran down my face and mixed with the tears I couldn’t hold back anymore.
My father was dead.
The man who’d raised me alone after my mother died. Who’d taught me how to ride a bike and how to throw a punch and how to stand up for myself even when I was scared.
Who’d begged a king to spare my life and paid for it with his own.
And so was Lorelai.
They’d been dead for years, and in all that time, I hadn’t said goodbye, or visited, or thought of them truly.
I was only grateful I could mourn them now.
I turned off the water and just stood there dripping, staring at the tile wall.
Everything felt too heavy and too light all at once. Like I was moving through a dream where nothing was quite solid.
I stepped out and wrapped a towel around myself. I dried off without really thinking about it, just going through the motions while my mind stayed somewhere else.
I could hear the faint sounds of movement from the bedroom. Cormac was still out there.
My heart did this stupid flutter thing every time I thought about him.
It was like getting good news. Like that weightless feeling you get when something amazing happens and you’re floating and terrified to come back down.
He was real.
Cormac was here. In the next room.
My Cormac.
Nearly four years older, and everything about him had changed. His shoulders were broader. His jaw was sharper. His voice was deeper.
And he had a full sleeve of tattoos now.I wanted to see all of them.I wanted to trace them with my fingers and learn what they all meant.
I wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at my reflection.
This was me.
I was Merrielynn Fortner.
Daughter of Otto Fortner. My mother had died when I was younger, and my father had raised me alone. Just the two of us against the world until he’d risen through the ranks to become Beta of the realm. We’d moved into the palace when I was fourteen.
That’s where I met Cormac. Where I fell in love with him. Where I became best friends with his sister and his best friend.
And then there was the accident that ripped all of it apart.
My hand moved up to touch one of the necklaces around my neck. The blue pendant that had been there through everything. The one Cormac had given me the day I moved into the palace.
I thought about the moment in the girls’ locker room when he’d returned it to me after Valtor had ripped it off.
How he’d stood there looking at me with this intensity I hadn’t understood.
How my heart had raced even though I couldn’t remember why he or any of it mattered.
I smiled to myself.
I pulled it open the bathroom door anstepped into the bedroom, my eyes searching for Cormac.