Chapter 82

Chapter 82
The air seemed to vanish from the room.

I stumbled back from Lucien, shock crashing into me so violently that for a second I thought my knees would give out beneath me. My heart hammered painfully against my ribs, each beat harder than the last, until I could barely tell whether the numbness spreading through my body came from fear or disbelief.

Lucien turned away and began pacing the room.

The tension radiating from him was suffocating, thick enough to feel in the air between us, and it only fed the storm already raging inside me. My hands trembled uncontrollably at my sides while my pulse roared loudly in my ears.

“Die?” I repeated weakly. “How? Why? What do you mean?”

The words barely came together. My thoughts felt fractured, unable to fully process what he had just said.

Lucien stopped pacing and looked at me. The moment his eyes met mine, something inside his expression shifted, as though seeing the horror on my face physically hurt him.

“No human has ever survived a mating ritual.”

The confession settled heavily between us.

He exhaled slowly, tension pulling at every line of his body. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

Pain bled through his voice beneath the restraint, but it only made everything worse. The reality of it slammed into me all at once: this was not about distance or timing or outside forces trying to keep us apart. Loving him could literally kill me.

The thought struck so hard it felt physical, like someone had driven something heavy into my chest.

My world tilted beneath me.

“I could be the first,” I whispered, though my voice shook badly. Somehow, despite the fear clawing through me, determination still pushed its way to the surface. “I’m stronger than you think.”

“I cannot risk that.”

Lucien crossed the room quickly then, stopping directly in front of me. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body, yet the distance between us had never felt wider.

“I cannot risk losing you.”

“You won’t lose me,” I pleaded, reaching for his hand.

But he stepped back before I could touch him.

His hands clenched tightly at his sides, jaw rigid with restrained emotion.

“I tried to end this sooner, you know,” he admitted hollowly. “I kept trying to stay away from you. But every single time, I came back.” His voice roughened with frustration, almost disgust toward himself. “Over and over again, like I couldn’t survive being apart from you.”

He dragged a hand through his hair violently.

“It was selfish. I should have let you go before things got this far. I was weak.”

The self-hatred in his voice broke something inside me.

“And I let you back in every time,” I whispered as tears finally spilled down my cheeks. “Because I can’t imagine my life without you either. This isn’t all your fault, Lucien.”

I turned away for a moment, trying desperately to steady myself.

Outside the apartment window, life continued as though mine had not just fallen apart. Cars moved steadily down the street below. The coffee shop across from Mr. Jacobs’ house glowed warmly beneath the fading sunlight, couples lingering outside with drinks in their hands, laughing softly together as evening settled over the city.

The normalcy of it felt cruel.

“I want you too,” I said quietly into the silence. “Just as badly as you want me.”

My voice trembled.

“There has to be another way.”

Lucien stood motionless behind me, tension carved into every inch of his body.

“I would rather have you alive,” he said at last, his voice low with restrained anguish, “than risk your life trying to mate with you. I would rather endure the pain of staying away from you than live in a world where you no longer exist.”

“Not being with you is what’s going to destroy me.”

My voice cracked completely then as the tears I had fought all day finally fell freely.

“I think we already passed the point where we can walk away from this.”

The agony inside me had become unbearable, sharp and consuming, like something twisting slowly through my chest.

Lucien looked just as destroyed.

The man who always seemed untouchable, always so controlled and certain of himself, now looked as though he was barely holding himself together. After a long moment, he finally released his clenched fists and crossed the remaining distance between us.

His large hands cupped my face gently.

His thumbs brushed away my tears with heartbreaking care before he leaned down and pressed soft kisses against my cheeks, against the wet tracks left behind by my crying, as though he could somehow kiss the pain out of me.

The tenderness of it only made me break harder.

I could not lose him.

Not now. Not after this.

The mere thought of never seeing him again, never hearing his voice or feeling his presence beside me, hollowed something out inside my chest so violently that it frightened me. Lucien had entered my life like a storm, tearing apart everything I thought I understood about myself and the world around me, yet somehow bringing clarity with the destruction.

I loved him.

Completely.

And the realization terrified me almost as much as the truth he had just revealed.

How was I supposed to let him go after this? How was I supposed to return to the person I had been before him, when he had changed every part of me without even trying?

It felt impossible.

Today had already become the worst day of my life, yet deep down I knew it still was not over.

I could feel the edges of myself beginning to fray beneath the weight of everything happening around me. Maybe Lucien had been right to hide the truth for so long. Maybe he had known from the beginning that I was never truly prepared for it.

But it was too late now.

There was no going back.

“I’ve prayed to the goddess every day since we matched,” Lucien confessed quietly, his forehead resting against mine as his breathing turned uneven. “I prayed for a way for us to survive this. And when that failed...”

His voice faltered.

“I prayed for the strength to leave you before I ruined your life completely.”

I looked up at him then.

His blue eyes, usually so fierce and steady, were filled with something dangerously even worse than despair.

“Meeting you destroyed everything I thought I believed in,” he admitted. “And now I don’t even know what I’m supposed to fight for anymore.”