Chapter 39 I love you
“Finn is very sensitive.” Hale, sitting on a couch in the bedroom, leaned down to peel his shoe off. “You need kid gloves if you hope to reach him.”
“I see how much your own kid gloves have helped with him.” The hint of bitterness in my voice was unmistakable as I watched him from our bed.
“Well. Between the two of us, there's someone he can’t even bear to near. And it isn't me.” His voice came out clipped, and I winced.
“Bad day?”
“Not really, where’s the fairy?” he glanced at me, still shrugging off the rest of his clothes.
“What do you think? Probably down in the kitchen with her new favorite person.” It was a joke, and I expected him to laugh.
I said it so I could enjoy seeing that face relax, and break into the teasing smile that made my heart swell.
But he turned furious eyes at me.
It was so out of character I found it jarring. “You know, you can’t have a favorite person and expect the others not to. It does not work that way.”
I stared at him, speechless.
His usually light footsteps were heavier as he walked around the bedroom, picking up his clothes and briefcase.
The elegant aristocrat who prioritized orderliness, neatness and cleaned up after himself. The good Alpha, always patient, always kind.
But right now, tremor traveled across his body over and over, and I could smell the angst on him, burning, hot, overriding his minty scent.
He looked like he had a lot more to tell me that he was barely holding back.
I shoved down the impulse to grab him, to lay him flat below me and do anything it took till he was begging for mercy, for release, and confessing all his dirty little secrets.
“Is that why you lied to me? You wanted to have your own favorite person too?” I made sure to keep my voice soft.
The memories of that future I saw still heavy on my mind. Memories that seemed true because she had only been here three days, and we were all already fighting amongst ourselves.
So I tried to be patient, to be reasonable, but then he just had to go on and say the worst thing.
“Does it really matter?”
“What did you just say?” I flew off the bed.
But he did not take it back. Aegir, that ancient wolf who was mostly in a slumber, resting, because its owner never really got angry, was stirring now, staggering up on four feet like a deep tide beneath Hale's ribs.
My eyes flashed, and I barely controlled my teeth from snapping because that would have provoked the great beast, and then we would have begun fighting for real.
And easily, we could destroy LA around us in half an hour.
With a deep, settling breath, I grabbed his head on both sides and pulled him in.
“You’re my love. What’s the value of this if you think you do not owe me honesty?"
“I never lied to you. I told you there was someone.” His voice was calmer.
But a concrete hammer slammed into my chest.
My hands fell from his face, I staggered backward, staring at him in disbelief.
All the memories of four years ago came rushing back, assaulting me. They were as clear as if they happened yesterday.
The crash out. Waking up in the pool of my own sweat. The pain of it all only lesser in comparison to the grief I carry around for Nymphaea every day.
“That’s her, that woman is Lys Grunder?” Again, I barely just held myself from roaring.
There likely are no school buses out by this time of the night, but I had no desire to hurt adults either, because I was too selfish to control my base instincts when I knew I lived in a city.
“Lys is the same girl from four years ago? The woman you….”
“Don’t say it.” His eyes flashed. “I never cheated on you. I did nothing with her.”
“Except plan to bloody marry her.” I yelled now.
There! It did not feel so hot in my chest anymore.
That was not a roar, so there would be no earthquake, but at least breathing was coming a lot more easily for me.
“Don’t cheapen it, Daine.” He shook his head, backing away from me, evidently struggling just as much to tame his rage.
“What are you going to say, you never planned for it to happen, you did not…”
“Yes!” he yelled, freezing in the middle of the bedroom. “I never meant for it to happen. I tried…do you know how much I bloody tried to not fall for her? You have no idea the lengths I went to, to purge her from my mind…to deny my wolf the one thing that comes most naturally to werewolves.”
“You did not try enough!” I snapped, ” Finn is no a werewolf. He’s not your freaking destined mate. But you brought him here. You!” My body was shaking now, old, old bones creaking under the weight of my rage.
“You’ve introduced strangers to our relationship.”
“Oh, fuck off.” My elegant aristocrat cursed. “You say that yet you fell for that boy faster than I could breathe. You say that…yet you have worshiped, carried around the image of a woman who you last saw a hundred and twenty years ago.”
“What?”
The silence in the room was shrill.
I thought he understood. I thought he cared for Nymphaea as much as I did. I thought he shared in my grief.
“I do,” he broke into my head, and answered my thoughts. “But unlike you, I am still human… to a tiny extent. I try, Daine, I really try, but it’s so damn difficult to see things the way you do, process things the way you do… to not care that I am second best and always will be.”
He was panting, breathless, saying more than he usually would at a stretch.
“I love you.” He exhaled in exhaustion. “But I could not compete with a woman you married over two hundred years before I was even born. I could not compete with a dragon. Now… can you really blame me that I was too weak to fight my curiosity, to fight my wolf when I finally saw my own destined mate after two centuries?”
I turned towards the window, and, twice, I almost fell before I reached there.
My chest was hurting, hurting in a way that felt weird even after years in this human form.
“Daine,” Hale called in concern, momentarily forgetting his anger.
I raised a hand and his footsteps halted.
Nymphaea had been my life. Still is my life. But I had gone to literal hell for Hale’s sake, and he knew it. I fought gods, and declared war with the Firstborns because of him.
This whole female ritual thing was because I could not bear….
I winced, my chest hurting the way Finn must have felt just now, because my hand came up to my chest, squeezing, massaging hard to get the stiffness away.
But it was not working, so I started to punch my chest, over and over.
I had learned to speak like a human, walk like a human, read and bag academic degrees because when you were an immortal all you had was time. In abundance. But it was evidently not enough to master emotions.
Things hurt as a dragon, but in this form they hurt even more.
“Daine.” Hale’s voice was closer now.
I could smell the anxiety in him, but the stench of sadness was stronger. He was more worried about me than he was about my burning him to crisp ashes.
“You think I do not love you?”
“I never said that.” He returned immediately.
“But you think I do not love you enough.”