242- Where Guilt Burns and Desire Awakens
POV Aldren Valmorin:
“I suppose you’re not going to tell me what’s behind this plan?”
“Nothing outlandish, trust me.”
As soon as I said goodbye to Orion, my thoughts unfolded toward my delicious weakness.
Perhaps the greatest weakness I had ever had in my entire life.
What I lived with Samsara had been a lie, a malignant plan devised by the worst forces inhabiting the Earth—of the kind that made me wish there were a particular hell for her, so she would burn for an eternity.
Elowen was real; the closest I had ever been to heaven in all my centuries of life on this planet.
I never intended to ask her for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is for those who wish to rid themselves of guilt without effort.
If we were predestined, I wished to die with the remorse of having been stupid and of having ignored the signs.
We beg for apologies when we have no intention of doing anything to erase the past, but merely wish to rid ourselves of the residual weight of the pain we caused.
I preferred to live with the guilt and the constant memory of what I had said and done—things that would drive me to do more for her, to correct my previous blindness that did not allow me to see the truth that had always been so clear before me.
If there was anything pure in my tormented soul, it was the fervent desire to surround her with so much care that her past of abandonment would become nothing more than a forgotten scar.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, pulling me away from my deep reverie.
I always answered Nerin, because his calls were never without reason.
And that time, it could be the worst of them.
“I don’t know what to do, Aldren. She arrived distraught and won’t stop crying!” Nerin revealed, behind me on the steps.
“Tell the Bratvo bastard to wait for me in the underground. I’ll take care of her.”
Elowen’s crying echoed through the walls of the house, tearing me apart from the inside. It stirred not only pain, but fury within me.
If her despair had a cause, I would make him pay with his life.
I kicked the door open, storming into her room.
The scene before me made a guttural howl rise from my chest, along with my beast that tore at my insides.
Curled up on the floor, she soaked the ground with tears, wearing the expression of someone who had not merely been hurt, but completely shattered.
Possessed, yet holding my claws in, fearing to hurt her, I scooped her up like a child.
Weak, she let her arms fall limp and her neck dropped back over the crook of my elbow, choking on her own tears.
I used my inhuman speed to take her out of that room, carrying her to mine.
I laid her devastated, trembling body on my mattress and climbed over her, my knees braced on either side of her body.
I brushed the strands of hair stuck to her wet face aside, and at last she allowed our gazes to meet.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and the sobs made her choke.
I needed to rip her out of that suffering.
I had never used my pheromones to calm a female—only to provoke desire and fear—but I hoped it would be possible.
“It hurts so much, Aldren, so much…” she whispered between sobs. “There’s something squeezing my heart, I… I can’t breathe…”
Disoriented, I pressed my lips to hers and summoned the supernatural, so that in that contact—so intimate to me—a shot of relief would race through my female’s entire body.
As if the kiss connected us by a high-voltage wire, I saw her sobs diminish until they ceased, and, in a transcendent way, I heard her heartbeat slow, returning to a harmonious symphony once more.
Against my will, I pulled away from her lips, just to look into her eyes. The raging sea had calmed; all that remained was the trace of tears already shed.
I wiped them away, one by one, until her face was free of that sad moisture.
A purr escaped her throat, and my chest vibrated in response.
“Do you feel better?”
Elowen gently placed her soft hand against the side of my face, allowing her immense blue eyes to reveal the superhuman feeling we shared.
“I… I know the wound is still here, but I feel numb now.”
I slid an arm behind her back and pulled her to me, seating her on my lap as I leaned back against the headboard.
As if she found healing in me, she wrapped her legs around my waist and hugged my torso tightly, hiding her face in the curve of my neck.
I enclosed her in my arms and slipped one hand through the strands of her messy black hair, devoting myself to a caress I hoped would make her feel sheltered.
“Who hurt you, Elowen?”
“It doesn’t matter…” she whispered, drawing in a deep breath against my neck.
“I’m telling you it does matter. There won’t be a single bone left intact in the body of whoever hurt you. Tell me who it was, so I can have the pleasure of breaking them and tossing what’s left to the pigs.”
“The problem is me, Aldren. I don’t have a sister, I don’t have you, I don’t have anything…”
My mind churned with hypotheses. Had Lunara invaded my territory and the two of them crossed paths? Had someone invented a story for her?
I felt that, even though my pheromones had numbed her, her heart was still shattered. I suspected that only I held the power to revive it, at least a little.
“I promise.”
“What?” Aldren? she asked listlessly, without moving.
“I will not have another woman, nor will I allow hands other than yours to touch me.”
She purred and lifted her face, staring at me as if she couldn’t believe my words.
“I promise, Elowen.”
She parted her lips, letting out a gasp of astonishment. The truth was that I had been keeping that promise long before speaking it. Ever since I kissed her, the idea of touching another female had become uninteresting.