“I don’t want this,” Nick said as she crossed to the bed. “I never really did.”
She looked down at the lightweight jacket Skyla had given her that first day, laid out on the mattress. She’d already thrown the denim jacket she’d been wearing earlier away. It was ripped at the shoulder from the scene in the alley, and she couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. Couldn’t handle remembering the way Nick had finally kissed her after she’d dragged him back from the edge, the tenderness in his voice, the sweet way he’d touched her, and his urgent need to be close to her. Not his soul mate, but her. “I guess it doesn’t really matter what any of us want, now does it?”
He pushed to his feet. “Cynna—”
“No, you know, it’s…fine.” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her pulsing temple. She was lying. It wasn’t fine. It would never be fine, but what the hell could she do about it? “She’s your soul mate, and though I might not get the whole soul mate draw…thing, I’ve definitely noticed how you can’t say no to her. So fine. Do what you have to do.” She dropped her hand and reached for the jacket. “You don’t owe me any explanation.”
“It’s not what you think.” He stepped toward her.
She tried not to look but couldn’t keep from glancing up. His eyes were shadowed, his brow furrowed. He was probably the strongest man she’d ever met, even stronger than Zagreus because of everything he’d lived through, but at the moment, he didn’t look strong. He looked wrecked. And her foolish heart went out to him.
“It’s not just about her,” he went on. “It’s about what happens to her sisters if she dies, and the people of Argolea if there’s no ruling monarchy, and what the Council will do to my people in the settlement if the queen isn’t around to stop them.”
He was justifying his decision. A decision he’d clearly already made. Her eyes slid closed, and her heart—or what was left of it—felt like it burst into flames in the center of her chest.
Drawing a deep breath, she pulled herself together as best she could, opened her eyes, and tugged on her jacket. “Then I guess that’s all there is to say.”
She turned for the door, but he moved quickly, stepping in her way. “Wait.”
Angry now—that this was happening, that she couldn’t change it, that she wasn’t enough for him to want to find a way to change it—she glared at him. “For what?”
“Just… I still need you.”
Frustration and hurt and betrayal all swirled inside her. “You never needed me. Not really. I was just a distraction from reality. In Zagreus’s lair, when we got to the colony…here. I’ve never had any magical power over you, Nick, not like your soul mate, and you know it. So I’m sure if a nobody like me can distract you for whatever it is that you need, then your soul mate will do an even better job.”
She stepped around him, but he grasped her upper arm, the heat of his fingertips burning into her skin beneath her jacket as he turned her to face him.
Godsdammit… She was past the point of understanding. She wanted to lash out, to tell him to leave her the hell alone, to run. But when she glared up at him, the anguish she saw on his scarred face nearly did her in.
“I don’t…want you to leave,” he said in a pained voice.
Oh gods. Everything hurt—her stomach, her chest, her limbs, her head. And she found herself wanting to sink in and comfort him the way she needed to be comforted right this very second. But she couldn’t. Because something told her when he eventually left her to be with Isadora, that willpower that she’d held on to so tightly all those months with Zagreus would finally break. And she’d spiral even deeper into the depths of a despair that had pushed her toward revenge in the first place. To a place she’d never break free from.
“Neither do I,” she managed. “But I’ve never gotten what I want out of life. And this time, I’m not willing to compromise.”
Gently, she pulled her arm from his and straightened her spine. “It’s selfish of me. I know it is. But I won’t share you with someone else, especially her. I just...can’t. If you do this, then you have to do it without me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Zagreus stalked out of the cavern where Lykos was tormenting a particularly naughty nymph chained to the wall. Nothing pleased him lately. Not the sounds of agony in his lair, not watching Lykos—now that he was healed from his wounds—work his special talents on a nymph who’d tried to run away. Not even toying with the trio of Maenad nymphs he’d taken to his bedchamber last night.
He headed for his office, pushed the door open, and dropped into the chair behind his massive desk. The underwater window cast shades of blue and green over the dark room, and he stared at the fish swimming by, wondering if ripping a few to shreds would do anything to bolster his mood.