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“That you lied to me?” I laughed, the sound cracking. “Oh, I understand that perfectly fine, asshole.”
He grimaced, dragging a bloodied hand through his hair, red streaking the blond. Someone called him, and he threw a look at his gathered wolf packs over his shoulder, then stared back at me. “I’m sorry, okay? But I knew this would happen.”
“So tell me that,” I said, each word scalding, hissing through my teeth. “Tell me, talk to me rather than lie to me.”
He stopped advancing three perilous steps from me. The breeze swept some of that soft hair over his forehead, his eyes a rival to the darkness that had invaded the sky. “Would you have listened?”
Stu
Would I have? I would’ve liked to think that yes, I would have, but this… what we had become multiplied daily, and I couldn’t keep up. I’d humored him, fallen for him while doing so, while trying to make a difference, but I’d never wholly trusted him.
We both knew that.
His name was called once more, but he did not acknowledge whoever it was.
“I guess we’ll never know.” Eyes, too many, were upon us, but that didn’t stop me from saying on a burning breath, “All I know is that I’ll never listen to another word you say.” The moans of the wounded, the shrieking of crows coming for the dead, slithered inside this new bubble of our own making.
His face fell and paled, his hand trembled as he took a step forward and reached out as though he’d touch me. “You don’t truly mean that.” He blinked as though suddenly unsure and stopped toe to toe with me. “Do you?”
“Don’t,” I warned. Knocking his hand away, I whispered, “Leave, and take with you the knowledge that I lied too, and that I never wanted this.” I dragged my eyes from his mouth as it opened and met his narrowed gaze. “You needed to be stopped. Someone had to stop you.” I lifted a shoulder as though I cared nothing for everything we’d been and all we could’ve been when I cared far too much. “So that’s what I did.”
Dade studied me, rage unfolding, sharpening and twisting each feature. It oozed from his pores and rolled off his skin. I’d witnessed him angered, though I’d never felt it quite that potently before, as though I were standing too close to a fire and starting to sweat.
The need to soothe and mollify itched at my clammy skin like a rash I wished I could scrape from my body, and I tucked my hands behind me, pulling back my shoulders.
As though sensing that, Dade’s head tilted. He sniffed, a cruel smile lighting his eyes. “While that may be so, this”—those eyes wouldn’t release mine as he pointed at my breasts—“that racing organ in your chest says you might have completed your mission but lost more than you’d bargained for, sunshine.”
“Leave,” I gritted.
His smile slipped into a slight sneer. “Gladly.”
Within minutes, they were clearing out of the city, our soldiers watching on in dismay.
I waited until he’d turned away before unleashing one loaded breath after another, my chest tight and aching no matter how much I tried to control each one.
I waited until his warriors had disappeared through the entrance to the city before falling back inside the empty store and to the glass-flecked ground.