Page 20 of His Curse
"And this nightmare, the first one, it's like that?"
"To a degree. I remember meeting Lark; remember everything about her and our interaction. I remember how she made me feel. And I remember the second theothermade himself known, the second I started to shift."
Zan inhales his smoke deeply. "Which is when you rejected her?"
I nod and rub the back of my neck. "She wanted to help me. Lark kept getting closer, wanted to help, and the only way I could think of to get her to stop was by rejecting her. I didn't want to, gods how I didn't want to, but it was the only way to get her to stop, to get her to leave me alone, but she didn't. She told me she didn't accept my rejection, refused to sever our bond, and was convinced we would get through that shit together."
"She could have been right."
Scowling at the asshat, I stab out my cigarette. "I know that now, dumbass, but I didn't then. I was too worried about hurting her, too worried about making sure she was safe to do anything else." With a sigh, I slide down to the floor across from him. "To be honest, I probably still would have rejected her even if I didn't shift because being mated to someone like me would have only brought her pain.” Then I chuckle with absolutely zero humor. "We weren't even passed introductions and I managed to do that anyway."
"How?"
I lift my head and blink at him.
What the fuck does he meanhow? I think that's pretty fucking obvious.
But Zan rolls his eyes. "I understandhow,but I'm asking how exactly did you hurt her? How do you know you hurt her?"
"Theotherchased her through the woods until he caught her."
"And?"
"What the fuck, and? He caught her and killed her!" Did he really just want to make me say that? Force me to speak the words out loud? Yell it from the rooftops that I killed my mate?
I thought he was being a friend but this is just cruel, even for him.
But he just points his cigarette at me and keeps right on going. “You did not feel her death."
"Because I was gone. I didn't feel our bond break because I wasn't myself, because I don't even deserve to carry around a broken heart over my mate! I have to wander around in this weird state of limbo with periodic flashbacks of what I did to her, but I don't get to feel the heartache that comes with it. It's like watching a movie, seeing what happens right up until when it hits the climax then the reel splits and you have to come to the conclusion on your own. Because I'm cursed, I can't even grieve my mate! The bastard took that from me too!"
"You, my dear wolf, are an idiot."
I growl deep and low in my chest. "Fuck off, Zan. I don't need to rehash this shit just to satisfy some morbid curiosity you have."
Another roll of his amethyst eyes. "Just listen.” He crosses his legs and leans toward me. "First of all, you said yourself it wasn't you, you were gone, so any harm brought to your mate was in fact caused by theotherandnotyou. Secondly, no matter what state you were in you would have felt the way your bond broke then mended differently. Nothing can stop that. Third, you do not remember what happened to your Lark, cannot clearly see what was done to her, therefore have no idea if she was in fact killed."
"But I see enough!" I snap, trying not to lose my shit completely. “My nightmares have been giving me pieces of what happened. Her face streaked in blood, her blood all over the ground! It was too much: too much to heal from, and too much for it to not have killed her.”
"Then why do you remain hopeful?"
My eyes widen and my jaw drops at his startling revelation.
Am I hopeful?
Is that why I don't feel the weight of rejecting my mate as intensely as I should?
Don't get me wrong, I feel it. I feel every second of every day but not as heavily as I should, and I've always just thought that was some twisted result of Lark refusing to accept my rejection, some effect of hearing her tell me she loved me despite what happened.
And if I am hopeful, then what is it I’m hoping for?
That she didn't die and I have a chance at finding her again, or hopeful that she did and I both failed and succeeded to spare her the hard truth of being my mate?
Either way, the demon is right.
I have some kind of fucked up hope that I've been holding onto for the last hundred and thirty or so years, and maybe that's just the madness of living without my mate on a smaller scale.
"My hope isn't right; it’s misplaced at best. It isn't for some happy ending. No matter where it comes from, it's a selfish hope, and I don't deserve that either."
