Page 27 of Cryptic Dreams
This is all because of me, because of my need to protect Zephyr even if it means rejecting her, and while I know it is the right thing to do, watching her breakdown has a sliver of doubt creeping into the back of my mind. If my words of anger and negativity impacted her so greatly, if my bastard attitude has this female weeping over her life and thinking she can’t continue any longer, what would the opposite from me do for her?
I shake my head and scoot almost all the way off the roof, taking one last glimpse at my mate before jumping down to the busted sidewalk below, my own emotions foreign but overpowering, so much so that I feel sick over what I just witnessed.
Sick and fucking disgusted over what I witnessed, what I’ve done, and what I’m still not going to do in spite of it. I cannot embrace our bond, cannot go to my… toherbecause the pain that will surely come from us being together is far greater than the pain she is feeling now. Zephyr will snap out of this; the light inside her burns too brightly for her not to. Once she does, she will see that this was all for the best.
Staying away, preventing us from being together, it is all for the best.
Now, if someone could explain all of thatto me,it’d be real fucking grand because the pain growing inside my chest is enough to have me questioning every bloody aspect of my my plan whether the goddamn thing for the best or not.
9
Outcast
WRAITH
It’s probably a good thing I decided to put a stop to all Purist meetings for the short term. It would look terrible if my most trusted allies, my friends and fiercest supporters, ignored me completely in front of the unified group.
Not only would that make me look like an arse of epic proportions, but it would also send the wrong kind of message to our soldiers dying to fight in this new war. Can’t give the impression that there’s trouble in paradise—something I learned from dear olddad.
I roll over to my back with a sigh, stare up at the ceiling, and begin tracing the patterns that decorate the inside of my bedroom with my eyes.
I know Orion and Aries are displeased with me, unhappy with the way I treated Zephyr in our brief introduction at the club, but that was days ago now. Five days, seven hours and thirty-six minutes to be exact, and while I understand why they didn’t like my curt and disrespectful attitude, I fear at this point it goes beyond that.
I don’t believe Zephyr would have told them about our littlerun induring our impromptu stroll through New Orleans that night, but I have a feeling Orion knows.
He’s too empathetic, too in tune with most he meets, and even more so with the only creature he shares blood with to not know. She wouldn’t have had to speak a word for him to know she is hurting, heartbroken even, and that is exactly why he’s been giving me the cold shoulder when I periodically find my balls and brave a trip to Plasma.
Orion knew, somehow, most likely the first night when I all but drooled over Zephyr, that we shared a connection, and in turn he probably assumes that has something to do with her intense and negative feelings as well as her most recent disappearance from her usual haunts.
Something I only know because I have not stopped stalking her despite what I said to her in the alley.
God, that destroyed me, completely gutted me to speak to her that way, but I had to do it. I had to put a stop to whatever it was she was thinking because there is just no way we can be together. It cannot happen and Zephyr will be better for it.
And while I am utterly crushed over being so cruel to my mate, I’m also rather perplexed by what she said to me.
Am I that transparent?
Did I not shield my thoughts well enough?
How was she able to detect my presence when I went to such lengths to hide myself from her?
And how in the bloody hell did Zephyr know I am her mate without fully embracing the bond myself?
So many questions.
Questions that will remain unanswered because it is the only way—the best way.
Zephyr believes I do not want her and that is how it shall remain.
I blow out a rough breath as I rub my hand over my heart, the ache so much stronger than it was a few weeks ago. I shall have to get used to it, I imagine. This ache will probably never go away, not without my mate by my side, but at least it will be a small reminder, a way to keep her with me always without actually having her.
Such a sap.
Wraith of Carmarthen, heartless prince and ruthless heir to Atticus’s throne.
A warrior, a soldier, a leader to the Purist army.
Sadist.
