Theo
Theo listened to Gemma’s steady breathing. He watched the rise and fall of her chest from the light of the moon that streamed through the window.
He thought about Gemma’s confession that she loved him. She was completely honest about that. She also was completely honest about the fact she understood that he couldn’t ever love her.
That part was a lie. He already loved her with an intensity that scared him.
Gemma had lied too. She said her love could be a hero complex or because he was the first man to make love to her. She didn’t believe that any more than he did.
She also didn’t sound too convincing when she said maybe there was a mate out there for her.
She had talked wistfully about having a family with a man who loved her. She wanted children, and she wanted a home.
The thought of Gemma having a mate, of another man touching her, made Theo’s heart hurt as though someone stabbed him with a knife. The searing pain was enough to bring tears into his eyes.
“I should be her mate. I should be the man she has children with and who she makes love to every night,” he said to himself.
The confession shocked him. He had never thought of another woman as a potential mate before now. He had never wanted another woman besides Savannah. When she died, he died. It was just that he had a meat suit that continued to function. The rest of him, his heart, soul, and his will to live broke as he held his dying mate in his arms and watched the life leave her eyes.
“Please don’t leave me,” he had begged Savannah, ignoring the sounds of the battle going on around them and the screams of the wounded and dying.
She had raised her hand, and stroked his cheek, and wiped the tears from his eyes. “My love, I will always be with you. I will be the whisper of the breeze as it caresses your skin. I will be the sounds of the birds singing their love songs from the trees.”
Her voice grew weaker and weaker as the hole in her side bled out. “We’ll be together again, my love. I promise.”
And then, she was gone. He held on to her dead body, rocking back and forth, crying, heedless of the war that continued as though Savannah’s death had meant nothing. She had jumped in front of a bear’s claw to save him. He can still hear the sounds of her skin ripping as she turned to burn the bear. The bear was defeated, but her attempt to save him was in vain. Both of them had died that day.
Germaine had sat by him while the elders pried his dead mate from his arms. He cried as they built a funeral pyre for her and sent her on to the next world with all the honors due to a hero.
From that day on, Theo had simply gone through the motions of living. He took care of his businesses, went to functions, and did everything a clan leader should do.
Then, one day, he had asked himself why he was pretending. It was too hard. He asked the council to take care of his businesses. They could take half of the profits for themselves and put the other half in his accounts. He quit going to council meetings and functions. He quit life.
He watched Gemma sleeping. She was so beautiful in more ways than one. Sure, she had the physical beauty that Germaine wouldn’t shut up about. However, she was strong. She had gone through more in her twenty-four years than most people went through in a lifetime. Yet, she still found pleasure in the simple things. There was definitely something to be said about that.
Theo thought if he was ever going to have another mate, it would be Gemma. He loved her, but he didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve to have another mate. He couldn’t protect the one he had. Instead, she died for him. That was not something he could ever get over, no matter how long he was cursed to live.
Gemma moaned in her sleep, and he wondered if she was having a good dream or if it was a nightmare. She had told him she had very few nights without nightmares during her life, but she hadn’t had any since she had come here.
Of course, a lot of things had changed, including the fact the wolves had decided to wage war. They had to know that just because they had taken Gemma’s human, the dragons were never just going to give up. The dragon shifter clan did not negotiate with terrorists. They would get Gemma’s human back safely and keep Gemma safe at the same time. They would not be allowed to get away with this.
When she has her birthday and is twenty-five, are all the wolves simply going to stop fighting the next day. Are they going to say, “Well, we tried,” and then move on to their next task? Or are they still going to try engaging the dragon shifters in a war, trying to get back at them for protecting their sacrifice? Both sides had casualties, although the dragon shifters had a lot less than the wolf shifters. But then, the dragon shifters already have small numbers. They really can’t afford to lose more.
Theo’s head hurt, but not as much as his heart. He loved Gemma. There was no way he could deny it anymore, regardless of how much he tried to lie to Gemma. It was likely that she knew how he felt, but he could never be her mate. She was, after all, very astute. Gemma was also intelligent enough to understand that he’d spend the rest of his miserable life atoning for his mistakes and pining for his lost mate.
With that thought, Theo slowly drifted to sleep.
