And together, we launched ourselves over the edge.
52
BARRETT
Adull ache lingered in the back of my head when I opened my eyes, the room swaying and blurring as I blinked. I lifted my hand to rub my eyes as I rolled over and grimaced at the faint streaks of light leaking from the nearby curtains.
I frowned, and my eyes clenched shut as I shifted to the edge of the bed. My head fell in my hands as I sat there a moment, trying to get my bearings amidst the hazy confusion of where I was, how I’d gotten here, and what had happened.
The softest sigh dragged my attention to the sleeping figure in the bed at my back. So I’d wound up leaving the bar with someone last night, it seemed, but then another groan of sleepiness caught my attention, the voice familiar, and my heart halted in my chest. I twisted around and froze at the sight of Thalia and Micah passed out amidst the sheets of their bed. My eyes flew around the room, taking in all the details as I sobered and realized where the fuck I was.
Thiscouldn’t be happening...
Moments resurfaced amidst the haze of the drug and alcohol-induced night—the feel of Thalia’s skin against mine, her lips, the feel of her body pressed tightly between us as we took her, and...fuck, it had been amazing, everything I had ever wanted.
Only we had been drunk, and now I’d tasted something that I wasn’t meant to have, something I never should have partaken in. I pushed off the bed, my pulse roaring in my ears as I silently cursed myself.
What the fuck was I thinking?
You weren’t fucking thinking.
I searched the mess of clothes before ducking to grab my jeans on the floor next to the dresser. As I rose, I froze at the faint familiar scent of jasmine and citrus, and I caught sight of the open box atop the dresser, a note laid out beside it in Lucia’s handwriting. My eyes latched on to the scrap of fabric lying nestled amidst the pale linen.
Before I could think better of it, I took the scrap of damaged fabric in my hand, the edges frayed, rips and tears dotting it from years of rough handling.
Cali’s laughter echoed in the back of my mind as I looked closer, something scratching the back of my head as I lifted it. When the faint hint of my scent hit my nose I stopped breathing.
A girl, lost and frightened. I’d gifted her my coat. I’d forgotten her, forgotten she’d even existed so many years after her disappearance, and I...
I dropped the fabric as realization crashed into me, and I looked over my shoulder to where Thalia slept. It was her, the one from all those centuries ago. Her stormy eyes had haunted me...and why wouldn’t they? They were my future, my torment, my heartbreak. They were everything I wanted and everything I would never have because she wasn’t fucking mine.
How could The Fates have dangled her in front of me, only to rip her out of my life, to torment us both, only to throw us back together after she’d already bound herself to another?
My chest heaved as everything came crashing around me, as the memories of us playing with Calliope in the meadow filled my mind. The dreams—they had all fucking been her. She was who I’d been searching for all these centuries, whether I knew it or not. Every set of eyes I’d met, I’d found myself searching them for something, searching for her, for the storms in her eyes that might temper the raging inferno spiraling out of control within me.
How fucking cruel of The Fates to sentence me to be fated to a female who’d already chosen, who’d already fallen in love with someone else before I’d even had the chance. Was this my punishment? After everything I’d done in my life, every person I’d failed, was this what The Fates would punish me with, to watch as my mate and love of my life lived out her life with someone else?
I yanked my jeans on, desperate to get out of here.
“Barrett?” Thalia groaned, and I stiffened, unable to turn to her, unable to look her in the eyes.
Did she remember the night before? Did she choose this? I didn’t dare ask, couldn’t face the possibility of her regret as I zipped up my jeans and pulled my shirt on.
Her pale brows pinched together as she sat up, her cornsilk hair spilling over her shoulder as she shifted toward the edge of the bed. “What are you?—"
I stormed toward the door, swiping my socks off the ground as I went. I froze as my hand halted at the doorknob. “This was a mistake.”
53
THALIA
Iflinched as Barrett slammed the door, and I stood frozen at the foot of my bed, my hands trembling, vision blurring as tears welled in my eyes. What had I done?
Most of the night before was lost to a drunken dream, only bits and pieces of it flitting across my memory. How could I have been so foolish to think everything would be all right after last night? How could I have given in so easily to my desires?
Micah let out a sigh, and I turned to find his face in his hands.
“What have we done?” I muttered, my heart fracturing more with each passing second in the echoing silence of Barrett’s departure.
