I suddenly felt deflated, hopeless. I heard myself say something that I never thought would pass my lips.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“What?” Arys’s gaze grew shadowed as he hid what was going on inside him. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know.” A surge of emotion choked off my reply. What the hell was I doing? “I can’t handle the constant conflict anymore. It will keep getting worse; it does every time. At what point does it destroy us?”
“Don’t talk like that,” he admonished with a scowl. “It’s not like we can escape each other.”
I forced myself to look at him, really look at him. He was a reflection of me in so many ways. Where those similarities ended, a great divide began. I loved him with a desperation that could only lead to pain. What we were, it wasn’t natural. I didn’t want him to suffer any more than necessary. We’d already suffered so much torment.
“No, maybe we can’t. That doesn’t mean we have to be together.”
I hated myself when his guard fell and pain flashed through his blue eyes. I kept telling myself this was for the best. It would save our sanity and maybe even our lives.
“I can’t believe you’re saying this. We share power, a purpose. You can’t turn your back on that.”
“I’m not. I just think we need some time apart. I need some time.” A sob caught in my throat. God, I was really doing this. “My pack kicked me out tonight, and it doesn’t even matter because I’m going to lose my wolf. With Shaz gone, it’s so much harder to resist your darkness. It grows in me, Arys. Every night it grows.”
He crossed the distance I’d put between us and grabbed my arms. He shook me in frustration, forcing me to look up into his eyes. “That will never stop. We need each other, Alexa. How can you think otherwise? I love you.”
“I know that. And, I love you.” I blinked back the blood tears that blurred my vision. “That’s why this has to be the last fight. It’s best for both of us.”
“No. I’m not going along with this.” His grip tightened painfully. He kissed me, a hard, bruising kiss that screamed of his refusal. It left me quaking.
I kissed him back with a red-hot passion I felt to the tips of my toes. My heart was calling me every name in the book, but my head knew I was doing the right thing. For the last year, so much of who I was revolved around Arys. I accepted that we were created to be together, but I needed to find myself first.
“Please understand,” I whispered. “I need to discover who I am apart from you. For the sake of my sanity, just give me some time.”
“I knew this day would come. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew.” Arys held me close, burying his face in my hair. “I’m sorry about your wolf. I’m sorry I drove you to this.”
I shook my head as the blood-red tears spilled down my cheeks. My words were an emotional jumble. “This isn’t your fault, Arys. We just don’t know how to exist together.”
“I don’t know how to exist without you. I waited so long to find you.” His voice grew thick with emotion. “I can’t lose you now.”
A fresh surge of tears shook me. “You’re not losing me. Just letting go. For a while.”
We stood there for what had to be a long time but didn’t feel long enough. I was still wrestling the urge to take it all back when he kissed me one last time and walked away.
I watched him go, fading into the night to become someone’s worst nightmare. I collapsed to my knees on the pavement and cried. It felt impulsive, but this had been building for months now. Despite our love, we had no qualms about turning on one another when the situation allowed it. We had to do this, to save ourselves. We had to.
As much as I told myself it was better this way, my heart wouldn’t believe it. I gasped for breath in between sobs as I became utterly and completely broken.
Chapter Fifteen
“You did what you think is best. What matters is that you can live with it.”
Jez popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and toasted to the coming dawn. We sat in an old graveyard twenty miles outside the city. The earth was, for the most part, undisturbed.