She sighed and shifted in her seat so she could work on one screen and speak to me on another. “Okay. Who is it this time? Where is she? Give me details.” This was not the first time we had collaborated to help a human bride. This was the first time either one of our requests to the other was personal.
“Her name is Willow Baylor.”
Catherine frowned. “Hmm. I don’t recognize the name. I don’t think I processed her. I assume she is from Earth?”
“Yes. And no, you did not. She was--”
“What the hell?” Catherine, my brother’s mate—at least she had been, before I’d gotten him and his second killed—looked at me with round, shocked eyes. “She wasyours?”
“Willow is mine.”
“Not according to this. She rejected the match? In less than a week? No second?” Catherine’s gray eyes locked onto mine through the screen. “And now her location and all personal information has been locked down by Prime Nial himself? Holy shit, Zarren. What the hell did you do?”
Zarren.No one had called me that in years, except Willow. My Willow.
I told Catherine the truth, about the day Willow had arrived, about the prisoner and why I’d held him here. The reason I’d chosen to destroy the base, rather than risk more lives—like I had before. I even repeated Willow’s conversation with Oberon when she had helped him escape—at least what I’d heard of it before she locked us out and went dark.
“That’s all peripheral. What didyoudo toher?”
“She was upset about the prisoners and Oberon’s sister. I didn’t know she had been a prisoner. I should have asked her or told her about Oberon myself.”
“No. That’s not enough to make a woman leave like that. What was going on with you two, before that? What did you do to hurt her?”
I couldn’t make myself admit my sins aloud. “So many things.”
Catherine sighed. “You told her your bullshit line about not ever loving her, didn’t you?”
“I--” How did she know?
“God, help us. No wonder we still haven’t won the war.”
“What does this have to do with the war?”
“Apparently, we have idiots in charge.”
“Are you calling me an idiot?” What the fuck? I’d called her for help, not to be derided and insulted. No one spoke to me this way. Ever.
“I am. And you are.” She leaned in close to her comm so that her face filled nearly my entire screen. “Listen to me. Really fucking listen, Commander. Can you do that? For once?”
When I remained silent, she continued.
“I blamed you for a long time, brother. I even hated you for a while. But I realized a while ago that you have hated yourself even more.” She turned her face to the side and wiped a tear from her cheek before looking squarely into her comm. “This has to end, for both of us.”
Brother. She had not called me brother since before I’d given the order that sent her mates to their deaths. Before I'd realized not every battle could be won, that numbers would defeat intention every fucking time.
“Zarren, I forgive you. I forgive myself for hating you. I forgivethemfor going on that mission when theyknewthey would probably die. You told me, right after their deaths, that you never wanted to make another decision based on emotion. That you would never love again. You truly believe you have done exactly that for the last seven years. Don’t you?”
“I have.”
“No. You haven’t. I can’t believe it took me this long to figure you out. The opposite is true. The exact opposite. Every single thing you’ve said or done since your brother died was driven by your love for him.Everythingyou have done, every decision you’ve made, was based on that love. You have hated yourself, closed yourself off, refused to speak to me, and god only knows what else, because you loved him. Because youstilllove him.”
The violence and rage I kept locked deep inside, the fuel I used to survive the months and years of loathing and guilt, didn’t explode inside me, they transformed.
No.Thiswas what they had been all along. I’d simply refused to look behind their disguise.
Agony. Despair. Grief.Painfilled me up, bubbling up inside me like water from a hot spring. I had bathed every cell of my being in its weight, soaked my soul with it for the last seven years, held onto it so there wouldn't be room for anything else.
No space for fear, doubt, personal desires, longing, forgiveness. Love.
