“I was eighteen,” Legion slurs. “He was nineteen.” Legion collapses down, his head almost on his knees, and sobs.
I sit up; my body breaks out in goosebumps. Whatever Legion is about to tell us, this story isn’t going to end happily.
“I was so young,” he whispers and thumps his hand on his chest, “and so stupid. I wanted to impress him, so I followed him home. There was this path between buildings. Why did I follow him? I wish I’d never seen it. I was a stalker, a freaky stalker. There I was, skipping along like some loser. I thought he’d be so happy to see me. I should have known better,” he mutters wrathfully.
“Legion,” Mordecai murmurs. “You don’t have to tell us. You’re drunk; you need to sleep.”
“Isn’t that what the night and alcohol are for? Telling secrets you’d never tell a soul. Things the world should never hear? We whisper them in the dark to people we trust won’t say them back in the light of day. Our friendship seals our lips, and we share the weight of the things that are,” he looks around helplessly, “killing us.”
“What happened when you followed him home, Legion?” Cadel asks.
“Lucian,” he murmurs. “My name is Lucian. And I ruined everything.”
A single tear tracks down his cheek, glowing in the firelight.
“They followed me; I was so arrogant, so confident. I didn’t know!” Legion waves his arm in front of him towards the fire. “How was I supposed to know? It’s not my fault. Please, oh, omega goddess, please, it’s not my fault. Tell me I dreamed it; tell me it was a nightmare.”
“Legion, what happened?” I ask gently, but my mind is reeling.
“My alpha will never love me because I got his whole family killed.” His hissing whisper is so full of self-hate that I have no words. I can’t even imagine how he feels.
“Legion,” Mordecai reaches out, but Legion pulls away.
“Lucian! I’m raw, and I’m real. No matter how I try to erase that other part of me. No matter how many good deeds I do, I can’t undo the crimesI’ve committed. I will never feel his touch, I will never hear his voice whisper my name, I will never…” he stops, his chest heaving.
“Lucian, there is always hope while you are both alive. There is hope.”
He laughs. “We are star-crossed lovers, destined to ruin each other in every life we meet in. I have loved him in so many ways, but my love destroys him. My love destroys everyone. I am toxic.”
Legion stands up, swinging his long black hair behind him, and then drops to his knees in front of the fire.
“If I can’t wish upon a star, can I wish on fire? Can there be any way that the gods hear me and have mercy?”
I stand up, ignoring Jarek and Cadel, and kneel beside Legion, wrapping my arms around him.
“It hurts,” he says hoarsely. “Why does it never stop hurting? I’m forever wearing this facade, covering myself up, trying to hold it in, but I’m breaking. Living without him is torture. Existing knowing how badly I hurt him makes me want to die. But who do I think I am to die before he does? I have not earned his mercy yet.”
“You don’t need mercy; you need forgiveness, not his but your own,” I say fiercely.
“I knew him for days, and he remade me. And then I ruined him. Minutes. Just a handful of minutes. He was everything, and he was mine.”
“Lucian, Lucian,” I whisper, stroking his back. “You need to sleep. You’re drunk, and no good will come from opening these wounds. They will just hurt you more tomorrow.”
“They hurt me every day. I don’t deserve to have her look at me like that. She thinks I am something special, but I am the worst kind of coward. I hid and watched them, and I ran while he tried to fix what I broke. Theycame back for his family, but there was nothing I could do. There were so many. I tried. I tried to save them. But they were so heavy.”
Legion collapses in a ball, sobbing.
I turn to Mordecai. He slips around the other side and lifts Legion up. The omega leans into the alpha’s strength and whimpers.
“He should have been mine. We could have been happy.”
In the shadows, Mia lifts a hand to her face and wipes away her tears. Before I can say anything, she backs away, disappearing into the dark.
I stand there staring after them long after they are gone. It occurs to me how lucky I am. To have found not one but three scent matches, three of my alphas, and I have them with me. Does our happiness feel like salt in Legion’s wound?
I never would have guessed that all that emotion, that trauma and heartache, was hiding buried beneath the mask he wears.
Cadel takes my hand and leads me the short distance to the tent that has been made available for us. When we get in, he strips my clothes off me piece by piece. He grabs a cloth and wets it and drags it over my body, slowly and meticulously.
