My brow furrows. “You’re worried about Reaper? When I’m the one who was wounded?” That doesn’t make any sense.
“Did you punish him?” she asks, her soft tone holding a note of caution to it, one that has me realizing her concernis founded on her perception of me. Of what I’ve done to her. Of what she believes I did to Maliki.
Fuck. “No,” I snap and move away from her to run my fingers through my hair.
I knew things between us were distorted and wrong. But this? It’s far worse than I realized.
And it’s all my fault.
I whisper a curse and step beneath the spray, letting it wash over me as I try to figure out how to recover from this.
Movement causes my focus to return to Serapina as she starts to tiptoe around me.
“Please don’t leave,” I say, suddenly feeling more exhausted than I have in a very long time. “I didn’t punish Reaper, nor was I punishing Maliki. Actually, if anything, I wasrewardingMaliki by letting him touch you.”
Because I knew he wanted to. And he needed me to essentially demand he do so in order to feelallowedto act on his desires.
“I would never force Maliki to do something he didn’t want to do. Actually, I’m fairly certain I can’t force him to do a damn thing. He may respect me as his friend, but he has no problem telling me to fuck off when I overstep.”
In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s been doing that a lot over the last year where Serapina is concerned.
“He likes you,” I go on. “And for months he’s been saying you’re not pretending or lying. I stubbornly believed my mate had deceived him just as she’d done to me. So I chose to engage her—you—in a game. One I now realize has caused significant harm.”
Serapina slowly turns to face me, her gaze guarded.
It’s a look that physically undoes me.
Because I’ve earned that expression. And I fucking hate what I’ve done.
She’s an Omega. She deserves to be cherished. Yet all I’ve done is frighten her and make her think the worst of me.
“It’s not an excuse, but I truly believed you were Persephone and merely pretending not to remember me.” The words come out bitter because I’m still struggling to accept that I was wrong, that my soulmate isn’t actually staring back at me right now.
But the proof is irrefutable.
She’s not Persephone.
However, sheismy soulmate.
Which means she deserves to understand my motives and what I originally intended to do.
“I was trying to punish Persephone in my own way,” I admit. “That’s why I re-created our engagement announcement and even went as far as to plan a replica of our first wedding. It was meant to remind her of who we once were, while the environment around us showed her who we had become—as a result of her deception.”
I’ve had millennia to prepare for her return. Never did I consider that the version of her wouldn’t be the one I once knew.
“I’ve been hunting her soul for over two thousand years,” I confide softly. “I knew she wasn’t truly gone. I felt her. Sensed her in every breath. Knew she was somewhere I couldn’t touch. And when I finally found her—foundyou—with Demeter, I assumed you were a reincarnated version of my mate, all memories intact.”
It was an intelligent assumption.
But a wrong one.
“This is all unprecedented, Serapina.” I run my fingers through my hair. “You’re mine. I feel in my heart and soul that you are my mate. Yet that mating call you unleashedearlier says otherwise.” It should have been impossible. However, that’s exactly what happened.
Which provided even more proof that Serapina may possess my mate’s soul, but she isn’t Persephone.And she isn’t truly mine, either.
A fact I’m refusing to accept.
Because it makes no sense.
