His eyes examined my face, fingers lifting to brush away the last of my tears. His hands then cupped my cheeks. “I will never be able to move on from you. If you were no longer in this world, then I would follow you to the next one. Not for a moment did I consider it with Regina, but for you there’s no other option. I’ve stayed with you for years, even if you didn’t know I was there. As long as you were okay, I let you be. But now … now that I’ve touched and tasted and loved you, I cannot leave you again.”
He was begging me with his eyes to not push him away, and with a weight gone from me after the moment with my sister, I felt like I could do this. I could give myself to Louis.
“Don’t break me,” I whispered as I went up on my toes to wrap my arms around him.
His lips met mine in a kiss so fiery that I felt it all the way through my body. It was probably hugely inappropriate to be kissing in the middle of a cemetery, but somehow it felt like another step toward healing. My family was with me in that moment, their love and support almost tangible, and I knew they would be okay with my choices now.
“Are we really doing this?” I said, almost unable to believe it was real. “I mean, so many years, so much history. I can’t believe we’re in this moment now.”
He pushed some of my hair back, his eyes locked on me with that intense thing he did so well. “We wasted too many years. I won’t waste any more. I need you, and more importantly I want you.”
He hadn’t said love, but neither had I. We were still holding back, which made sense considering we were both stepping into something new and crazy and scary. I knew I was important to Louis, and that was enough. He’d kept an eye on me over the years, the same way I had with him. We’d never been able to fully let go.
I would never let him go. Here’s hoping I came out of all this with my heart still intact, because something told me that losing Louisafterhaving had all of him was not a thing I could come back from.
19
Louis
Ihad known from the moment I left her place that I was going to break my promise. Leaving her vulnerable and hurting was not something I could easily do, and I fought my baser instincts the entire time, desperate to return to her.
Her face was firmly imprinted in my mind. All of those golden tresses, and her full pink lips that tempted me like nothing else. Silver eyes that could be dark and stormy one moment and icy the next. She knew how to use her words to cut a person down, but she was also beyond kind.
Yep, I was never going to be able to stay away from her, but I would make a decent attempt at it. So I left her in Alaska and headed to Stratford.
“Louis!” Mischa had just stepped out onto the deck. She sounded surprised to see me. “Jess said you were taking off to find Lizzie. I didn’t expect to see you.”
She had Lily in her hands. The child regarded me closely, and I shot the little one a smile, hoping to ease her confusion. They were still getting used to me, and I knew my power was disconcerting for most people, especially young children. “She needs some time,” I said simply. “She thinks we both do, but … everything is very clear for me now.”
Mischa stepped closer, looking so much like her sister and yet nothing like her at the same time. She was soft where Jessa was not, and in some ways I preferred the other twin. Mischa was probably going to say something that hurt, and I’d take Jessa’s form of therapy any day.
“Give her the time she needs,” she said, giving me the advice I knew was coming but hadn’t asked for. “But don’t wait too long.”
That surprised me, and I regarded her carefully. There was a tinge of pink on her cheeks as she stared back at me. “Maximus was almost too late because he took his time to sort his shit out. Don’t make that mistake.”
I let out a strangled chuckle. “She knows how I feel now. I made it very clear. She’s the one who has to decide if she can let go of the past, because if she doesn’t, there may not be a way that we can work through our pain together.”
I turned back to stare out into the forest. “I already want to go back to her.”
That face, it was haunting me.
I was the maker of my own downfall. As most people are.
More supes joined us on the deck then, and I turned to find myself surrounded by pack … by family. Even the jeweled princesses were back, all of them feeling just a little more powerful than the last time I’d seen them. “We’re heading out early,” Braxton said, crossing to me. “We want to make sure everything is safe there.”
“You’re taking the little ones?” I asked, staring at Jackson in his arms.
Braxton shook his head. “No, this situation feels too risky. We’ll leave them here and just take a step-through back to see them a few times a day.”
“They’ll be safer here in Stratford,” Jessa added.
I nodded. “I can open a semipermanent one for you so you don’t have to keep leaving the sanctuary to open a step-through.”
The twins’ faces lit up, and even the Compasses looked relieved to hear that. It was tough for them to be balancing their parent duties in these dark times we kept facing, and I hoped there was peace on the horizon for them soon. A chance to just enjoy their families.
“It will get easier,” I promised, taking in their drawn and weary faces. “They won’t always be so small and vulnerable.”
Evie slayed me with her too-old-for-a-child eyes, and I wondered if she was vulnerable even now.
