CAELAN
She loved me. The force of that truth was a supernova burning inside my heart. Images and feelings flooded my mind, a much different truth of what I thought I’d known. She’d never questioned me, my leadership. She had always supported me. How had this all gone so wrong?
“Stop,” I whispered, wrapping my hand around the fae king’s wrist.
But still the images kept coming.
“Stop,” I begged, unable to bear the truth any longer.
The look in her eyes when Rachel had shown up in her shop, as if she’d known this was the beginning of the end. I knew she doubted herself, questioned why she thought it might be the end. I saw the confusion and the will it took to shake that off, only to find out she was right all along.
But I hadn’t taken that final step, even though Rachel had wanted to. Something inside me had fought back long enough to refrain, but I knew it was over. The things I’d said to her downtown seared through my soul.
I’d said horrific, unforgivable things to her, had made her doubt her power, her very self.
“Gods,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Stop.”
“No,” Cernunnos said. “See and know what you have lost.”
And still the images kept coming.
Evie curled on her side, her dark hair spilling down her back as we spoke in the deep of night, even while knowing I doubted her ability to become the Lady my Pack needed and not sure why.
Evie smiling at me when I interacted with Seymour.
The hurt in her eyes when I reacted with anger over something that shouldn’t have been a big deal.
The confusion on her face when I kept pushing her for a commitment she wasn’t ready to give. The fury when confronted by the Lords to marry me or someone to leash her power.
Her fury at Ethan when he accused her of selling herself for power.
Everything had gone so terribly wrong.
And there were snatches of something else, something Cernunnos probably shouldn’t have shown me, and I know the bastard did just to hurt me. Their conversations about suitable leaders, her father implying I wasn’t and would never be good enough.
Turned out the sonofabitch was right, just not in the way he thought he was.
Evie’s accusations of Cernunnos bringing Rachel to the Keep. False, but it didn’t matter anymore, did it?
Evie curled on the couch with Rowan.
Jealousy raged within me, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to stifle the emotion. He’d done nothing untoward, did not steer her away from me. The bastard had been far more honorable than I had.
Cernunnos didn’t stop until I had sagged in my chair utterly defeated. Only then did he halt the barrage, ending with Simone and Garrett’s pledges to Evie, and the blood oath breaking our bonds.
How could I have fucked up everything so terribly?
Evie sagged forward, her lips pulled back from her teeth. Tears rolled down her face and dripped off the end of her nose, splashing onto the floor underneath her feet.
“It wasn’t all a lie,” I managed. “I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment you sent me that fuck you automaton.”
But Evie was beyond hearing. She covered her face with her hands and rose on shaky legs.
My former Enforcer gripped her elbow to steady her. Simone gave me a look full of recrimination before he escorted her outside.
Cernunnos sat on the loveseat and watched me.
“How can I fix this?” I croaked.
