Viktor felt like the life was being squeezed out of him. “Cam, don’t.”
One beautiful lavender hand reached out to touch his arm. Her skin was cool and slightly clammy against his. “I’m not leaving you. I can’t. You’re mine, Vik,” she whispered, breath hitching. “I just… I need to clear my head.”
The coyote didn’t see the difference, and the man struggled with the concept, too. Choked, he asked, “Can’t you do that here? With me?”
Camille squeezed his arm. “No, Vik. I don’t think I can.”
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
Camille turned to look at Margot hovering by her bedroom door. She was dressed in a crisp white blouse and dark green skirt, her red hair braided over one shoulder and her face clear of any strain, any sign at all that she had spent the better part of the night saving a man’s life.
She looked bright and beautiful and full of life. In Camille’s current state, that was utterly intolerable.
“Thank you, Margot,” she rasped, striving for a tone that didn’t bely how very close she was to stepping off of an emotional cliff. Camille wasn’t in the habit of revealing her vulnerabilities to anyone besides her brother, but even he wouldn’t be privy to her coming meltdown. “I just— I need to be alone for a while.”
Margot’s angular brows pinched together. Her lips pursed, and when she sucked in a deep breath, her narrow shoulders rose. Every line of her body spoke loudly,I don’t think that’s a good idea.
“I understand,” she said at length, “but… I just want you to know that I get what you’re feeling right now.”
Camille couldn’t stop the strained laugh that bubbled like acid up her throat. What did this dignified, sweet-faced little halfling know about having her world completely yanked out from under her again and again? “You do? How?”
“Yeah.” Margot smiled, but it wasn’t a happy expression. It was soft and sad and full of memory. “Like you want to keep fighting for a chance to have a little bit of happiness, but every choice presented to you is the wrong one. Like there is no good outcome, no path that doesn’t lead to misery. Like you just… can’t win.”
Her throat convulsed around a jagged shard of glass, as if the tears she locked away had crystallized and shattered inside her. Speaking was almost impossible, and yet she managed to whisper, “How did you figure it all out?”
“I decided that, if my life was already over, then the last thing I wanted was to go out friendless and alone. I wanted to know what it was like to trust someone, just once.” Margot stepped into the room. Her feet, bare except for the thin, shadowy tights she wore, whispered against the plush carpet as she came to stand in front of Camille.
Margot’s eyes flickered from one spot on her face to another, as if she was reading some message only she could see.
“I know it isn’t easy, but letting someone else take a little bit of the weight of that despair for a moment can change everything.” She touched Camille’s arm, gentle but firm enough to feel it through the layers of her ruined clothing. “Let me take a little of the weight for you, Cammie. Just for a minute.”
Gods, I’m falling apart.
Camille could feel her walls crumbling, letting loose a torrent of pain and anxiety and guilt that threatened to break her bones, drown her, and sweep her body out into an endless, churning despair.
Her chin wobbled and she watched, horrified, as Margot’s unusual eyes watered with sympathy. In a ragged voice, she asked, “Why would you do that? We don’t even really know each other.”
Margot was quiet for a moment. Finally, she answered, “Because sometimes it’s easier to let a stranger into your darkest moment than someone you love.”
The words hit her like an m-lev. Camille couldn’t bear the idea of Theodore witnessing her meltdown, knowing he would only seek ways to fix it, and she knew she couldn’t stay with Viktor and watch it torture him, either.
But if she was honest with herself, she would admit that she didn’t really want to be alone, either.
She’d been alone for far longer than the months since her mother died. Making sure that her brother could live his life how he pleased meant putting herself between him and Marian — effectively isolating herself from both the rest of the family and the outside world. The unintended side effect of her mother’s scheming was making their branch of the family pariahs. Until Camille grew into adulthood, very few wanted to risk their young by associating them with the woman who boldly declared her hatred for the Solbourne family.
Even Linnea, who grew up on the estate with her, had never been allowed to publicly appear alongside Camille until she was an adult.
For a handful of golden years, Viktor had been her only real connection, her only companion. She’d felt that connection again so briefly. It was like a soft rain on a parched and broken field.
And now that taste of cool, sweet water only left her wanting more. For just a moment she wasn’t afraid of the future. She didn’t think of politics or her promise to her mother. She thought only of her consort and the joy that rushed through her veins when he looked at her like he couldn’t imagine a life without her.
Now… now I don’t know what I’m going to do.
The shock of almost losing Viktor, of watching Margot hold his life in her capable hands on that beach, and then the horror of discovering that their relationship might put the future of his pack at risk, finally set in. Grief and guilt meshed with the acute terror, gathering like a twisting cyclone in her mind.
“I don’t want to ruin this for him,” she gasped. “But if I don’t— if I can’t— I’ll end up just likeher.And I won’t— I won’t havehim.”Camille’s breath hitched once, twice, before the dam broke.
