“Are you not meant to have happiness?” she asked. “If that’s true, then I don’t know what to believe in anymore.”
Zev moved away from her, frustrated by it all. “As if it were that easy. No one understands. Do you know how many times I’ve desired to die? How many times I have thought of ending it?” He curled a fist over his heart. “I’m screaming inside, and no one can hear it. I’ve had enough of this life, Dyna. I hate it.” His voice choked as his vision blurred. “The rope around my neck tightens every day, slowly strangling me. I beg the God of Urn for forgiveness. To forgive me for everything, for I fear the only way this will end is when I cease to be.”
It hurt to live. To breathe. It hurt to exist in a world he didn’t fit.
He was alone.
Dyna shook her head, her delicate features crumbling. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”
Zev crouched over his knees and buried his head in his arms, hiding from the desperation in her voice. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to fight! I want you to fight for yourself as hard as you fight for me.”
But what if he had no more fight in him? The Madness was growing stronger, taking over. There was hardly any part of him left. Eventually he wouldn’t be able to suppress the part of him that thirsted to kill on every full moon, that could ravage a pack of wolves and his family without thought. He had no control over the Other, and he never would.
She tugged on his arms. “We can fix this, Zev.”
“You cannot fix what is already broken.”
He was splintered into thousands of fragments of who he once was. There was no putting that back together.
“I’m finished,” he whispered. Why continue clinging on to something he didn’t want?
“Fine! Go on, then.” Dyna broke into a sob and hit his shoulder. “Go and leave it all behind. But if you die, know that I’ll never forgive you.”
Her feet shifted as she took a step away from him, but then she paused. Her shuddering cries filled the hill. “I shouldn’t have said such a horrible thing. Forgive me. I’m so afraid of losing my brother, and I can’t bear it. Please don’t leave me, Zev. I can’t lose any more family. Stay with me. Please…”
Her pained plea pierced his heart. It stunned him enough to pull his chin above the dark waters.Ending your life would not cease the pain. It merely burdens someone else.
Dumping this on her was unfair. It was his burden to bear, not hers. She was right. He knew she was right. He shouldn’t give up because it was easier.
Clenching his teeth, he pressed on his burning eyelids. “I won’t leave.”
Not yet.
He would make himself get up, grab his chains and shackle himself to a damn tree. Tomorrow he would find the will to keep going. He had to.
“Zev.” His name was a soft gasp.
“Dyna, I’m sorry—”
“Zev!”
He caught the fear in her voice at the same time he smelled the scent of a new presence. Zev snapped his head up to find a man standing with them in the twilight. His blond hair, so fair it was almost silver, framed his unfeeling, ice-blue eyes. A jagged scar crossed from his temple, over his nose, and to his lip, marring a face he had only seen on wanted posters. Tarn was taller than he had initially thought, body lean and strong. The ends of his long black coat fluttered in the wind.
How had he approached them undetected?
A snarl tore out of him, and his sight sharpened with his wolf surfacing. He leaped to his feet. Tarn grabbed Dyna’s arm and jerked her to his side.
Zev’s claws sharpened, and he bared his teeth as a growl rumbled deep in his throat. “If you would like to keep your head attached to your body, you will let her go.”
He said nothing, his pale gaze piercing.
A hand came around Zev from behind, and he flinched at the sharp touch of silver against his jugular.
“Don’t move,” a familiar brogue voice murmured. “Or I’ll be forced to kill you.”
Zev clenched his jaw against the burn of the knife. He couldn’t shift without the risk of the silver poisoning him. The edge lifted slightly, easing the sting. One inhale of breath told him exactly who stood behind him.
