“Don’t,” Dyna hissed, her eyes flashing with magic. “Go. I do not wish to speak to you.”
“If I could only explain?—”
“What is there to explain?” she snapped. “We went into this marriage with the promise that we would decide everything together. Nothing but the truth and our happiness as we made it. Yet you took back every single promise you made to me.”
Cassiel shut his eyes. He had meant those promises, every single one. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Gods, I am so sick of hearing that! I never wanted your protection, Cassiel. All I ever needed was you. Onlyyou.” Dyna’s chest heaved with the tears she fought, her mouth bracketing with the words she wanted to scream at him. He felt them there, bubbling beneath the surface. Heaving a sharp breath, Dyna shook her head and backed away. “I have nothing else to say to you. Please go. I never want to see you again.”
She turned around, and the panic set in.
“Wait, please. I must explain.” Cassiel grabbed her hand out of pure desperation. And it was the wrong choice. Dyna whipped around so fast her palm struck him sharply across the face.
“I don’t want to hear any more of your reasons!” Her ragged scream broke into a sob that he felt spear him through. “You were everything tome, Cassiel. I gave you all of me. I trusted you. Ibelievedin you! Even after you stole my memories and abandoned me, I still waited all of winter for you.” She pressed on her chest with a shaking fist as tears rolled down her face. “Some hopeless part of me still believed you would come back. And you never did.”
His eyes welled, blurring his vision, because so many times he had dreamed of coming back. Of returning to her, only to wake and remember why he couldn’t.
“Then Ihatedyou,” she said through a sob. “I hated you so much because you took away my choice. How could you do that to me?” She wept with every trapped emotion finally breaking free, and he bore it all. “What did I do to deserve that?”
He lowered his head, feeling the monumental weight of her pain fall on him.
Breath quivering, she said, “Why put a sword in my hand only to refuse to let me join you in battle? It was supposed to be us against the world. I didn’t want to be protected and coddled. I wanted to fight by your side. That’s what marriage is. A partnership. I would have chosen you no matter what. You were my heart, Cassiel, and you ripped it out of my chest with your own hands.” The accusation tangled him in a web of thorns. Pain sank through his own withered heart in his hollow chest. She covered her face as she wept. “And don’t you dare say you didn’t have a choice. Because you did. You simply didn’t choose me. Out of everything I have ever endured, nothing ever hurt as much as that.”
Cassiel’s face crumbled. To know that broke another piece of him. He gripped his hands to suppress the urge to reach out, because all he wanted was to hold her.
“I did choose you.” His voice shook, taking everything to hold it together. “I’m so sorry, Dyna. I believed it was the only way to keep you safe.”
“From what?” she demanded. “You didn’t take the time to explain anything to me. You simply decided whatyouthought was best. I no longer have the heart to accept your apologies. It’s far too late for that.”
All the air left his lungs. Her pain was a mirror. It reflected the hurtful words he had flung at his father.
Was this his pain? His regret?
It was the life Cassiel lived because he had been blind to the truth. She also didn’t know why he made those decisions.
“I felt like I was dying when Zekiel hurt you. Then I was fading when I pulled your frozen body from the lake.” His voice broke. “Theypromised to keep coming for you until they cut you from my soul, and I could not bear that.”
Again.
He couldn’t tell her that part. That she had already died once because of him.
With desperation in his voice and tears in his eyes, he said, “Leaving you destroyed me. But I would go through whatever pain a million times over to protect you. That’s how much I love you.”
Dyna shook her head. She wiped her wet cheeks, and her face cleared of any emotion. “That’s not love, Cassiel. That’s fear, and I don’t want it. I’m finished with fear. All it has done is take from me.”
That’s what fear did.
It stole. Lives. Hope. Futures.
And it hit him with a glaring realization of how much he had let it take from him.
“I’m sorry…” Cassiel took a step toward her, but she flinched back. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I will never cease to regret that, Dyna.” He took a small step toward her, and another. When she didn’t attack him again, he gently took her in his arms, wrapping his wings around her. “You’re right. Everything you say is true. Leaving you like that was the worst thing I could have possibly done. You were in so much pain I couldn’t bear to leave you to suffer that. I thought if I erased your memories, you could start over. I thought you could be happy and safe if I was no longer plaguing your life.” He murmured into her hair, burying his face in her neck. “I swear to you, it will never happen again.”
For a split second, he hoped they could repair this, but she was stiff and motionless in his arms. Cold.
Cassiel lowered himself onto his knees and took her hands. “What can I do to earn your forgiveness?”
She stared past him impassively. “Did you reject our bond?”
