But that’s not the whole truth, is it?
They lied to him, yes. Tortured him, conditioned him, made him believe things that weren’t true. But using me? Lying to me about the mate bond being dead? Making me fall in love with him all over again while planning to betray me and capture one of my best friends?
Those were active decisions that he made.
He could have found another way. Could have trusted me with at least part of the truth. Could have chosen differently.
And he didn’t.
I sit up slowly, running my hands through my tangled hair. My eyes feel gritty and swollen from crying. My chest aches like a giant bruise.
I don’t know how to reconcile the Kain who suffered so much with the Kain who hurt me so deeply. They’re the same person, and that’s what makes it so hard.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand up, needing to move, needing to do something besides lie here and think in circles.
That’s when I see the door. Or rather, what’s left of it.
My bedroom door is completely off its hinges, leaning against the frame at an awkward angle. The wood around the lock is splintered, like someone forced it open with desperate strength.
Right. He came to me after my nightmare. That’s why we spoke in the first place. With how high my emotions were, I apparently wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings.
He broke down the door.
I run my fingers over the damaged wood, feeling the rough edges where it split. There’s something almost frantic about the way it’s been torn apart, like he couldn’t tolerate this barrier between us for even the seconds it would have taken to pick the lock properly.
I leave the broken door and walk into the living room. Kain is on the couch.
He’s asleep—or at least, his eyes are closed. He’s curled on his side, one arm tucked under his head, the other hanging off the edge of the cushion. The blanket he must have found on the chair has fallen to the floor, probably kicked off at some point during the night.
I should leave him there. Go make coffee for myself and ignore him.
Instead, I find myself reaching for the blanket on the floor. I hesitate, my hand going still halfway there.
What am I doing? I shouldn’t care about him right now.
Yet I complete the movement, picking up the blanket and carefully draping it over him. It’s not a big deal; I would do the same for any sick person shivering in their sleep.
He doesn’t wake up. Doesn’t even stir. I can see the toll everything has taken—the shadows under his eyes, the too-sharp edges of his cheekbones, the pallor of his skin. Even in his sleep, he tenses up at intervals, a furrow appearing between his brows.
The poison is killing him.
The thought sends a spike of fear through my chest that I try to ignore.
I turn away and head to the kitchen, needing the familiar routine of making breakfast to ground me.
Coffee first. Then eggs and toast. Simple, mindless tasks that don’t require me to think about anything complicated.
But as I’m cracking eggs into a pan, I find myself making extra. Enough for two.
I tell myself it’s just habit. That I always make too much food.
But it’s a lie.
Ten minutes later, I’m sitting at the coffee table with two plates of food and two mugs of coffee. The couch is on the other side of the small table from me, close enough that I could reach out and touch Kain if I wanted to.
I don’t want to.
Do I?
