Caleb raked his hands through his hair in utter frustration. “I fell in love, Seah. I’m sorry if that offends. But I never meant to hurt you.”
“Keep telling yourself those lies. You might believe them. But I know the truth.” She pulled a necklace off and threw it at him.
His expression stone, he caught it in his fist.
Nick started to say that if she’d kept a memento from Caleb, she couldn’t really hate him. Otherwise, she’d have thrown it out centuries ago.
Then his common sense did what it seldom did—it rose and kept his mouth shut.
“Caleb?”
Caleb didn’t answer Kody as he struggled with the pain he felt. His love of Lil had blocked out everything else in his life.
Everything except the way Lyseah had stood by as he was dragged and beaten over the fact that he’d sided with humans. As he was personally enslaved to the Malachai who’d taken even less mercy on him.
That had killed any lingering love in his heart for her. But obviously, she had never forgotten.
He looked down at the amber necklace he’d given her so very long ago. For protection.
“Lyseah?” He went after her as she stomped away.
Turning around, she narrowed the most hateful glare he’d ever seen. Which, given the fact that he’d served Nick’s father, the Adarian Malachai, said it all. Adarian had never looked at him with anything other than absolute loathing.
He should be used to it. Yet for some reason, it hurt him that Lyseah wore that same disappointed hatred for him.
How pathetic am I?
“Are you going to speak? Or just stare at me like the idiot you are?”
There was a time when Caleb would have been able to charm the anger out of her.
Those days were gone. He was no longer that same carefree demon he’d been then, and she wasn’t the young demon who’d forgive him for his transgressions.
After everything they’d shared, they were basically strangers.
Still, he regretted what had happened. Not that he’d left, but rather what it’d done to her. “I just wanted to say that I never lied to you. When I told you that I loved you, it was the truth.”
“ButIwasn’t enough.”
Caleb winced at the hurt in her voice. “You were more than enough.”
“Then why? Tell me! Ahuman!” She spat that word at him. “How could you?”
“Because …” His throat tightened as he remembered the gentleness of Lilliana’s touch. The way she’d smiled and held him like no one before.
Or since.
Lyseah had been so different. She’d held him like a grudge. Fiercely. Hostilely. Resentfully. As if she hated herself for loving him and took it out on him. Her love had been stifling, but it’d been all he’d ever known.
Demons didn’t love the same way humans did. Or could. Then again, some humans could be every bit as cruel and demeaning. Demanding. Abusive.
But it wasn’t Lyseah’s fault. She hadn’t known love or tenderness any more than he had. They’d been raised in a place where abuse and love were synonymous. Where any show of weakness was exploited or punished.
Like the Malachai.
“You were more than enough, and I was proud to call you mine.”
“Then why did you go with ahuman?”
