“I met Vai Zh’alek when I worked in the high court offices. He was hot, charming, and danced a fine line with the rules the high court laid down.” Axel shrugged. “He had an air of mystery about him that I found hard to resist.”
My lip curled as he spoke. I’d wanted to know, but hearing him speak like that about someone else, someone who’d hurt him so badly he’d fled his home to come to another realm, it made me want to roar with rage.
He waved a hand about, not noticing the way my own hands curled into fists and my shoulders tensed. “One thing led to another. I’ll spare you the details, but we’d been together for five months when I messed up.” He ran a hand through his hair, glancing up at me before focusing back on the forest.
I swallowed down the bitter taste of jealousy. “What happened?”
“I was in love with him. Had been for a while, but we hadn’t said the words. I thought he felt the same, but I wasn’t sure.” He fiddled with the edges of the blanket. “I’d worked hard to control my magic so I didn’t accidentally read people’s minds without permission, but I was relaxed, happy, and I let my guard down. I heard him say I love you, loud and clear, and I was so fucking thrilled I threw my arms around him and told him I loved him too. Said I’d been waiting to tell him but hadn’t been sure if he felt the same.” He let out a bitter laugh and I flinched. “I didn’t realise it’d been in my head and not out loud until I saw the confused look on his face. It took him a while, but eventually he put it all together. When he asked me if I could read minds, I thought long and hard about my answer, but in the end I didn’t want to lie to him. He loved me, I didn’t want there to be secrets between us anymore.”
“What did he do?” I bit out, trying to keep my voice normal but wasn’t sure I succeeded. Axel either didn’t care or didn’t notice, too wrapped up in his own story to even look my way.
“Nothing.” He drew his knees up and rested his chin on them, arms wrapped around his legs. “For the next couple of weeks we went on as normal, everything was great, amazing, and I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Vai knew my secret and hadn’t run screaming to theGlohanMountains.
“But after he’d been out with some of his friends, he came home in a strange mood. Nervous, but excited. I naively thought he wanted us to live together, but no.” He shook his head, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “Instead, he told me about their plan to break into the high court vaults. The artefacts in there were priceless, but some of them contained enough magic to cause destruction on a high scale. I was horrified.
“He asked me to join them, said it would be so much easier if I used my magic to gain access to the vaults. Would save them time and effort and the risks of getting caught were minimal if I helped them.”
I clung to the sides of the chair to keep from shooting to my feet and prowling around the patio like I really fucking wanted to. Rage simmered, ever present, and it took all my control not to let it out.
He looked at me then, eyes wet with unshed tears. “What I don’t understand, even now, is that not once did he expect me to say no. I worked for the high court, for fuck’s sake. Ilikedmy job. Some of the members were arseholes, yes, but they were still thehigh court. What had I done to give him the impression that I’d help him steal from them so they could do Goddess knew what with all those artefacts?”
I had no answer for him, not that I thought he was looking for one, so I kept quiet, dread building in the pit of my stomach, because the worst of it was still to come.
“He was shocked when I refused. And so disappointed. We didn’t speak for days, tiptoeing around each other like it had never happened. But I couldn’t forget. Couldn’t relax around him knowing that he’d taken my trust and used it like that. I wanted to tell Dathal, spent hours agonising over whether I should, knowing full well what he’d do, what he’d say.” His next breath in was ragged. “In the end, telling Dathal about Vai saved my life, because to him and his friends I’d become a liability. One they needed to get rid of. Who better to do that than someone I trusted. Someone I would never expect to be a threat.”
My wolf snarled at the scents coming off him—hurt, regret, anger, all rolled up into one big ball of emotion that almost suffocated me, so Goddess only knew what it was doing to Axel.
I wanted to know exactly what Zh’alek had done to him, but at the same time, I hated what telling me was obviously costing him.
His hitched breath proved to be my breaking point.
“Hey.” Slipping off my chair to the ground, I knelt beside him, taking his hands in mine. “Axel, look at me.”
He did, and the devastation in his eyes wasn’t something I ever wanted to see. On anyone, let alone Axel. He blinked back tears and looked up at the lightening sky. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” I chided softly, rubbing my thumbs over the back of his hands.
Hiscoldhands.
“You should be inside where it’s warm.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t told you all of it yet.”
“You’ve told me enough. I don’t want to know if telling me causes you this much pain.”
His fingers tightened around mine. “But I need you to understandwhy.”
“Why you cut me out of your life after our night together?”
“Yes.”
“I do.” But understanding why he’d done it didn’t make it any better. Made it worse, in fact, because all the anger I’d carried with me for the last nine months faded to nothing. Because how could he trust anyone after being so deeply betrayed by someone he was in love with. Who he thought loved him back.
My heart broke a little bit more because I could promise him that I was nothing like Zh’alek, that I’d never take what he’d told me and use it against him, but if Axel didn’t trust me, then we had nothing. And looking at him now, sensing the devastation that he’d gone through, wasstillgoing through, I knew without a doubt that he was in no position to trust anyone like that.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
