“Don’t ‘Winnie’ me, Reidar. You don’t want me here any more than I want to be here.”
He swallowed, the sound overly loud to his own ears.
“Yeah.” Her disappointment rang heavily in that one word. “That’s what I thought.”
Before she could storm back to the bathroom, Reidar reached for the female, carefully curling his hand around her arm. He waited for the impact of touching her. Some sort of feeling, an urge to fight for them. He got nothing. Which had been the case for the past few weeks, ever since she’d started harping on him to go back to California with her.
“We need to talk.”
“Time’s past for that,” she snapped, trying to pull away.
“What about Penelope?” he asked.
“What about her? She’ll be fine without me, Reidar. She’s been fine without me. Before I came here, I hadn’t seen her in a year.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you think that’s why I came? For her?”
Honestly, he’d hoped it had been the case, because the thought of her uprooting her life for him…
“Oh, my God,” she whispered heavily. “You did think that.”
Meeting her saddened gaze, Reidar tried to put the words in a sentence. He needed to tell her that if she left, her memories would be scrubbed. She would have no recollection of him, of the time she’d spent at the mansion. In fact, Penelope’s entire existence would be erased from Winnie’s memories, a huge part of her past gone forever.
“You can come with me,” she said softly.
No, he couldn’t. Not only because she deserved far better than what he could offer her, either. As much as he wanted to believe she was hisamsouelot, Reidar knew that wasn’t the case. But he’d been biding his time, trying to figure out a way to protect Winnie. She didn’t deserve to have big gaps in her history, but since she was bound and determined to leave, it was inevitable.
“Do you love me? Even a little?”
Pulling himself from his thoughts, Reidar focused on her face. She was a beautiful female, and perhaps that was what he’d gotten so caught up in when he’d been sent to protect her. That and he’d spent so long hoping to find the female he would spend the rest of his existence with only to come up empty so many times. Five hundred and twenty-one years of existence and Reidar had yet to have anything or anyone who was his and his alone. Sure, he had thefiestreigh, his family. He had Obsidian, the male he’d looked up to, vowed to protect. But he’d always wanted more than that.
Truth was, he’d been willing to accept what Taayin and Asmia had. Their souls weren’t destined to be together, but he’d seen their love for one another, knew it was possible.
“I care about you,” he admitted, because lying to her wasn’t fair to her.
Her face fell and he could see it in her eyes. She just realized what he’d been hiding all along. His love for her had never been real. It had been a figment of his imagination, something he’d attempted to build up in order to create that perfect place in his mind where he felt he belonged. But the problem was, he’d dragged her along with him, given her hope when, in actuality, there was none.
Tears glittered on Winnie’s lashes as she took a step back from him. Her mouth opened, closed. Nothing came out. She was as speechless as he was, but deep down, he knew she wasn’t heartbroken. Their love hadn’t been real. For her it had likely been built on the heat of the moment. Him coming in and whisking her off to safety, taking her away from her life in an effort to protect her from this world she’d never known existed.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, knowing it wasn’t nearly enough.
Winnie’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. You should be.”
All Orianna had of Amber’s was abroken hair clip, a Colorado Mesa University T-shirt, a couple of dollar store hand towels, a diary with exactly zero entries in it, and a red pen.
Not much of anything and exactly nothing to help her in her search.
But it was more than she’d had before they had come here.
And while her disappointment continued to pile up, Orianna felt a sense of peace. She knew it had to do with the fact Eclipse was there with her. He’d brought her here, giving her the chance to chase every lead in an effort to get the closure necessary to move on.
“I’m sorry,sezari,” he whispered, pulling her against his chest, his big arms circling her, providing the comfort she’d come to expect from him.
Maybe that was the reason she suspected this would be her last venture in what had become her entire life’s purpose. Finding Amber was all she’d focused on for so long that Orianna had stopped caring about herself entirely. That wasn’t easy to do these days, what with Eclipse giving her so much to live for.
But it wasn’t just him. Penelope, Obsidian, Acadia, Miklós … they’d all given her something she hadn’t had in a long time: contentment and a sense of belonging.
Despite the fact her heart was still cracked from the loss of her sister, Orianna had something to live for now. People who cared about her, worried about her. She wasn’t even sure the last time her mother and father had worried about her. Sure, Elizabeth asked about her every time they spoke, but Orianna felt a detachment between them, likely brought on by time and distance.
“Anything else you want to check out while we’re here?” Eclipse asked, his warm hand sliding over her hair.
