For him, it's simple: we are together, that’s all that matters.
Maybe that’s all that should matter to me, too.
Chapter 25
Ronit
Isit with my head in my hands. All her words have haunted me. The things she has seen, the things she has had to do, and then we came along and did it to her, too.
I wonder if my shiver realises what’s going to happen here.
“Ronit,” Leaf growls.
“Yes?” I say and blink away the tiredness.
“Lie down, rest.”
I shake my head, there is too much to do and all of it wrong, but we’re going to have to deal with Deux.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I need to just be with my shiver. Watch Mei breathe. Know that we’re all okay.
She rolls in her sleep, and Lirin pulls her onto his chest. Leaf gets up, and I follow him out onto the balcony.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Leaf murmurs. “I can listen.”
“Have you been watching the talk shows again?”
Leaf chuckles. “Maybe.”
I shake my head and lean into him. This foe, this monster who we clashed and fought and couldn’t beat, not entirely. The onethat has been in my mind as often as she has. Who is as much an object of my obsession as the omega is.
I want to make him kneel. I want to kneel for him.
I don’t hate either of them the way I should.
“It’s hard to know what needs to be done when you look at people and see people.”
“What were you seeing before?” Leaf asks and lifts his arms, hugging me lightly. It’s not enough, I need more, but I don’t know how to ask for it.
“Monsters. I was seeing monsters.”
“Come sleep, don’t dream, just rest. Today was a bad day.”
“Have you seen anything like that?” I ask him. “What happened at the village? You’re old, you have seen so much.”
He doesn’t respond straight away, instead stepping closer and enfolding me in his arms.
“I’ve seen villages slaughtered, blood and bodies everywhere. I’ve seen people maimed and tortured and the world turned to hell, but what he did…that was something so evil,” I murmur. “There was lots of evil in war, but nothing like this.”
Leaf drags me inside. “I have seen many things. And, yes, there was a creature like him once.”
“What happened?” I pull back, and he turns, looking at me with those strange, swirling teal eyes. I reach up and brush my fingers through his teal, black, and silver hair.
“I hunted him down, and I ate him. In our world, the strong eat the weak. And I am the strongest.”
“He’s trying to eat Mei,” I point out. Leaf’s expression shifts, hardens, and turns to a cold, cold mask.
