Page 67 of Warrior Unraveled

“Too much I wish I’d never seen.” And even more things she wished she’d done differently. “I met a man that summer. A human. I fell in love with him, though looking back, I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love than with him. But he represented everything that I thought love would be. And to a degree I can also blame rasen for how I acted, though I’m not making excuses. It was all my fault.”

“Rasen?” Wesley asked.

“The mating call we all experience around the time we turn two-hundred, some a little earlier, some a little later. It hit me too early. I wasn’t prepared, I guess.” She stopped herself and searched Wesley’s eyes. “But I have no excuse for what I did.”

He squeezed her hand and nodded in silence.

“I spent more and more time with Jonathan. I started to trust him. He seemed so innocent. Without guile. All he talked about was peace and love and hope. And how this world would be one day. How everybody would live in harmony. He seemed to be without a care in the world. My shoulders, on the other hand, felt weighted down by my duty to my kind. By my promise to defend my race.”

“It’s a lot to deal with. The demons, the constant battles,” Wes said, his eyes gleaming with understanding.

“Yes, but I was trained for it. Yet, when I was with Jonathan, I longed for an easier life. He told me he loved me and urged me to go away with him to some commune somewhere. That’s when I confessed to him what I was, that my duty wouldn’t let me leave. That I had obligations. I’m not sure he really understood fully what it meant. But he said he’d support me.”

She sighed.

“Back then, the drugs of choice were marijuana and LSD. I didn’t realize it at first, but LSD seemed to make it easier for demons to influence humans. I made Jonathan swear that he’d never take LSD. But even as he swore it, he’d already taken it. And he continued taking it whenever I wasn’t around. I don’t know when they got to him, but they did. The demons figured out very quickly that Jonathan and I were an item. They saw us together. And my aura gave me away. They influenced him. One day Jonathan said he wanted to see where I lived. And though it was against the rules, I took Jonathan to the compound. I broke the one rule I should have never broken, because I thought he was finally ready to embrace all of me, not just the fun-loving girl, but also the warrior, the woman who had responsibilities.”

A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away.

“We were followed. That’s how the demons found our location. They attacked us a few hours later. The compound was unprepared. Every single one of my compound mates died in the attack. I should have died, too. But life isn’t fair, and I survived in the rubble of my compound.”

“And Jonathan?”

She shook her head. “Nobody ever saw him again. There was no body. Maybe the demons took his body with them. Maybe it burned in the explosion. I don’t know.”

Wesley sighed. “I’m so sorry, Virginia. I’m so sorry you had to go through this.”

“That’s not all.” Virginia sniffled. “I wanted to confess that it was my fault. That I was responsible for all those deaths. So I went to see my father. I told him everything. He was disappointed. And angry. I fully expected him to drag me in front of the Council of Nine himself to be punished and exiled, if not executed, but he didn’t. He told me that whatever I did, I could never tell anybody. It would not only disgrace my family, it would kill my mother. He didn’t care what I did to alleviate my guilt. I couldn’t hurt my family, my mother in particular. I’d already hurt so many people, so many families. So I did the only thing I could: I swore never to trust again, never to love again, and I signed up with the enforcers to undergo the most brutal training a warrior can survive. I made it my mission to enforce our rules. So that nobody else would die.” She swallowed and looked into Wesley’s baby-blue eyes. “And now I’m breaking the same rules I’ve sworn to enforce.”

A sob tore from her chest. And this time she couldn’t hold it in.

Wesley’s arms were around her a moment later. He lifted her into his lap and cradled her to his chest, and she let it happen.