XXXII

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

"Whatever it is we are doing, I do not think I can do it anymore."

The words had poured from a cavernous well within her soul; a part of her that she had never intended to reveal, never intended to air out into the open. But it had spilled over right then, wrought from a turbulent fissure that had rendered her intentions asunder.

His entire body stiffened, yet his arms remained encasing her, holding her against his chest with a tenderness that cracked every last remaining piece of her once implacable heart. Even in her turmoil, even if he was the cause of it, being suffused by his scent and his nearness was so damn comforting she wished she could retract her words and continue to pretend that everything was perfect.

But she would be lying to herself, and most of all she would be lying to him.

Aëghan swallowed, the motion moving her cheek where she rested against a steady pulse beneath his skin. "You are not... satisfied? With how things stand between us?" His words were low, a murmur that reverberated through his chest, but they were imbued with a tangible wariness.

He knew what she was about. He knew... they both knew, even if they had never aired it quite so blatantly before. "How do things stand between us?" she returned. She wanted him to say it- to admit to the choice he was bound to make, that would rift them apart as if nothing had ever mattered in the first place.

The ache that seized her chest then compelled her to move away from him. Stepping back, she tilted her head to regard him and the sombreness of his visage was enough to deteriorate her composure. Feeling every carefully applied layer splintering away, Lillian shook her head as her throat tightened and burned. "Not here," she said quickly, coarsely. "Let us speak in private, if you wish."

His nod was curt, a muscle in his jaw flexing. She sidled past him, and even if they both suspected the final culmination of whatever they had together, she couldn't help feeling charged by the deliberate placement of his hand on her lower back as they moved silently through the ruins.

When they reached their chambers, Aëghan guided her into his as was normal between them now. His chamber was where they spent their nights- his chamber was where she curled up into his arms and found solace in the intimately naked body curled around hers until the break of dawn the next day.

Not anymore, Lillian realised, her breath catching in her lungs as her chest tightened at the thought.

"Lillian, what is this about? If you wish to discuss the nature of our relationship-"

"What relationship?" she scoffed at his words, moving deeper into the chamber to settle the tiny halcoon pup on his bed. The sheets were rumpled, pillows in disarray, from a torrid session of lovemaking a few hours prior, and she jerked her gaze away from the sight. "We fuck, Aëghan. That is it. There is nothing more to construe it as any sort of relationship- to call it such would be a disservice, a farce."

When she turned, she found him studying her from across the room. His expression was dark, unreadable, as he leaned against the door he had closed and barred in their wake, his arms folded across his chest as he regarded her. "You are lying, Lillian."

"It cannot be anything more." Her voice betrayed her, cracking fiercely. Realising that every inch of her was trembling, she clenched her fingers tight and jammed them against her thighs.

"But it is. You know it is."

She began to shake her head vehemently, her hair spilling over her shoulders. He pushed off the wall, coming towards her until he stood close, so close. His hands spanned her shoulders, fingers threading through her hair, and there was such a tender appeal in his eyes she thought she could be undone by it alone. "Do not try to deny it," he murmured quietly. "You and I both know that we have transcended beyond whatever we intended for this to be. It would be impossible for me to let you go now, little cat. You've ingrained yourself into my heart, my soul, my very essence. I live for one of your rare smiles now, the soft cadence of your laugh inspires me to be a better male-"

He was set to crush every ounce of whatever resilience she had left within her. Tears burned her eyes, her throat, constricted her chest, and she shook her head again. "Please, stop." A fortnight ago, if she had been told that Aëghan Dranora would be capable of uttering such sentiments, she would have laughed bitterly in response. "You may want me now, because it is convenient- I am here." She forced the words out even as they settled like bitter ash on the tip of her tongue and her throat was so tight that her voice was barely more than a rasp. "But what happens when you find a means to return to your realm, your home, Aëghan? What happens then?"

"We can't predict to know when that will happen. There are clues, so faint we can scarcely call them clues at all. I am no nearer to concluding the mystery of The Reveal than I was when I began."

Her throat worked at his words, at his choice of words. And she could not hate him for it either, because given the choice to leave a realm that did not welcome her kind she knew she would have latched onto the notion like a feral hound to its prey. The abominable truth was that she had begun to admire and respect his steadfastness to his kind, the compassion only the most empathetic of leaders could embody despite all of Aëghan's outward projections.

She could not fault him for it, even if some of his actions in the past had been deplorable- the abduction of her sister notwithstanding- but she understood why he had done it. She understood what motivated him to negotiate, to manipulate, to weave through humans and fae alike with nary a care wrinkling his brow when she knew that he did care... that every action was coordinated to compel a reaction that would hopefully benefit his motives.

And despite that he had brought her into his shrewdly constructed world with a purpose, and now it was shattering around her with a brilliance that stole the breath from her lungs and froze the blood in her veins... she still could not abhor him for it.

For how could one hate all the qualities that had made her fall in love with him in the first place? The very same qualities which were set to drive an ever-widening wedge between them.

Several days ago, she had been very naive to believe that Aëghan would ever mean less than everything to her, and she had tried to not allow the knowledge that one day he would make a very deliberate choice to leave her. But it had been futile, and the more time that passed, the more she came to love him, the larger the ache had grown.

Rather they end this now than prolong the inevitable, when the future would unfurl with more complications, deeper heartaches...

And amongst all this reasoning, the inevitable would occur- Lillian needed to marry, to choose a suitable man to become her duke, not one who would make off the moment the opportunity arose.

Not that Aëghan had ever shown any inclination towards marriage in the first place.

She hugged her waist tightly, as if she could keep all the painful emotions inside her with physical restraint. "That is not a definitive answer," she told him. "Tell me what you will choose- when you find that way home. You know I will not return to that place, I would not survive if I were to return. You cannot have both, Aëghan. You cannot have me and your desire to return to your realm."

She felt his fingers tighten where they grasped her shoulders, his eyes almost impenetrably dark and glistening as they speared her in place. "You cannot demand this from me. You cannot expect me to answer this at present when the thought of losing you feels like the death of my penultimate dream."

She returned his gaze unwaveringly; her entire world having melted away to the mere existence of them and only them in a chamber that had suddenly become cold and barren. "You cannot expect me to wait for you to decide," she whispered, and her voice did break then. "You cannot expect me to accept that one day you will leave me. You cannot expect me to not place more worth in myself than that."

"This has nothing to do with your worth! Gods, you are the most astounding individual I have ever come across in this realm, in the next-"

"Then make your choice and be done with it," she snapped, irked that he could continue to spout platitudes and endearments when her soul was howling. Setting her jaw, she took a moment to quell some of the more vehement things she was feeling, easing away from his grip slightly so that his hands skirted down her arms, lingering over her elbows. "Our time together has been remarkably short. I did not... that is to say, I did not expect to feel so deeply for you as I do." The admission made her cheeks heat, the notion of love left unsaid yet between them but it was there, pilfering the air with a heaviness that encroached upon the ends of her hair, that made the mark sear and burn with a dull awareness upon her arm. "Which is why it would be better to end things before they progressed further. To save me from further... turmoil."

He said nothing to that at first, a pained expression tightening his jaw, before he dropped his forehead to hers, drawing her closer. "Do not make me choose," he pleaded, a raspy ache edging his voice, "do not make me cast aside everything I have ever known in world full of hate, and do not make it insidious of me to choose not to."

"I would never conceive it of you," she said fiercely, allowing herself a moment of weakness to trail her fingertips against the grain of his cheek. Noting their tremble, she quickly tucked them back against her body, enveloping her arms. "I know of all that you have done for your kind, nor do I find your motives reprehensible. But I cannot merely be your option- I cannot be your choice, knowing that all this time I still may not be enough for you, or that I ever will be. Surely you can understand that."

"Nobody has ever meant more to me, Lillian. There must be some way I can show you just how much you've endeared yourself to me, how much I care for you-"

She shook her head, a sadness coming over her so acute she felt her eyes burn. It was a battle only won by determination alone- not to let any of her tears fall- but how wholly incapable he was of quite understanding her presently almost brought them flushing down her cheeks.

Instead, she stepped back- one, two steps until the backs of her thighs bumped against the edge of the unmade bed and she was relinquished entirely from his touch. With a few feet of space between them, she worked the small chain she had placed around her neck that morning to match her attire- a meaningless piece of jewellery she had found in a box on her table consisting of a sapphire gemstone set on a pendant amongst delicate silver links.

In an effort to make him comprehend how his indecision, his inevitable choices, would affect her, she held the chain clutched in her fist and extended it out to him, the stone glinting as it swung beneath her fist and caught the light.

"Once," she began softly, studying his face carefully, "somebody close to you had to make a choice- a choice with a rock. To cast it, and accept the prejudices of his kind and humankind, or to retain it and accept the Other. To accept you." She paused, watching the hardening of his expression as she recounted the events of his memory all those years ago. "Now it is you at the precipice of your decision, and I am merely the injured party who will suffer the repercussions." When he made no move to take the necklace, Lillian stepped closer and urged it into his palm, closing his fingers around the jewellery firmly. "Retain the necklace, do not choose me, maintain all that you have adhered to for all these years... or return the necklace to me. Choose me in a way that could only suggest that there was never really any choice to begin with."

Several long moments passed, silence stretching out through the chamber, her hand covering his where the necklace lay tangibly between them. His face warred with varying degrees of tortured unease and despair, and when he still could not seem to formulate any response, Lillian knew that she had already lost.

Not that she ever believed there could be something to win.

Resignedly, she retreated from him and lowered her hand, leaving his fist curled in the air between them. "I believe," she murmured as the last restraints containing her broken heart began to crumble away, "that I should like to return to Ravensfield on the morrow."

Finally, he managed to grind out, "I do not wish to lose you, Lillian."

And those words were her ultimate undoing, for all she could manage was a tremulous smile while her vision blurred with tears that began to course down her cheeks. "I was never yours to begin with," she managed to choke out.

Then she scooped up the orphaned halcoon pup from his bed and fled the room.