Page 58 of The Cost of Blood and Bonds

“Yeah, of course.” I let her go. What else can I do?

She slips off me, and the loss of her warmth is immediate. I watch her disappear through the door, the candlelight catching the curve of her spine before it closes behind her.

I stare at the ceiling. My heart is still pounding, but it’s different now, not the racing heat of before but something colder, a creeping dread I can’t name.

She’s just cleaning up. She’ll come back, curl into me, fall asleep and in the morning⁠—

In the morning, what? She’ll suddenly love me? She’ll look at me the way she looked at him under that willow tree?

I close my eyes and try to hold onto the feeling of her, the sounds she made, the way she said my name when she came. It felt real. It felt like more.

The door opens.

I sit up, and⁠—

She’s trying to hide it, but her eyes have gone glassy. She’s breaking apart right in front of me.

“Gemma.” I’m on my feet.

“I’m fine.” Her voice cracks on the word.

She’s not fine. She’s the furthest thing from fine.

And just like that, I know. The hope I’d been carrying, that fragile, desperate thing I’ve held onto, shatters, quiet and final. Like a glass slipping off a table in slow motion.

She will never love me, not the way I need her to, not the way I love her.

I cross to her, and she flinches like she expects me to be angry, like she’s bracing for a fight.

I’m not angry. I’m gutted, tired of wanting the one person I can’t have. But it’s not love if you only care for them when they choose you.

My resolve sets. I pull her into me and hold her tight against my chest, cupping her head. Her tears are hot against my skin, and her fingers clutch at my arms like I’m the only thing keeping her upright.

She’s crying, really crying, not the silent tears I’ve seen her fight back before. These are sobs that shake her whole body, that steal her breath, that sound like something inside her is being ripped apart.

I don’t know if she’s crying for the man she can’t have and wants, or the one she can have and wishes she wanted. Maybe both.

It doesn’t matter. She’s hurting, and even if I can’t be hers, I can be here. I can hold her together while she falls apart.

“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her hair. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

This only makes her cry harder. We stay like that for a long time, until it feels like she has lost the will to cry anymore.

I guide her back to the bed and pull the blanket over us. She curls into me, still trembling, her face buried in my chest. I hold her and stroke her hair.

“I’m so sorry, Grier—” she says, her voice rasped.

“It’s okay.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then, barely a whisper, “I tried. I really tried to—” She can’t finish, doesn’t need to.

To love me. To choose me. To want me the way she wants him.

“Gemma.” I keep my voice gentle. “It may never be me.” The words hurt more than I expect. “But you know it also can’t be him. It’s too dangerous.”

“I know,” she says, her voice cracking.

That’s what guts me most. She’s breaking both our hearts, and she still won’t get what she wants.