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“The pain isn’t so bad,” he found himself saying.

It was an obvious lie, but he would have uttered it even if she could hear him. Anything to take away that look of devastation in her eyes as her hands dropped from the hilt and she looked up at him. He reached out, tracing her cheek with his fingers. “If I could take your worries from you, I would.”

Her lips moved, but no sound came forth.

Just as every time before.

Leaning forward, he kissed her even as she continued speaking. And she melted into him.

As he did, images of Magnus glanced across his mind, unbidden. He flinched, squeezing his eyes shut.

This isn’t Magnus. He wouldn’t have been tender.

He’d also never tried to remove the syphen. But this phantom Arabella had.

As though sensing something was wrong, she pulled back.

Those eyes, he thought as his gaze swept over the deep brown irises.Those are her eyes.

For the first time, he wondered… Had Arabella found a way to reach him?

The bond in his chest brightened as if in response to the realization, and a sudden warmth flooded his entire being. All the pain in his body retreated, even the agony from the syphen lessened in the wake of her presence.

Her hands were on either side of his face as her thumbs traced a gentle path back and forth over his cheeks. The touch was so tender, so full of longing, that something in him splintered.

He staggered to a knee, tears streaming down his face.

I want this,he thought as despair swelled in him.I want a life with you.

He’d thought he had accepted his fate and the cost of returning Arabella’s memories to her. But his heart railed against his bargain with Magnus.

Kneeling beside him, she wrapped her arms around his naked body. Her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and she was careful not to touch the syphen in his chest. His head dropped, falling to her shoulder as sobs wracked through him.

He wanted to take her worries from her. Yet he found the relief at seeing her slipping away, replaced once more by fear.

“I won’t make it much longer,” he rasped into her hair. “I want to fight for you. I’m trying… But he’s breaking me.”

It was an inevitability.

Soon, Elias would succumb to the torture, and then all he was would be no more.

Slowly, he lifted his head, not bothering to wipe his tears away as he turned toward her. He studied his mate’s warm brown eyes, his gaze following the trails of tears down her cheeks.

“Live for us both,” he said, somehow knowing he wouldn’t see her again. Magnus would find a way to keep him from returning. Even as he spoke, he felt a pull on his body, which no longer felt so far away. “Don’t think of me again. Be happy, Arabella.”

Lines formed between her brows, and her lips moved.

Leaning forward, he pressed a final kiss to her lips. “You are worth it.”

Then he was torn from Arabella’s arms.

Chapter Twenty-Two

ARABELLA

Arabella jolted upright, a scream ripping from her throat. Sweat poured off her and tears streamed down her face.

“You’re awake,” Jessamine said. “Thank fuck.”