Page 64 of Love the Way You Lion (Rise of the Resistance #3)

The Blade Drags Everyone Into the Darkness

DELILAH

“ I can find him. I don’t know if he’d resist, but I couldn’t block him the other day, and I was using everything I had to do so. My shields are damn good, but he felt my arm like he was the one with the tears.”

Well, fuck, then why are you so worried about how much he cares and how connected you are? Why are you making me suffer while I wait for you to break my heart into a million pieces?

“Will he answer? I don’t know what’s in his head. If you guys are that connected, I suppose he feels everything you’re feeling right now, which explains a lot.”

“What do you mean?”

“He feels you. He knows what you’ve been feeling here.”

She looks stricken, turning pale under her tan. “I didn’t think. I sometimes forget that it goes both ways with mates, and he—damn. ”

I pound my head into the sand, closing my eyes in defeat. This is when everything gets blown to bits. Here I am, stepping onto the land mine.

Detonation: inevitable.

“What’s wrong? What’s with the sand pounding?”

She isn’t this dense, is she?

“I don’t know what he did. If I were a betting woman—and I am—I’d say he’s irrational. He would talk to Taurus before he took flight, which makes this entire conversation moot.”

My reason for being here just went up in smoke, and now I need to prepare for the fallout. I run my hands over my face, trying to build another room to store this crap inside. I see the atrium in my mind with its ornate doors, so now I need to construct a new one for her.

Shooting to her feet, she gives me an angry look and stalks towards the water. “That’s just like a man. It’s not Taurus that he needs to talk to! That lazy, long-haired stoat needs to talk to me or at least act as he wants to, god fucking dammit!”

Well, if that’s not the kettle... This sucks.

I’m keeping quiet because I can’t help, and she has no idea that she’s being unfair to both of us. Talia is as damaged as he and I are. She’s self-destructing all our happiness because she’s got a self-esteem issue.

Turning back from the waves, she pushes her hair out of her face. “And it would be nice if it wasn’t because my irritating, interfering, dickhead of a mate had to open his motherfucking mouth!”

If this were anyone else, I’d look at this situation like a farce.

Talia is feeling unloved, so she ponders hurting me to help herself.

Rafe feels guilty for finding some happiness.

Taurus—who the hell knows what he’s doing—but it seems he’s getting screwed as much as I am.

All she wants to do is whine about two men who adore her trying to do things to make her happy.

“Look, I only meant it wouldn’t be out of character for him to have told Taurus they can’t be together. If he felt your pain, he wouldn’t wait for you to ask. He would do it, come to you, apologize, and move on. That’s what he does for the people he loves. He takes care of them.”

“If he does that, I will get so fucking pissed off that it’s not even funny.

” She stalks back over to me, looking incensed, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

Everything has worked out how she wanted without her even having to be the bad guy.

She’s got what she wants. Why so angry? “Do you at least understand that it’s not about Taurus? ”

I blink. “I guess. It seems like he’s the problem, but it’s deeper than that.”

“It’s how Rafe is with me. If I were as secure in him as I am in you, this would not be a problem.

But it’s always you telling me how much he cares, or Taurus, but never him.

Honestly? If this is how he’s always going to be, then I’d rather he gave me up and be with Taurus. He’d be happier, and I’d hurt less.”

That floors me.

She ran off with me rather than talking about her problems. She hasn’t contacted him since we’ve been together. She’s feeling insecure about him, but emoting with me. She left with me—taking me to a place she’s only taken me and that idiot Wilde to.

I feel bad, but I can’t say anything about it.

“Talia, he didn’t realize you felt insecure.

Rafe would cut off a limb for people he loves.

He’s racked with guilt because he didn’t make you feel happy and loved.

You feel secure with me, which can’t help.

He’s never been enough for our mates, and you just struck that chord hard. ”

Talia finally stops yelling, so I guess I should go on.

She needs to hear this from someone looking in from the outside.

“You don’t get it. He may not have said this in words, but if he gives you up, he’s gone.

He won’t be with anyone. I felt it by the time he thought you were leaving—panic.

I felt the bone-deep fear of loss so great that you can’t claw your way out.

Everything inside him stopped. He was so far gone when you two started.

After all the shit and the pain, he was ready to hit the road. You changed that.”

Her expression is dumbfounded, and she sucks in a breath. “You mean that if I don’t—if I give him up, he’ll go away?”

Someone needs to be sane right now, and as usual, it’s me.

“He might if he’s shattered; I don’t know if he can take it.

It has broken him for so long—like me—and I can’t hold it together for him while he heals this time.

It drained me the last time; hell, it still drains me.

He let you in farther than anyone else. I don’t know if he can come back from it.

Why the hell would he come back if that’s how you feel? ”

Perhaps I’m speaking for him; perhaps I’m speaking for myself.

I’m not sure if the two aren’t inseparable right now.

We’re both headed for a fall, depending on what she does.

I can’t say that I know whether I’ll ever be able to look at her again if she leaves.

I can’t even say if it won’t break me so that I can’t look at Taurus. Rafe can’t be any different.

How can I judge him for something I feel so keenly after an even shorter time than he’s been with Talia?

She gets paler, holding her stomach and murmuring, “I can’t. He can’t go away. I love him. He can’t.” Dropping to her knees, she looks like she’s going to barf .

I sigh heavily at the dramatics. That’s yet another thing I won’t be able to handle.

My stomach roils for a moment, and I plead with Maeve internally to help me be strong.

Having PTSD, anxiety, trauma, and being pregnant simultaneously is shit when things get emotional like this.

But I can’t escape people who consistently want to be the main character in everything, and it seems like I’ve run afoul of them again.

Exactly what did she expect to happen when she let loose with all this?

Despite my feelings for her, I’m getting resentful of her self-centered misery and tired of being the go-between for two people who need to talk to each other.

Goddess, I miss Taurus. I wish he were here so much because he’d know what to say.

It might be ugly and painful, but he’d know.

He’d see I’m hurting, and she doesn’t see or care.

“I’d give him up to Taurus or to anyone, but he can’t go away. I have to know that he’s happy, that he’s out there, even if I never see him again. Oh god. Oh god. I’m going to be sick.”

Sighing again, I rub my temples as a massive headache forms. “I’m sure that he feels as if he’s failed you.

Because of his past, one of his biggest fears is not being able to give enough, not being able to be enough to make people happy.

He might even think you’ll be better off with me.

Neither of you trusts each other as much as you should. ”

I get up and walk over to a palm tree, standing under it to get out of the sun.

I close my eyes again, working on building the room in my heart.

The door is dark and lethal-looking, like her.

The hinges are shining silver and sharp like knives.

The inside is gothic and dangerous, with a single painting of the beach.

Just a little more and it will be ready for me to shift things in and get it sealed .

Sobbing loudly, she kneels and clutches her stomach.

I can’t force myself to go to her; I’m too busy detaching my emotions from her one by one.

Maeve is trying to soothe me and failing; her tiny light fighting to spread through the darkness inside me.

A tough little spark, my wee one, but she can’t fix this.

She doesn’t agree with my method of handling this.

She doesn’t comprehend my bone-deep, weary pain that comes from grief and loss.

“Deli help me. What should I do? I can’t lose him; I can’t.”

My temper snaps, and I almost scream.

Why the fuck did she do this? Why did she question the foundation of their relationship because he had a good time with Taurus?

I’m not worried about Taurus loving someone more than me. I’d rip someone else’s face off for looking at him, but not Rafe. Neither of them would ever hurt me, and I know it. But Talia doesn’t believe me when I explain that. I don’t look at her, but I choose my words for their clinical precision.

This is me: detached and cool, unwilling to give her my pain.

“Talia, Rafe doesn’t say things out loud as often as he does things to show his love.

I am certain that he’d give anything up for you.

Whether he’s said it, I believe that he’s chosen to do so already if he’s running.

He has barely even spoken to anyone but you and our family since Wilde died.

He avoided other mates and friends unless I forced him to interact with them. ”

“But he hasn’t been with me. I figured that Sari?—”

“No. She reserved her special brand of torture for me from the time we arrived at that hospital. She went to see him one time—to put an end to the bullshit about the rings. ”

“It hurts so much. Deli, I want him. I need him. Oh God, what have I done?”

Ah, Cassiopeia, what have you done?

Closing my eyes, I wonder if I could blink out of here and go somewhere—anywhere—but here.

Her pain is palpable, and my own is funneling into the room I’ve built inside.

She’s not even the tiniest bit concerned about what will happen to me or Taurus if Rafe stays gone.

She’s not worried about whether he’ll punish himself for hurting her, but I am because he will.

He’s going to flagellate like a priest caught in the nunnery.

I’m going to feel every bit and just keep quiet, like with Victor. It will also have to live here in the room. I will need to make space for it. The cabinet appears in my mind, and I imagine its drawers being labeled one by one, getting ready to place memories and injuries on them to seal away.

The air shifts as if something in the magick in this place is shifting. I feel that she’s reaching out to him. She’s looking for him. I don’t know if it’s working because I’m not willing to bust the barriers someone has cast on this place to pieces to help her. I could, but I don’t want to.

The energy she’s putting out is getting intense. I stop my internal construction to walk over and sit nearby. It crawls over my skin, and I shudder. Their connection is powerful. Before I can stop her, her hand reaches out and grabs my wrist.

No, no, no! This is bad; this is bad.

I try to shake her off, but I can’t. The wind howls.

She’s sucking in my power, and this is so dangerous; she doesn’t know how to control it.

I don’t know how deep the well goes! I can’t get her hand off me, and the sea is roiling, the sand is blowing, and the sky is getting dark.

Everything around us is turning black, and I can’t make it stop.

We are so royally fucked.

What happens next? Find out in Book Four (TBA Title) by preordering here!