Page 24

MARA

E dith and I both whipped our heads around, and my poor heart lurched. Because he had to be the most beautiful thing I’d seen all day…and the person I was the most terrified of facing.

“Wes.” His name fell from my lips in a whisper.

God, he was gorgeous. Wes was older than me by a few years.

Where I was short and petite, he was tall and lean with broad shoulders and shoulder-length blond hair he kept tied at the nape of neck.

His sun-kissed skin was smooth and taut over muscles that appeared carved out of the finest marble.

But the thing that undid me more than anything were his golden-green eyes.

Eyes that reminded me of a sunset and shimmered with hues of green and amber tones.

They were breathtaking, mesmerizing, and completely captivating.

I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I found myself captured by his gaze.

And right now, all he did was stare at me as those eyes burned brilliantly like the sun.

Edith got up from her chair quickly, but I reached out and grabbed her wrist, mouthing “Stay,” to her. Her brows knitted together, clearly confused by my actions, but she did as I asked. She slipped back into the chair, eyes flickering with worry .

I returned my gaze to Wes, and the sight of him…

god, it was overwhelming. Familiar emotions of love and joy and arousal were quick to flutter through me.

But there was fear too. Fear of rejection, and shame for what I’d done to him.

Wes’s stoic, blank face hid a fiercely loving, loyal, and tortured soul that had proven on more than one occasion he was my knight in shining armor.

He saved my life on multiple occasions. And how did I repay him?

By breaking his heart.

By telling him I was in love with someone else when I wasn’t. By telling him that I didn’t see the unique person he was, and that I only ever saw his brother, all in an effort to save him from his father. But in doing so, I kept secrets, lied, and destroyed him in the process.

What a freaking wretched person I was. He didn’t deserve this.

He didn’t deserve a girl who would lie to him and shatter his soul when he was only just beginning to come out from beyond his castle walls.

And the hardest part of this whole thing was…

he didn’t know the whole truth yet. What would he do when he realized that I was cheating him from the very beginning?

When he realized I never had intentions of marrying him?

My heart skipped.

The intensity building as we both stared at each other was awkward and heavy.

I wanted nothing more than to run to him, but I couldn’t.

I sat, glued to my damn chair, because I refused to keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

I had to tell him the truth, just like Edith said.

Only then, if he still wanted, could we work on fixing the fragmented remains of a relationship that I wasn’t convinced was going to survive the night.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed through my uncertainty. “Wes—”

He held up his hand, silencing me, still as stone.

Anxiety pooled deep inside me. I waited, both of us staring at each other.

I parted my lips, wanting to speak, but he shook his head and I closed my mouth once more.

Wes took slow steps toward me, his eyes boring into mine, flickering with such intensity, I thought I was going to catch flame.

He said nothing. Not a damn word, and it was agonizing.

I felt my insides writhing in the fear of the unknown.

Stopping mere feet from me, his lips parted, and he finally spoke. “Are you…” He rubbed his lips together. “Are you okay?”

That’s it? That’s how we were going to start a reunion after nearly four weeks and a brush with death? Are you okay ?

Annoyance bubbled. Why was it always okay ? Did no one understand that being physically alive did not equate to being okay ?

In fact, maybe being alive was worse . Because being alive meant I had to face my freaking demons and boil in the tainted waters of my guilt and shame, and that was definitely not freaking okay .

I hesitated, unsure of how to respond to him. My face crumpled slightly, and I knew my inner turmoil was playing out on my face. I tore away from his gaze and settled for a carefully selected truth. I was done with lying.

“My body feels okay.” But I’m dead inside.

I took in a shuddering breath and looked back at him.

Wes was a master of keeping his emotions hidden behind a wall of stone, and like every time before, I couldn’t read him.

I had no idea if he was mad, or sad, or freaking happy to see me.

It was just his bullshit mask. The one I hated with every cell of my being because it told me absolutely freaking nothing .

My lips pressed together, fighting the sting in the back of my eyes.

I will not cry anymore. I will not crumble.

I pushed through the knot in my throat. “Do me a favor and say something.” It came out tart, and he didn’t deserve that, but freaking hell, my anxiety was morphing into anger, ripping at my soul.

I thought I saw his body quiver. His brows drew forward, and then he shifted his gaze to the ground.

Fine. I’ll start then. “Wes, I—”

He moved so quickly, I didn’t even have a chance to react. From one heartbeat to the next, Wes grabbed me, yanked me to my feet, and kissed me, stealing the words from my mouth. I stood rigid, even when his arms folded around me, holding me like I was the most sacred thing in the world.

I wanted to reciprocate.

I wanted to dive into him.

But I was a shell of who I was…nothing but little shards of glass remaining.

He grew stiff and pulled back, his eyes searching mine. And for once, I knew what I saw in their depths.

Hurt.

Pain.

Loss.

Suffering.

I was crushing him all over again, wasn’t I? What the hell was wrong with me? How did I keep doing this? Keep destroying the things I loved?

My own self-loathing cracked through me just as sharp as my stepmother’s whip.

I wanted Wes, I knew that. I loved him. But that love was muted, not because it was fading, but because something heavy shrouded over me.

Something that dimmed the lights of hope and shadowed anything good left inside me. I felt wrong. I felt dead .

Wes let me go, stepping back as he watched me carefully. “Mara?”

I let him create the distance between us, feeling an old part of myself screaming to step into him again, to hold him, to kiss him. But I didn’t. I held my ground.

Our relationship was founded on a secret…

a lie. And I didn’t want that anymore. Even if I never found a way to lift this dark veil that had consumed me, I knew any relationship I still had with Wes needed to be free of the lies of the past. They hadn’t served me well at all, had they?

They only led to the suffering of the people around me .

I was tired of it.

I wanted truth .

I saw the hesitation in him. “Wes, we’ve got to talk about what happened.”

He shook his head. “I don’t care about what happened. It doesn’t matter—”

“It does matter. It all matters. Everything that happened matters ,” I shot back, voice rising.

His gaze hardened. “I’m not interested in hashing out the past—”

“I was never going to marry you.”

Wes froze, eyes widening for only a fraction of a second, and then they narrowed.

“It matters now, doesn’t it?” I said, feeling confident in the sad, painful truth.

“When Sasha told me I had to marry you in exchange for Northern aid, I was never going to do it. I lied. My plan was always to run, which is why I insisted on being part of Operation Silent Night. And after the gala, your father threatened me, which only further solidified my decision to run.”

I watched him. Nothing moved. I didn’t even think he was breathing. And then—

He laughed. Not a happy laugh. But a sarcastic, painful laugh. I didn’t even know what to do with it. Tipping his chin to his chest, he said, “It’s not what it seems.”

Cold swept through me. “What?”

He stared down at his hands, rubbing his palms together.

“It’s not what it seems,” he repeated again.

“That’s what you said, isn’t it? No other parting words but those when you left me to die in Telvia.

” He looked back up at me. “But it was too perfect. Because that’s what life with you has been since day one, hasn’t it? Nothing has ever been what it seemed. ”

I narrowed my gaze, bitterness a hard pill to swallow. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’ve done nothing but lie to you since the very beginning. I’d say it was to protect you, but…”

“But you told Matias.” The words came out cold, heartless. “It wasn’t safe enough to tell me the truth, but safe enough to tell him.”

The truth was a slap across the face, and my face crumpled. He was absolutely right. God, I was destructive, wasn’t I? Just a total tornado laying waste to everything in my path. The sting came back with a vengeance, and I could feel the tears welling up once more.

A cynical laugh escaped him. “Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered under his breath.

I stayed silent, my hands curled into fists at my side. I was angry, but not at him…at myself. At the total awful person I was and the havoc I continued to wreck in my life.

I don’t deserve him. I never deserved him.

Wes shook his head, eyes trained on the floor for a moment, before they finally rose to meet mine.

The scowl—the one that was on his face every damn day when I first met him at Base Camp—that stupid fucking scowl was back.

“I’m glad you’re okay. At least that makes one of us.

” And then he was gone, slamming the door closed behind him.

“Shit, Mara,” Edith scolded. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I looked at her, feeling ice crystalize my heart. “Everything.”