Chapter 409: Worth the Risk 2
"There is no choice!" Nedra replied. "What choice do we have? We are both trapped here—well I am, but you could leave at any time. You choose to stay to serve him. I don’t even have that choice," she threw her arms out in exasperation.
"You think I choose to stay because I wish to serve him? You don’t think it has anything to do with you?" he growled, prowling back toward her, the muscles in his shoulders rolling as he did. "You don’t think that I worry about the incessant demands he makes of you or the stray bastards here who watch your every move when you appear? You don’t think I worry about how tired you have gotten?" he questioned her through gritted teeth. Did she really have no idea how much her existence ruled his own?
Nedra’s forehead feathered, her eyebrows pulling down into a confused frown. "What?" she shook her head, not understanding. "What are you saying?"
"I am saying I worry about you! I stay here for you—not for him!" he roared, exasperated at how clueless she apparently was. "I love you! Don’t you get it?!"
She shook her head, scoffing in dismissal at his declaration. "Suddenly you love me?"
"Suddenly?!" he almost choked on the word that she used. "What is so sudden about it? It’s been... twenty years, hasn’t it? If we were to count the way time passes outside of this island world? Twenty years and counting that I have loved you!"
Nedra continued shaking her head, refusing to believe it. This didn’t match her version of reality at all. The Seth she knew was married to his job, to his service, to his unliving master.
"Why have you never told me these things before, then?" she asked suspiciously. "Why am I all of the sudden just hearing this now?"
"Because I just found out that we have two children together!" he exclaimed. "Two children that you neglected to tell me about! That you hid from me."
"If you never told me how you felt, how was I supposed to know I could trust you with something as precious as those two babies?" she asked, her eyes watering with the force of emotion that she felt her children. "I would die for them," she hissed. "I would kill for them, and that means that they will live in danger as long as Zagan is alive. They are leverage he can use against me. And he already has you, he doesn’t need any more of it. At least you are lycan—a kind that he has no interest in dissecting and experimenting on. As long as I stay and do what he wishes, you get to live."
"You have stayed for me?" his face contorted in anger and disgust. This was news to him as well. "Zagan threatened to hurt me in order to keep you here?"
Nedra groaned. Did he really not know that?
"Why would he do that? I’m easily replaceable," he almost laughed.
"Not to me!" she yelled.
Seth blew a breath out of his nose, gazing at her like he was waiting for the punchline. But it didn’t come. Nedra was still glaring at him, waiting for the realization of what she was saying to dawn on him. They stared at each other, chests heaving, and then Seth exhaled deeply.
"What?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
Nedra sighed. This was pointless. "Forget it, let’s go," she said, turning to continue walking toward her cottage.
"No, Nedra," he called, catching her hand and spinning her around. "Tell me. You have pushed me away. You have kept me away all this time. Tell me what you are saying."
"There is no point," she groaned, dropping her eyes to the ground rather than holding his deepening gaze.
She wouldn’t get sucked into this with him again. It would never work out. They were destined to be separated, and she was destined to be alone. There was no way around it.
Seth reached to tilt her chin up, bringing her eyes back to his. "Tell me," he pleaded.
"What do you want to hear? What? That I love you? Is that what you want to hear? What difference will it make? We are still at the mercy of a deranged ancient creature..." she started only to be cut off by Seth’s lips on hers, and then all of the walls she had erected, all of the hard angles that she had worked so hard sharpening over the years softened and fell away in a matter of mere moments.
He was kissing her. She forgot how it felt. She forgot how something more bloomed in that space between them when they connected there—his lips and his tongue that searched her and urged her deeper into a tantalizing spin with him. He lit in the darkness behind her eyes—his whole being growing bright and intense and warm, a growing promise in this bleak place that seemed so vacant and desolate.
Those hands and arms and shoulders of his that she dreamed about—they were holding her again, caressing her face and gradually dropping to trace the elegant line of her neck and then down along the length of her arm before grabbing her hands and bringing them to wrap around his torso so he could feel the soft length of her against him.
His hands were in her hair, tilting her head to kiss her more deeply, and she let him. She shouldn’t let him, but she did—she loved him, it was true. She loved him and she missed him so much.
"Seth, I can’t," she finally came to her senses enough to break away from him, backing up and hiding her eyes that would surely reveal more now than they ever had before. She couldn’t make herself more vulnerable to him or to Zagan. Her children were still in danger.
"You can," he countered, attempting to pull her back to him. "Goddess, I love you. I have loved you every day of my miserable existence here. You are the only reason I stay." Her face was cradled in his hands as he made sure she heard the truth he was revealing to her.
"Zagan..." she started to argue, only to have him hush her.
"Is the Luna the answer to killing him?" he asked, seeking a way to stay in this sacred connected space they had reestablished together.
Now that he knew Nedra’s feelings, he could be open with his own. And fuck the vampire—this was worth the risk. This was worth everything.
