Chapter 456: Nothing I Can Say
"I want to go home," August said quietly, pleading with Nedra with her eyes. "Let’s try this so I can go home. Please."
How could Nedra say no to that? The pregnant Luna wanted to go home, and she couldn’t blame her. She couldn’t keep her from returning to her mate now that Zagan was no longer making her stay, and who knows what the rest of them would do with the creature once she left if they didn’t give this a try.
Nedra swallowed uneasily. Her throat felt so dry. "Okay, let’s try it."
August’s face brightened in response to Nedra’s agreement. "Thank you."
"I just need a few minutes. How about we all take a break?" Nedra suggested.
She didn’t wait to hear a response from the others before turning to return to the castle. Maybe she was just still tired. Maybe that is why she was finding it so difficult to find it within herself to do something so selfless like that again for another vampire.
"Will he be okay in there?" Penelope called after her, referring to the vampire buzzing around the cage.
"Yes," she called over her shoulder without stopping to explain to them how secure that cage was that they had made.
With the reinforcement she put on it, she was not concerned about the intruder getting free. Sage may be the only individual who was capable of breaking out of something like that, and with that thought—the thought of her son—the panic within her that had been fluttering, trying to get loose finally broke free and she sprinted the rest of the way to the side door of the castle, slipping into the dark hall and panting against the wall there where she was finally alone.
"Get it together, Nedra," she whispered to herself, her hands trembling against the wall. She shook them out to try dispelling the tremor, but they continued to shake. The tremor spread to her lips, which started quivering like the heart that was inside of her chest.
"I almost lost him today. I almost lost everything," she allowed the thought to escape, tears pricking her eyes and making them burn.
Brandt was still in the kitchen—a victim of the unexpected vampire who came to claim Zagan. It could have easily been Seth instead. Everything she had done to try to keep him safe—everything she had agreed to do for Zagan all of these years... And in just an instant, it would have been for nothing. All of it would have been lost.
She continued shaking her hands, pushing the thought away as she broke away from the wall and walked down the hallway of the castle. She couldn’t fall apart like this. Not now. Not here. Not ever. She had tucked all of these fears inside for so long, and the moment they were challenged, the whole island started falling apart. It was up to her to remain strong. It was up to her to always remain strong.
"Nedra," a voice called from behind her, and she gasped, turning to find Zagan at the end of the hallway watching her trying not to break down.
"I want to be alone," she said, hiding her hands behind her back and lifting her chin proudly, squeezing her eyes shut when she realized her chin too was trembling. She couldn’t contain this quaking within her... it was taking over. If it wasn’t the island quaking, it was her.
When he didn’t move to honor her desire to be alone, her eyes snapped open to glare at him. How dare he look so different standing there watching her as if he felt for her, as if he knew what empathy was... as if he had not kept her here all these years with the fear of losing all that she cared for. As if he had not been the constant threat that was looming over her. How dare he get to be the one with soft, open eyes like that beseeching her to engage with him.
"What do you want?" She asked through clenched teeth.
He slowly walked forward. Everything about him now was entirely different. The way he walked... before it was like he was stalking a victim, but now he seemed hesitant to approach. He had not left her alone as she wished, but he was trying to be sensitive to the aura she was projecting now—letting her anger bloom as large as it needed to while he offered himself there as its target.
"I know there is nothing I can say," he said quietly, his eyebrows bent upward in submission, "for what I have done to you all of these years. Everything you have given and sacrificed," his throat went dry as the words came out so weak and insignificant as they tried to relay his intention in following her here. He could not convey to her the overwhelming guilt that he felt at suddenly seeing his behavior in a new light, and he bowed his head feeling the weight of all of it along with the accusations burning in her eyes.
She released her hands from behind her back, letting them shake in fury now. "You are right. There is nothing you can say," her voice matched the quaking that was consuming her. "You have no idea what I have sacrificed. But somehow it seemed... okay to do it, because you couldn’t be defeated. Because it was what must be done to protect everyone. But now..." hot tears fell from her eyes, slipping down her cheeks. "Now you are to be redeemed? Now I am to forgive you? Now you are the one to get your happily ever after when I almost lost everything! When I have lost so much already!"
His shoulders sagged as he let her torment wash over him. "You do not need to forgive me. I don’t deserve to be forgiven or to have a mate. I don’t deserve to feel the beating heart in my chest or taste the air. I don’t know why this has happened."
"You don’t know why this has happened?" Her voice rose. "It has happened because you would stop at nothing—you were willing to hurt anyone—to find what you were after. And now that you have found it..."
She wrung her hands together in front of her against the truth that was wanting to spill out. "Now that you have found that elusive life and are actually going to live it, I don’t even get the satisfaction of watching you die. I just... I don’t even know who I am anymore."
