Page 35 of When Day Breaks

We used each other once again and we both proved each other right. She can trust me. But if there ever came a time where I am unable to save her, she can last longer than she might think. She is strong on her own.

"Who ended up pulling you from the water?" Lucynda's question is expected, as I didn't explain who or why I was able to come back to life.

"When I woke, I overheard Natasha and my father arguing about his hesitation to go in after me. Apparently, he was the one who pulled Travois from my arms and when he turned around, that's when I went under. Natasha yelled for him but he didn't stop walking away. She tried to go in after me, but he stopped her and gave her an order to go back to the castle with the kids."

Lucynda gasps at my words. "That's cruel," she says and I know there is more she wants to say, but saying them won't change what happened.

"I know it's no excuse." I approach her at the edge of the bed, fitting myself between her legs. My barely-worn jeans scratchagainst her fabric-clad thighs and even after what we just did in the bathroom, heat blazes between us. She wrecks me.

I lift her chin up to look at me, using the tips of my fingers. Her eyes are watery and her cheeks are red. Her freckles getting lost just slightly and I notice her lips are swollen as I run my thumb along the curve of the bottom one.

"But I am who I am because of that day. Because of so many other days like it. Fuck, Lucynda I hate that I ever made you feel like you weren't good enough because I-"

"Because you of all people should know how it feels," she finishes my sentiment for me and I can't help but lean into her, pressing my lips to hers.

It's a soft kiss. One the breeds hope for our future, but I'd be a damn idiot to hope that her forgiveness will come that easily. I don't want her to excuse me that easily. And I know she won't. I know it's going to take a lot more to reconstruct our alignment and to carve out a path where we can walk through confidently together.

She pulls away from our kiss and meets me with her undeniably forlorn eyes. She's lost. She wants to understand, though my stories of tormented days and broken memories aren't a reason for her to accept the person I made her believe I was; the man I thrived to be upon realizing I coveted the pain of all who pained me. Simultaneously, she still feels deceived. It's warranted. And as much as I want it to be washed from her mind, for her to forgive me and move on, it can't be about me because she has so much more to battle through. Her own pain still plagues her and even more, she's bound to an unbreaking curse if we can't figure out how to stop it from fully consuming her.

"Does Travois know that you saved him?" she asks, a hint of adoration in her tone.

"I am no one's savior, little one. I am the damnation of eternal punishment. I am depraved and I don't need to thrive in acts of heroism." I sigh. "But, no. Travois thinks his father saved him that day." I've never felt irritation at that thought, I'd gladly let my father take the credit because I knew that any act of kindness or common sense I may display could only be overwritten by that of my faults, errors, and evil that I knew I was bound to.

If I thought that I craved Lucynda's brokenness before—something that inevitably led me to her even without the effects of an indisputable yet nugatory lore—then I have an even bigger battle to face because I won't deny that the hollowed parts in me aren't even more drawn to the empty parts of her. It's the nature I was born in. I am a moth to a flame when it comes to her.

Though as it is, sheismy tether after all but what's more is that I can't seem to escape her. I can't deny the gravitational pull my being has to hers. But I don't want it like this. As much as the monster inside of me might think it does, I don't want to pursue my wife's proclivity for my trust and devotion in a matter of tenebrosity and mutual desire for retribution. I don't want her to crave the shadows I possess when I know hers are only manifested because of me. I only thought that's what I wanted because I had plans of action that wouldn't allow for me to succeed without breaking her, so I wanted her even more broken so that I could thrive in my convictions and relish in them with her.

But I was a fool to believe that it's who she was meant to be. She now knows that our walks of life have more similar undertones to them and—while traveling down different paths—we still stand together in knowing that we've been given up on, abandoned by family and left alone to grieve in our hurt.

But I chose to act out against that, using it to justify who I am and how I betray myself. Truly living in the nature that was expected of me, coveting wickedness and corruption. She usedit to further her determination to find something more; to block out the corrupt and to dream of the only thing she'd been denied.

Now, here we are. Roles slightly reversed and my little sin is cursed to seek blood for those who have harmed her all while not caring who gets caught in the crossfire and I can't seem to want for anything more than for her forgiveness. To mend the break I've created, yearning for her acceptance.

"You didn't deserve the harm that was done to you, Rivian," my wife speaks in a velveted timbre, encasing her words with so much empathy that it brings me agony knowing that I suppressed her heart's purpose.

I glide my finger across her cheek, wiping the tear that fell as I take in just how staggering touching her skin feels. I didn't realize how restrained I was in my feelings for her until I found her in the Gilded Hollow but even then, I didn't anticipate how strongly I thirsted for her touch, her voice, her eyes, her pleasure.

"It doesn't make what I did to you right," I say to her and her eyes close gently as I hold her face, caressing her and admiring her natural beauty, raw in the flesh.

"No, it doesn't. But I can understand." She looks back up at me, my heart seizing as her eyes search for her belonging in mine. "And I want to know, Rivian. I want to know all of your pain and feel all of your loss as my own. But I have to know . . . did you lie to me about everything?"

There it is. This unexpected and foreign feeling of disappointment and shattering failure. I don't care to disappoint people much, not really. Not when I am the one they answer to; I am the one who decides what happens in my kingdom. But ever since experiencing the disconcerting emotions I've felt with Lucynda, I have the need to empathize and counteract my harrowing actions with those that might morph the disappointment into something tangibly hopeful.

I've never been one for romanticism, but with Lucynda, I want to be. I take her by the hand, eager to express to her the very truth behind my rapacious need for her, and I guide her to the bay window that overlooks the Hollows Trace Forest.

The trees start to coat in little white flecks of snow as the sky darkens to a deep, slate gray. I position her in front of me while I close her in my arms, making sure she's warm and safe, allowing her the illusion of trust though I know it won't be enough.

I lower my voice, so she knows this is just for her and I do my best to comfort her.

"I didn't lie to you about everything, Cyn. You truly are myanima vinculum,"I start. "It's hard to tell you how that is determined but you have to believe me when I say that you were marked for mine. But I can say that I didn't really know as much when I first met you all those years ago."

Lucynda stares out at the snow, watching the flurries fall gently down to the ground. "So, when my father…"

"Yes," I rub my hands and up and down her arms. "That was the first time I ever laid eyes on you and I almost didn't stop when I heard your cries for help. But I did and that was the very moment I knew who you were. Ameliana's daughter."

"How could you have possibly known that? How did you even know she had another daughter?" Lucynda turns her head slightly to look up at me. I don't look back at her, needing to focus on anything other than the plaguing feeling that rattles inside of me. I can't get lost in my own need to be selfish with her becausefuckI want to be selfish.

Her scent wafts up to my nostrils and her voice carves light in my dark soul. But I need to stay attentive to the questions and give her the truth she deserves.

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