Page 49 of Gravel and Grit

She clung to that thought instead of allowing herself to consider that Zaek would be leaving with them. He hadn’t said it, but she felt him retreating inside himself and further from her a little more every day. Why would he choose to stay with her or ask her to go with him when he so obviously regretted what they’d done? He wouldn’t. He didn’t have to say it, she already knew.

They stood in silence for a long minute after it came online before he activated some kind of 3-D hologram display and entered code too fast for her to track, then read the message that appeared. When he was finished, he sighed and said, “It is done. It sent the correct coordinates to Duras, and I have relayed their return message to my brethren’s sigils.”

From the pocket of his sweatpants he withdrew an oblong, jeweled medallion. The large ruby gem in the middle shimmered, seemingly with a light of its own, and the gold-like metal it was set in was engraved with what she recognized as Durassian symbols. It activated at his touch, and a hologram, similar to the beacon’s, appeared in the air above it. Some text and a depiction of a mountain range showed with a marker hovering over a specific peak.

“Retrieval is set for October 31st in what looks like the Northern Territories in Canada. I will have to consult a map to determine which range this is and the name of that peak.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I will have to go on a supply run. We are low on food.”

She didn’t know if that meant he planned to leave her here and didn’t want her to starve, or if he was talking about acquiring supplies to take with him when he left.

She stayed silent and nodded her head. He sighed, so softly she probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it before receiving thedassa,but the effects were still present. She heard the sadness in it, the defeat, and her throat immediately tightened.

He turned and started walking toward the stairs leading to the house above. The sound of his footsteps reverberated in her ears, each thud a sound of finality, of loss.

She hadn’t asked him directly if he regretted it, hadn’t been able to bring herself to do so, terrified of hearing him say what she already knew. But, she couldn’t take it anymore, the tiptoeing around each other, the not knowing. If he was planning to abandon her here like an unwanted puppy, she needed to know. She needed to stop being a coward and face it, so she could make a plan to survive without him.

She meant for her voice to come out strong, calm, to face this inevitable confrontation with her spine straight and her shoulders set, but it cracked over his name.

“Zaek.”

He froze with his clawed foot on the bottom stair, but he didn’t turn.

Swallowing hard, she stared at his huge, broad back, visible since his wings were tucked away inside the slits beneath his shoulder blades. She meant to ask point blank if he was leaving her here, but those weren’t the words that fell from her lips.

“Do you regret it?”

At that, he finally turned to look at her. She didn’t have to explain to what she was referring. He knew. It was there, in his strange, beautiful eyes as he gazed at her from across the room.

“Yes,” the admission sounded as if it had been torn from him, his voice impossibly deep and saturated with such pain and shame it hurt to hear.

“Oh.”

The breath gusted out of her as her chest caved in on itself. Mira felt like he’d just reached into her and ripped her heart out. Even expecting it, hearing confirmation crushed her.

She thought she was ready, but she realized she’d been holding on to a sliver of hope that maybe he was just acclimating, maybe if she gave him time and space, if she showed him she was happy, that he would be too.

Then, later, maybe if she were quiet and helpful and not a burden, he would stop looking at her like the sight of her pained him.

I was wrong.

She didn’t know what she’d done to make him so upset. She didn’t know how to make it better. Now it was too late. She’d lost him. He wasn’t more than four feet away from her, but she’d lost him, and that felt like a knife in her chest.

She wantedherZaek back so badly it hurt, the quirky one who made her laugh, who touched her like she was precious, the one she’d fallen in love with.

She rubbed her chest with the heel of her palm as if that would stop her heart from breaking. She swallowed hard, trying to force the choking lump out of her throat, but gritting her teeth so hard her jaw ached didn’t keep tears from filling her eyes.

His expression twisted at the sight of her tears. He looked like she’d just physically struck him. Zaek took a faltering step closer and reached out to touch her but, for the first time, she shied away from him.

Maybe she couldn’t hide her pain, but she didn’t have to stand there and let him see her break down. She didn’t have to let him see her be weak.

Mira tried to leave, tried to make herself move, but her feet were frozen in place. She had to know.

“Why?”

He reared back slightly and frowned as if her question staggered him, then snarled almost angrily, “I betrayed you!”

She expected him to say he didn’t love her, or that he didn’t want a

human for a mate, or to finally tell her whatever it was she’d done to turn his affection into aversion, not that he’d betrayed her.

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