Page 19 of The Onyx Covenant

“Why would you be jealous?” I counter, standing my ground despite the urge to retreat from his overwhelming presence. “You don’t care about me, remember? I’m theenemy.”

“Is that what you think?” His tone drops. “That I don’t care?”

I don’t wait for his response, turning and pushing along the long balcony that circles the building, needing distance from him. We’re alone out here, and for a moment, I pause, my knuckles on the railing white with the effort of holding myself together.

“Lyra.”

Of course he followed me. Of course he couldn’t let me escape.

“Go away, Theron,” I say without turning. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“I disagree.” His response is closer now, just behind me. “We have a year’s worth of things to say.”

I spin to face him, anger easier to embrace than the alternative.

“Like what? Like how you were betrothed to another woman while stringing me along? Like how you never bothered to tell me the truth? Or maybe you’d like to explain why you’re here without her. Did she finally see through you, too?”

Pain lashes across his face, quickly masked. “Is that what you think happened?”

“I know what I saw.”

“You saw what my father wanted everyone to see.” He takes a step closer, and it takes everything in me not to retreat. “If you had stayed, if you had let me explain?—”

“Don’t.” I hold up a hand, unable to bear whatever justification he’s crafted. “I don’t care anymore. You made your choice, Theron. Live with it.”

I take a step away.

“If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be running from me right now. You wouldn’t be looking at me the way you are,” he continues.

“And how exactly is that?” The words come out harsh, edged with the pain I can’t quite hide.

“Like you still love me.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Like you hate that you do.”

My heart stutters painfully in my chest. “You’re delusional.”

“Am I?” He reaches out, his fingers hovering just shy of touching my cheek. “Tell me you’ve forgotten everything between us, and I’ll leave you alone. Tell me you don’t feel this, and I’ll walk away.”

I open my mouth to say exactly that, to cut the last thread binding us together, but the lie sticks in my throat.

“Where’s your mate?” I ask instead the question that’s been burning inside me since I first saw him alone.

His hand drops. “I don’t have one.”

A bitter laugh escapes me. “What happened? Did you kill her off already?”

“If you must know,” he says, “she rejected me after my father arranged it. Apparently, the honor of being Magnus Shadowmane’s daughter-in-law wasn’t worth risking her life. She said she’d heard stories about my father and feared I was exactly like him.”

This revelation catches me off guard. Of all the reasons I’d imagined for his broken betrothal, this wasn’t one of them.

“She was afraid of you?”

“Of becoming another of my father’s victims by proxy.” His expression softens slightly. “Not that it matters. I never intended to go through with it, Lyra.”

“And now you know the feeling of rejection,” I say, unable to process his claim that he never meant to mate with her. It’s too much, too late.

“I knew how it felt the night you walked away from me.” The raw honesty in his tone threatens to unravel my defenses. “I’ve known it every day since.”

We stand frozen in a moment that feels balanced on a knife-edge. The city hums below us, and between us stretches a year of silence and pain.

---