Page 57 of Fired at the Heart

It doesn’t work.

Raphael floats behind my eyelids every time I blink. Raphael laughing, head thrown back, the sound rich and unrestrained in a way few people ever got to hear. Raphael cleaning his gun, those long fingers moving with precise care. Raphael breathless with desire above me, whispering words that branded themselves on my soul.

Mine. My mate. My heart.

Lies, all of them. If I’d been his heart, he wouldn’t have left me so easily.

The whiskey burns less with each swallow. I welcome the spreading warmth, the slight blurring of my vision. Not enough yet. Nowhere near enough to forget.

I stand, swaying as the room tilts around me. The bottle dangles from my fingertips as I move to the window. From here, the industrial district stretches out on either side, a maze of abandoned warehouses, chain-link fences topped with razor wire, and the distant glow of the city proper.

No one would look for me here. Not Cassian. Not Rico or Jace or any of my crew. And not Raphael, who never knew about this place.

The thought should comfort me. Instead, it spreads the pain further. I’m all alone.

A spasm rocks through me, sudden and violent. My back arches, and the bottle slips from my hand, hitting the floor with a dull thud without breaking. Whiskey pools on the concrete, and I watch it spread, unable to summon the will to care.

Bond withdrawal. I expected this and read up on it after I conceived of this plan when Sebastian first contacted me. I’ll experience muscle spasms, temperature fluctuations, and nausea. What it didn’t mention was this sensation of being torn apart from the inside out.

I slide down the wall until I sit in a puddle of expensive whiskey, my pants soaking through. The cold seeps into my skin, but it almost goes unnoticed compared to the ice forming around my heart.

“Fuck you,” I whisper to the empty room, to the ghost of Raphael who lives in my head. “Fuck you for making me love you. Fuck you for leaving. Fuck you for coming back when nothing’s changed.”

The tight control I’ve clung to since the warehouse, the professional mask I wore with Lena, and the cold determination that helped me sever the bond all shatter like glass.

A sound tears from my throat, raw and animal. I press my fist to my mouth to stifle it, but it’s too late as the dam breaks. Tears burn hot tracks down my cheeks, and I hate them, hate this weakness, hate that even now, after everything, I still yearn for my Alpha.

I retrieve the fallen whiskey bottle, now only half-full, and guzzle. The alcohol hits my empty stomach like a punch. Good. Physical pain is preferable to this emotional evisceration.

“You were supposed to choose me,” I tell the wall, my words slurring. “We were partners. We were going to build a family together.”

Another spasm hits, this one bringing nausea with it. I curl into myself, riding out the wave of sickness. When it passes, it leaves me shaking, sweat beading on my forehead despite the chill in the air.

The whiskey bottle empties faster than it should, leaving the room spinning around me, but the pain remains clear and sharp, untouched by intoxication.

I think of Cassian, of the way he looks at me with such hunger, such covetousness. He wants mesomuch, and it’s been a long time since anyone desired me on that level. Would bonding with him fill this void? Replace one Alpha with another, one Mark with a fresh one?

Bile rises in my throat. Not because it’s Cassian but because the idea of anyone except Raphael claiming me is a desecration.

And isn’t that pathetic? Even after breaking the bond, after all this time, after everything he did, Raphael still owns pieces of me I can’t reclaim.

“I hate you,” I whisper. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

The words turn to sobs that rack my body. I curl onto my side on the floor, whiskey seeping into my shirt, and let the grief take me. Here, I don’t need to be strong. Here, there’s no one to witness my collapse.

I sob until my throat is raw, until my vision blurs, until there’s nothing left inside me but empty spaces and echoes. The floor is hard beneath me, but I can’t summon the energy to move to the couch, let alone the mattress in the bedroom.

My consciousness begins to slip, alcohol and emotional exhaustion pulling me toward oblivion. I welcome it. Sleep means forgetting for at least a few hours.

As darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, the sound of the door opening reaches me. My security system doesn’t trigger an alarm, though, which means whoever entered has the code.

But that’s impossible. No one has the code except me.

Footsteps approach, unhurried, and a shadow falls across me where I lie pathetic on the floor.

I crack my eye open, fighting the weight of my eyelids. A figure crouches beside me, the bare bulb overhead casting him in shadows. But I would recognize those shoulders, that silhouette, in the dark, in a storm, in the afterlife.

“Raphael?” I rasp out.

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