Page 24 of Guarded
“It wasn’t,” I admitted. It was one thing knowing the one you loved was bad for you, but it was another entirely to do something about it. “Some days it’s still hard.”
Jeremiah didn’t sprout trite bullshit about looking on the bright side or how things were bound to get better. Instead, he looked at me with understanding. “They are for me too.”
We both fell silent. I’d been wondering why fate had matched us, but was this why? Because we both had scars? Because we both understood what it was to be trapped?
“That’s why I ran from you,” Jeremiah said finally, breaking the silence. “It was selfish and stupid, but I’d spent centuries yearning for my freedom.”
I slid my hand from under his as I read into his words. “And being mated would take that freedom from you.”
A muscle jumped in Jeremiah’s jaw as he watched my retreat. “Yes and no. I’m not enough of a twat to think that being in a relationship is like prison. If you’re with the right person, it wouldn’t be like being trapped; it’d be an extension of that freedom. All the more joyful becauseyou’d be able to enjoy and experience it with the one you loved.”
I closed my eyes as the true reason behind his abscondment hit me. “It’s because I’m an angel.”
“An angel in the Seraphim,” Jeremiah said hollowly. “Answerable to God and her councils.”
“Following their orders and whims. Not in full control of my life.”
“Yep.”
“Fuck.” I opened my eyes to see Jeremiah smiling at me sadly. “Okay. I can see why you ran.”
“You can?”
I picked up my coffee and drank, buying myself some extra seconds to organise my thoughts. To his credit, Jeremiah didn’t rush me, waiting patiently until I was ready to speak.
I tapped my fingers on the table, looking at this from Jeremiah’s point of view. He’d finally got his freedom after a lifetime of pain, only to find himself mated to someone who was in a similar situation to the one he’d just escaped.
“We do have a lot more freedom than you do in Hell,” I said finally. “While we are a unit and treated as such, we do answer to higher powers. There are many times when we’re sent away on missions whether we want to go or not. Our daily lives aren’t impacted in the same ways yours was. We are free to come and go as we please, for the most part.”
Jeremiah smiled sadly. “I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
“But I can’t deny that my life isn’t fully my own.” My chest was aching again, but not from betrayal. No, this ache was deeper. An understanding of where my mate was coming from. Of what it would cost him to bond with me. “If we became mates, yours wouldn’t be your own either. You’d be tied into the Seraphim.”
And me. Maybe he didn’t want that either. He’d said with the right person he wouldn’t see it as his freedom being compromised. Fate said I was his right person, but did he believe that? Did I?
Jeremiah sighed heavily. “That’s what I figured. It doesn’t justify why I ran?—”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t,” he reached over, like he was going to grab my hand, but hesitated. “It explains it, but it doesn’t make it okay. Not now I know that my actions hurt you. I’m sorry for that, Noah. I didn’t consider you when making my decision, and I’m sorry.”
“It’s not like you set out to hurt me intentionally. You didn’t even know who I was. It’s not as if you looked at me and decided I wasn’t good enough.”
Not the first time, anyway. But I was choosing to believe it was his fear that had sent him running the second time, not that he found me unattractive.
The heat in the café rose a degree as Jeremiah swept hungry eyes over me. “I doubt there’s a male alive who’d look at you and think that. None that identify as anything other than straight, that is.”
“You’d be surprised,” I muttered bitterly, thinking of Lyle.
“What do you mean by that?”
I gave him a grim smile. “It doesn’t matter.”
Jeremiah might’ve opened up to me, but that didn’t mean I was going to tell him what an idiotic fool I’d been. How I’d chased after a man forcenturiesknowing he’d never care for me the way I did for him.
God only knew what Jeremiah would think of me then.
“My leaving truly had nothing to do with you.” Jeremiah’s amber eyes were full of sorrow. “It was all on me. I’msorry that I hurt you, Noah. Even if you weren’t my mate, I wouldn’t have wanted to do that. Believe it or not, I don’t actually enjoy dishing out pain.”
