Page 79 of Of Vows and War: Special Edition
“Asher, you are going to have to propose to me first before saying we are engaged,” Bellamy teased, winking at me. Ranbir watched with a sort of perplexed expression, like his mind might be coming to conclusions but his heart was taking longer to see the truth. I shook my head.
“No, not you. The mortal prince, Sterling. I wish I were engaged to you. I wish you were real. I wish I were free.” I was rambling now, the pounding in my head ferocious as it beat me down to nothing.
“Iamreal. You are not engaged to Sterling. It is me, I am here.” Bellamy’s voice was taking on the barest hint of hysteria, his hands moving to grab my shoulders as he shook me ever so slightly.
“No, you are not. But I want you to be. I held onto you for so long, Bell. I promise. I did not let go. Even now, I am clawing at the image of you.” My voice was just a whisper, but both themales before me heard. “I wonder when Wrath will show up and say he told me so.”
“Ranbir!” Bellamy shouted, finally looking away from me to stare at the Healer. Ranbir looked horrified as he gazed at me. What had I said? Did dreams not know they were dreams?
“I am not sure what is happening to her, Bell. She…she seems to be having a mental break of some sort.”
“That is the problem, Ranbir. My mental hasbeenbroken.” I said it like he was the dumb one, but both males gawked at me in obvious distress.
“Asher, you are here with us right now. This is not a dream. We came for you,” Bellamy exclaimed, shaking me a little more violently this time. “You are safe!”
“Stop that. I do not want anymore hope than I already have. I only just now started accepting this, can you please just leave me be instead of tormenting me with the unachievable?” I asked, shoving him back. I must have pushed harder than I thought, because Bellamy fell, his body sliding a few feet away. If only I were that strong in real life.
“Bellamy, we need to give her—”
“No! Princess, please, listen to me.” Bellamy approached me like he was on his deathbed and I was the antidote for whatever sickness was seeking to claim him. This time, his hands grabbed my face, shaking only my head. “We have been through too much for you to leave me now!”
“Bellamy I am serious, you are going to hurt her!” Ranbir shouted from behind him. But it was too late, Bellamy was beyond reason.
“I love you! You are here with me and you will stay with me!” His furious shakes of my skull were beginning to hurt, and I felt the dizziness make way for confusion. For anger. For panic. “Believe me—believeinme! Inus!”
“I saidstop!”My scream echoed off the rock and wood around us. For the first time, my eyes took in the space. It was Bellamy’s room in Pike. Gods, I was losing my ever-loving mind. “Get away from me! You are making this so much worse. Just leave me alone to wallow. Let me be miserable in my life instead of constantly dragging me back into this abyss of false joy. You. Are. Not. Real!”
“That is it, out!” Ranbir shouted, grabbing Bellamy by the collar of his cotton shirt and lifting him. If I had any doubts that this was a dream, the sight of Ranbir taking control like that rendered them void. “She needs space!”
The Healer shoved his prince out of the room, not even letting him turn to say goodbye. That was for the best. I could feel myself sinking into the bone chilling madness, and I did not want to watch as Bellamy disappeared before my eyes. As soon as the door slammed shut, I broke down into tears, pulling my legs against my chest and trying to will myself back into sanity.
Fur tickled my cheek only moments later, and I groaned in defeat. Of course he would appear as I was falling apart.
“Strange One, this is becoming a problem,” Wrath whispered, his eerie voice gentle. I wished he would go away for a little, that all of them would go away and stop giving me faith. Because when I woke up to the sound of Mia’s voice or Xavier’s laugh, it would break me beyond repair. This fantasy, it was too much. “I think we both know that you never went insane. You did not make this all up. Bellamy is real. He came for you.”
Could a heart still beat after it broke? If so, that was what was happening inside of my chest. Wrath, who had been calling me crazy this entire time, was now telling me it was real. I tried to make reason of it all, to understand and be logical despite my mind working against me.
“He cannot be real. If any of that actually happened, then I commanded him not to come find me. So how could he have?”Yes, my heart was like shredded cloth as it pulsed in my chest, ripped apart and irreparable.
“You underestimate the power of love. Why would you not? You were never showed much of it. Your friends were forced to leave you. Your Healer was stolen from you. Your parents taken before you could even love them back. But I will tell you something that, deep inside, you know to be true. Bellamy loves you in a way that could defy fate. He treasures you enough to find a way—to defeat anything that might stand in his path. Love like that is rare, but it exists within him. Withinyou.Even if you feel unworthy of such a thing.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I inquired, so used to his hatred, his unyielding spite.
“Because I am you, and you are finally ready to be kind to yourself too.”
A sob racked through me at his words, my arms still wrapped tightly around my bent legs. Wrath scooted closer, rubbing his silky fur into my side. On instinct, I reached down and scooped him into my arms. He felt soreal.
“It is time for us to say goodbye. You have a life to live, a world to save, and a stupid little princeling to love.” For once, Wrath sounded sweet. His voice had lost the haunting, echoing rasp. Now, it was a caress against my ears. A lullaby to send me to sleep—or perhaps to return me to reality.
“I do not want to lose you. I do not want this to be the end,” I cried, begging for a different story. I wished this had not been mine. That I had been given any other tale.
“You have to let me go, Strange One. For them. For him.Foryou.”Another round of tears dashed down my cheeks as if it were a race. And it felt like it was. A race against time. Against my own sanity. Against death. “It is not fair how strong you have had to be—how much you have suffered. But you cannot give up. Not now, after so long of surviving the unimaginable.”
“I love you, Wrathy.” Offering those four words to the fur on his cheek felt like sentencing myself to a lifetime of sorrow. Yet, Wrath chuckled.
“I love you too, Strange One. Always.”
And then he was gone, and I was alone.
