He shakes his head. “I’m far from okay. This potion has destroyed my control. Go away from me. Lock yourself in a room and don’t come out.”
“Why would I do that?” I come to him and reach out to touch him but Jaak pulls back. “Let me help you.”
“There’s no helping me. I’m…” his voice trails off and I watch as Jaak’s eyes flit from silver to brown and back again.
“Your eyes,” I whisper. “They’re changing.”
He reaches up a hand to cover his eyes from me. “I was foolish. I thought this potion would run its course. That all would be well, but my control is not what it used to be. I’ve put you in danger. You’re not safe from me.”
“Of course I’m safe with you. I’ve only ever been safe with you,” I remind him and touch the hand over his eyes. “Jaak, whatever is happening to us both we’ll work through it. You took that potion so I wouldn’t be alone. I won’t let you go through it on your own, not when you took it for me.”
Jaak doesn’t move. He lets me touch his hand, his hand that I see is shaking beneath my fingers. I slowly slide my fingers under his so our fingertips touch and tug his hand down betweenus. Even though I’ve moved his hand, I don’t have Jaak’s eyes on me, he’s looking down.
“I won’t leave you,” I tell him.
“You should. You must.”
“No, never. I won’t do it. Look at me, please,” I beg him. I try to come closer but Jaak steps away from me and drops my hand like it's on fire. He moves so the corner of the broken counter is beside him.
“Do you see this?” he asks, pointing down at the broken ceramic. He barely waits for me to nod before he goes on speaking. “I did this. Me.”
I lift a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s an old house. Things aren’t that sturdy anymore. Maybe it broke on its own.” I hear the bang of doors down the hallway telling me the house heard me and takes offense to me saying it’s falling apart. “Things break, it’s no one’s fault. We can fix it.”
“No one’s fault?” He laughs and turns away from me. “It’s my fault. Your moan. When I heard it, I...I couldn’t control myself. I felt as if I would lose my mind if I didn’t touch you.”
“How do you feel now?” I ask. I watch as Jaak takes a deep breath from my question. I don’t miss the way he goes tense, not with how his shirt is sticking to him, the outline of his back muscles and shoulders prominently on display.
His hands clench at his sides when he answers me. “Even now I feel like I am going insane from wanting you.”
Heat that has nothing to do with a potion settles in my belly. It spreads through my body to my fingers and toes. Gods, I want him.
“Jaak, I want you too. You know I do.”
“When I was imprisoned, half mad,” he stops and then shakes his head, “no, not half. I was gone. There was nothing of me left for centuries, Meadow. Not until you. You pulled me back to myself, you called me in, you held me there untilI remembered who and what I was. Nothing in all the worlds compares to you. Nothing ever will. I will never have enough time in your presence, the honor of calling you my wife, of knowing I am yours…I could have a millennia with you and it would still not be enough, my wife. My heart.”
My eyes water as Jaak speaks. Sadness at knowing I wasn’t the only one alone and tortured in those years, but Jaak was too. The earnest yearning I hear in his voice breaks me. I’ve never been this for anyone. He loves me. I can feel it as surely as if it were the house falling down on my head. Jaak’s love, his words, they both wrap around me and push into the cracked and broken parts of me that no one else knows about. They fill me up until I don’t feel so damaged or fragile.
For the first time that I can remember, I feel whole. It’s wonderful and beautiful to be loved wholehearted by someone else that has seen every piece of you and still found you worthy.
I take a hesitant step forward and then another, until I’m at Jaak’s back. I put my hand up to his back, palm pressed against his warm bulk.
“You gave me back myself, too. I wouldn’t be here without you.”
“You would, Meadow.”
I can hear what he’s not saying. Even with the bond between us he doesn’t think that I need him. If my heart wasn’t so full of the love I have for him, it would crack in two. I can barely even feel the effects of the potion now. It’s dulled to almost nothing.
I move into Jaak’s space and wrap my arms around him. I press myself up against his back and shake my head. “Nothing made sense without you. Even before I knew you were real, it was all wrong. Nothing was right.”
“Meadow-”
“No, don’t say that isn’t true. You’ve seen me for years now. You know what I’ve been through, you were there,” I whisper.I turn my head and press my cheek against his back and hold him tight. I will him to understand just how much he means to me, try to force it out of my body and into his as I speak. “You saw it all. I wasn’t alone with you at my side. For a very long time I thought I was damned, cursed like my parents said. They always found things wrong with me. I hated myself because I still tried to please them. Every day it was the same routine, the same rejection and there wasn’t even peace when I tried to sleep. Not with the night terrors. Then you showed up. You changed everything,” I say quietly.
One of Jaak’s hands comes to rest on mine. “I promise to make every day better than the last. That I will spend every single moment I am with you cherishing and protecting you.”
I smile and close my eyes. “I know you will.”
“And that means you must leave me. It’s the only way to protect you.”
