Page 119 of All the Devils are Here

He was right.

It wouldn’t be enough.

My heart cracked, and the pain of it rocked through me. It amplified the pain already growing in my body, and I sagged between him and the wall, my knees giving out.

“Please,” I begged, already feeling what it was like to be without him. It was so much worse than the night I thought I’d lost him in Paris. So much worse than thinking he didn’t want me. He would begone. “I can’t let you go.” I shook my head. “I can’t.”

He’d come with me as I fell, still holding me. “And I can’t let you die.”

The sob ripped out of my chest like a jagged edge, tearing me open. “No. No, no, no.” The word came out of me like a chant or a prayer, or neither at all. It was the only thing I could say.

“I love you,” he whispered. “And I’m so sorry I was foolish enough not to tell you.”

“I love you.” The words were broken, buried in his neck. “Please don’t go.” I begged even though I already knew it was too late. He’d decided, and there was no way I could stop him. “I love you,” I whispered.

Laurent’s eyes were glassy as he pulled back to look at me. “Hearing you say that is all I’ve ever wanted.”

He kissed me again softly, and my body felt like it was being pierced with shards of glass. This hurt too much. It couldn’t be real. None of this could be happening. There had to be another way.

A different set of arms circled me from behind, and Laurent shifted me to them before he let me go. Panic gripped me. “No, wait. Laurent.Please.”

I no longer recognized my own voice. The pain was too much to get off the floor, but I still tried. Ariel wrapped himself around me, holding me, and I broke further. “Please.”

A jagged whisper.

Trin and Ban were here, close by, ready to hold me too. None of them said anything, but I could feel their pain and their resignation.

Laurent was at the door, and I couldn’t breathe.

I thought I’d known what it was like to die.

I’d been wrong.

Dying was watching the person you loved walk out the door and knowing you were never going to see them again. Dying was carrying pain that felt like poison, knowing it was the only way. Dying was surviving.

Laurent looked at me, and I blinked away my tears, trying to keep my eyes on him as long as possible. I needed to run. I needed to drag him back here and make him stay, and I couldn’t move.

His expression was only peace. “He may take my heart, Meghan Irela. But it has only ever belonged to you.”

The world blurred with new tears, and when I blinked to clear them, he was gone. Like he’d never existed.

Crumpling the rest of the way to the ground, I let myself shatter.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

____________

LAURENT

Meg was breaking behind me.

I’d never heard sounds like the ones she was making, and I couldn’t bear it. One moment of weakness. That was all I could afford. I leaned against the wall and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.

My mate would live, and eventually she would be happy. It was enough. It had to be enough.

The one saving grace was that we weren’t bonded. She couldn’t feel the agony and fear raging through me, and I couldn’t feel her pain. If we’d finally forged that connection, I wouldn’t be able to do this.

But there wasn’t another choice.

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