My heart is pounding as I wait for more. He has to say more. He has to say that he still wants to be with me.
“When I met you,” he says, keeping his eyes averted. “All I wanted was to be with you. When I found out what you were, I made the decision to be with you, for eternity. I thought it would be you and me forever, Liv. I never expected, I never wanted, any of this.” He gestures around the room.
I drop to my knees in front of him. “I know, baby. I know. I didn’t either. It just happened. But we are doing the best we can. We are happy. Aren’t we?” I can smell my own dread as I wait for his answer.
“No,” he says after a lifetime. “No, we aren’t. I’m not. This isn’t what I signed up for. I gave you everything, Liv. I have sacrificed everything because I thought you were my destiny. I couldn’t leave before, but now…”
The tears seep out of my eyes as I hear the words, I desperately didn’t want him to say.
“This isn’t what marriage is supposed to be like,” he continues, almost to himself.
“You aren’t supposed to cheat on me, and you are supposed to care when I cheat on you.”
My mouth drops open and I don’t know what to say to that. I had no idea he felt that way. He said he accepted my bonds.
“Do you care?” he demands suddenly, his eyes boring into mine, and I flinch. “Do you even care that I fucked Dawn while you were away? Do you know that Devon and I…?”
Devon and I what? I look to Devon and he is staring at Cole with longing and also something else, I want to say revulsion, but that doesn’t make sense.
Until it does.
They have the same father.
Hundreds of years apart, and who knows what else, but still.
“We didn’t sleep together,” he adds, “but we’ve done stuff while you were off having someone else’s baby. Do you care? Are you jealous?” He stands up again and I follow quickly.
“Of course I care,” I say to him. “I love you, but what we are…what we were, it’s our nature.”
“Are you jealous?” he asks me, taking my hands and imploring me to answer him. “Are you jealous that I put my dick in my Feeder and banged her until she came all over me?”
I know he wants me to say yes, and while it bothers me, I care, but I am just not jealous. How can I be after all I do?
I shake my head as I can’t say the words out loud, and he lets my hands go and steps back. I know in that moment that I have lost him.
“I am jealous,” he says. “I am so jealous of your relationship with him,” he says and points to CK, who looks away, trying to stay out of this highly private conversation, “that I dream about killing him.”
I put my hand up to stop CK from ripping his head off at that comment. Fortunately, he stills behind me, but I can feel the glower over the top of my head.
“And with Devon. It kills me that you go to him. That he does the things to you that I do. And Lincoln, and Sebastian, and Xane. How can you be so casual about all of this?” Cole asks me, honestly needing an answer.
“I was faithful once,” I say, and I hear CK gulp behind me. “I was jealous, and it hurt. It tore me up inside. I thought I was being foolish and naïve, but I just didn’t want anyone else. Until one day I did. My first charge came back to me after eighty years apart and suddenly, I broke my promise. And I only felt a small amount of guilt over it.”
“Aefre,” CK says behind me, but I shush him. I know he doesn’t want to head down memory lane with a couple of visitors in tow, but tough.
“Do you know why?” I carry on. “Because I finally got it. I finally learned that I was not only capable of loving more than one, but I wanted to. I went so long without affection, in fact the opposite, and I wanted it. I needed it. I needed to know that I was still capable of loving someone other than my savior, and I needed to know that I could still be loved. I wanted to love and be loved, and I still do. Maybe that sounds silly to you, maybe you wonder why I can’t just pick one man, and I can’t really explain it to you. You are all so special to me, and not just because of that damn prophecy, but because you all love me, faults and all, and I want to return that love to all of you, to show you how I care for you.” I take Cole’s hand again. “Nothing has to change between us, Cole. I still love you and I still want you as my husband.”
“I’m not so sure it’s what I want anymore,” he says with tears in his eyes. “I have reached my breaking point, Liv. When I saw you with Remiel outside. It broke me. I don’t think I can be here now that I don’t have to be.”
I gulp. Yes, that was a horrid, private moment that was born witness to by too many people. “You’re leaving me?” I ask, reading between the lines but needing him to actually say it.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I need time to think about it. This has all happened so suddenly. I need to adjust.”
I drop his hand and step back from him. “Very well,” I say stiffly, trying to cover up my hurt. I can’t blame him for everything he is feeling and what he has said. This has been shit for him. I won’t make him stay if he decides he wants to leave. It’s not what is best for him.
“Liv,” he implores me, but I step back further.
If he touches me now, I will never want to let him go.