Chapter 48: Chapter 48

"YOU BETRAYED ME!" My voice cracked and I sobbed.

Xenos stopped abruptly in front of the altar, completely petrified. His expression collapsed. "No I haven't."

"“No?"“ I didn't even bother to wipe away my tears, because the dam had burst and they were cascading down my cheeks like waterfalls. "You're just like my father!"

"What do you mean by that?"

I shook my head and put my hand over my mouth. How could I have gotten involved with him like that? I'd given him everything, bared my heart. How come? How on earth could I have let it come to this for Gaia's sake? "I thought you were different. I thought you were different”!"

I saw how he couldn't take it anymore to be away from me and to see me cry. He glared at the last space between us that I needed so badly, but the sobs grew so violent I couldn't utter a word to stop him.

“Shh. I am here. I'm with you.” He took me gently in his arms and hugged me tightly. "I am different."

Nonsense! "No you're not, you're lying again!" I wriggled out of his arms, but he tightened the grip.

“I don't! Yes, I didn't tell you about the plan. But yes, because I had to protect you. I can't lose you, do you understand? I need you, I do need you.”

Protecting was something different than controlling, it was something different than not trusting me - but at that moment I didn't understand that protecting betrayed how much I meant to him. I just kept hearing father's voice:

“Do it better!”

“No honorable warrior behaves like that!”

“Pitiful shot, Arya. Can't the chief's daughter do better?”

“It would have been better for everyone if your mother had borne me a son instead of you!”

They pounded on me like stones on my skull. I put my hands on my head, squeezed so hard I had to crush it, but it was no use. The voices didn't go away. Instead, new ones were added.

“What are you doing here, Kurekza?”

“You brought me nothing but shame, Arya.”

“No Ahivi inflicts such humiliation on their Seetohu. “

My hands became fists, clawing at my hair, I tugged at them. You should go! I screamed, hit my head, pounded it over and over”. "AHHHHH!" They should all go away!”

Slap, slap, another slap. Harder, harder against my head. BAM BAM BAM.

"Arya, my goodness stop it!" His voice cracked in shock. Strong hands on my wrists, pulling my fists away and laying them on a warm chest. “"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry!”“

I was sick. Really sick that after what he did to me I wanted to snuggle into his arms and hear his comforting voice. I longed to forget everything, to trust him and to deny all the things Cecilia had revealed to me. Well, if I hadn't known it until now, now it was undeniable. I definitely had a penchant for masochism.

I looked up at him. How could I look into that face, that beautiful face, and not think that everything I thought I knew about this man was wrong? I sobbed as my vision blurred.

"Stop crying, please." His thumbs gently wiped away my tears. "Do not do that."

"Don't you?" I pulled away from him. "Do not do that? Maybe you should have told yourself that before you betrayed me!”

He was about to pull me back into his arms, but I slapped his hands away. "I trusted you! I trusted you, do you hear?!"

His hands froze in the air and his eyes looked at me in dismay, as if only now realizing the gravity of the situation. Slowly, very slowly, as if one word from him was enough to make me collapse, he said, "You can still do that, darling."

"No I can not! You lied to me, made me a fool to believe you!"

He shook his head while his entire body tried not to move - not even his chest heaving. "No."

"I opened myself up to you." My lip trembled and my chest burned so badly as I said the words that hurt me so immeasurably. "I opened myself up to you so much that I love you."

"What?" he exclaimed in disbelief. Eyes darting across my face, trembling hands cupping my face. "Say that again." He stroked my cheek with a trembling thumb. "Say that again."

"“Ehsa teru eyan”" I confessed crying, while nothing was holding me together anymore. "I love you."

He groaned and closed his eyes as the grip on my face tightened. Then he kisses me. He kissed my entire face and I could feel his lips trembling as he said in such a deeply moved voice between kisses, “I love you too. I love you too. Oh God, I love you too.” He pulled me close, kissed me with wistful longing. "I love you so much."

Definitely masochistic. His words only made my wound burn even more. It was like he grabbed my heart and ripped it apart once and for all. I cried, cried so hard that I couldn't breathe under his kiss and my upper body started to shake violently.

Xenos broke his mouth from mine, gave me a pained look, and then frantically kissed my tears away - or at least tried to, as new ones kept pouring out. “Baby, calm down. Stop crying, everything will be fine.” His hands ran almost desperately over my body, trying to still the shaking. "Arya, please calm down."

But I just cried more when the voices started again. I tried to push him away and pressed myself against the wall. "Go away! Go away!"

He grabbed my shoulders, shaken, realizing it wasn't forgotten. 'I'm not going anywhere. YOU are mine, do you understand?'

"NO!"

"Arya..." His voice was a rumble, a warning, and I saw the slight madness in his eyes my words evoked. Which my threat not to take him for mate did. But that was the point.

I pressed my hands to his chest and pushed him back to an arm's length. Of course, that only worked because he let me do it. “You say I'm yours. You say I'm your mate.'

"So are you!" he exclaimed.

"Then tell me do mates do that?" I shouted back, my voice not nearly as stable as his. She was shaking, trembling with my tears.

“Weak”.

"Hm? Do mates do that?” I asked, then snorted. Oh, how much did the word”mate” even mean to me? It was a term used by werewolves. We Gis use something different, something that revealed so much more about what he embodied to me. "I thought you were my “man”."

"All right... fine." He tried to calm himself and slowly closed his eyes, but his whole body was shaking. He opened his eyes. "I'm your man, Arya, okay?"

I sobbed. "Really?"

His breathing went shallow. "Yes. Yes, baby, “yes” dammit."

I shook my head. “My husband wouldn't do that. “My husband”,” I slapped my chest and looked at him in despair, “would not betray me.”

It was the first time I saw a flicker of fear on his face. "Arya, don't... don't do this to me."

"You said you wouldn't let me fall." I clutched his arms. She clawed so deep I dug my nails into his skin. "You promised. You promised me."

The veil of tears in my eyes was thick, but I still saw the sheer inhuman agony on his face. His brows furrowed, his lips pressed together hard, his hands shaking. “I won't let you fall. I'm right here with you.” His jaw twitched and he said through clenched teeth, “I... won't... let... you... fall...” His hands reached for mine and he squeezed them hard on his heart. "Because I love you ... "

These eyes. As blue as sapphire crystals, they looked at me in panic and fear. And so full of love. It was too much, just too much. The pain in my heart was pulsing through my whole body and I just couldn't stop crying, goodness gracious! Biting my lip in an attempt to calm myself, I pressed against the cool rock face, pulling my hands from his chest and sinking to the ground. My red dress billowed out beside me and I drew my legs up as my bleeding heart summoned the voices I'd suppressed within me for so long. I a lot apart. I broke, just like that, without being able to do anything about it.

It hurt so bad, so badly, I just didn't want to feel anything yet. Screaming softly, I clasped my hands in front of my face and bent them like a wolf's paws, digging my nails into my forehead. It should stop. It should finally stop. But no matter how hard I tried to drown out the screams with my own, it didn't silence them.

“I will not bear to endure a coward and a weakling as an Ahivi.”

BUM. I banged my head against the rough wall and screamed even louder.

“Go away. i never want to see you again “

BOOM BOOM BOOM.

“Got you. Got you baby.” His arms wrapped around my body and he pulled me close to his chest. I could feel how tense he was, how much his body was shaking, but he still comforted me. "I won't let go of you, ever." Hands stroking my body. He gently rocked me back and forth. "Forgive me. Please forgive me darling.”

I had no more energy to fight back. My body tugged on the last of my strength, which grew smaller with each sob. Eyes closed, I wrapped my arms around his neck and snuggled my face against his neck as the voices finally quieted. I let out a sob of relief and hugged him even tighter.

I felt the jolt course through his body and he let out a choked gasp. His arms squeezed. "There you are." I briefly felt his cheek against my head, urging me to bury myself even more against his neck, and it was such a heartfelt, concerned gesture that I complied and hugged myself even more squeezed him.

"All right," he calmed himself, letting out a shaky breath. He then gave me a kiss on my hair and then stood up with me in his arms. 'We'll go home now and lie down. We will calm down, and tomorrow will be a new day. You will forgive me and I will never disappoint you again."

"Xenos..." I moaned into his neck. If only it were that easy.

But he was already on the move, stepping through the cave. "No buts. you will forgive me I forgave you, remember? I forgave you before you could even ask me to.” When I didn't reply, I heard the sheer pain in his voice as he stopped in the middle of the tunnels.

I raised my head.

"I'd rather slit my throat than hurt you."

Tears welled up in my eyes again, but this time I kissed him before he spotted her. Even though I realized how much I had surprised him, he kissed me back immediately and when I pulled away from him, he pressed his forehead against mine and narrowed his eyes so hard it had to hurt.

"I thought I lost you."

I should calm his fears and assure him that everything would be fine. But I could not. Not when every inch of me hurt. So instead I buried my face in his neck again. I didn't want to think anymore, just wanted silence.

He responded to my silent answer with kisses, which he rained down on my head and even traced the path down to my shoulder. Then he rubbed his cheek against mine - that alone said how much the panic had brought his wolf to the surface. "I'll take you home now."

With that he stalked off, traversed the rest of the cave passages, and stepped out onto the sunlit meadow. I heard him snap at anyone who stood in his way. Any person who saw me lying in his arms, nothing but a heap of misery. Surely they had heard my screams.

"No..." I groaned, digging my fingers into his shoulders. “Shame, shame, shame.” The word pulsed through my body, through every tendon. It was everywhere, haunting me to the tightly hidden corners. “SHAME. “

I knew that Xenos sensed something was wrong with me because his steps almost became a jog. I was about to bury my head on his neck again when I saw “her”. Cecilia was standing on the other side of the field, her eyes fixed directly on me and her lips curled in a fake grin. And then she mouthed a word that was just too much.

I jumped out of his arms, tripping over my legs as I backed away. I could hear the murmurs of people all staring at us, but I just kept hearing his voice. The voice that formed the same word as Cecilia. “Coward”.

Xenos regarded me with a wrinkled expression and I saw the slight wet gleam in his eyes as I flinched from him.

"Arya, please..." He held out his hand to me, waiting for me to step over and take it. His voice was little more than a whisper. "Do not leave me."

“Coward, you are a miserable coward. Even a little girl would have more guts than you.”

No no no! That wasn't true! Xenos loved me, he loved “me”. arya But no matter how hard I tried to tell myself that, I heard the words. Heard “his” voice. And that was so much worse than hearing Father's voice. Or Nzuaks. Or Cecilia's. Or all the other older men of my tribe.

“Coward. Coward. Coward.”

He was still waiting for me to grab it. He stood there strong and calm, like the rock in the surf he had always been to me. "I love you."

But I turned away from Xenos, ignoring all the people who were also in the field staring at us spellbound, and ran toward what was the only continuity in my life I had left.

I ran into the forest.

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