Relinquish(14)

I bark out a bitter laugh and roll back to stare up at him. His jawline is firm and his eyes veiled by shaggy curls that he makes no move to push aside. He is hiding. “I know you better than that. Why not just say it?”

“What?” The muscles along his neck quiver as he swallows. His nostrils flare. “Say that I’m ticked that he was the one who rescued you instead of me? That if I hadn’t been a fool and interfered with Vikesh, you wouldn’t have almost died?”

His pain is visible and utterly raw, as haggard as the lines carving into his face. I place a hand gently on his arm and wait for him to look over at me. His lips pinch tightly as he glances at me. “You came because you cared.”

“He wouldn’t have,” Eamon says. “He would have trusted you, believed you capable of finishing what you started.”

I purse my lips, unsure if I should draw back my hand or if the action would cause further pain. We both know how troubled our relationship has been this past year. In all fairness, I did try to give us a fair shot. I pushed aside my pain and inner torment to try to make him happy, but it was never enough.

No amount of caring and declarations of love were enough to make him believe me. After a while, he simply stopped coming to visit after work and would walk the long way back to his barracks just to avoid seeing me on the street. Losing Bastien is the hardest thing I have ever experienced. Losing Eamon too has nearly crippled me.

The only thing I live for now is the hunt. It used to be bears and wolves that I stalked in the night. Now it is Drakon, only ever him.

“You are not him, Eamon,” I say softly.

He snorts and pulls away from my grasp. I feel cold, awash with a tingly numbness, at his withdrawal. “I don’t need you to remind me of that.”

His words hit me like a slap across the cheek. “Hey!” I grasp onto his arm and yank him around to face me, gritting my teeth as I stuff down the pain flaring in my stomach. “That’s not fair. You’re the one who closed the door on us.”

“Really?” The dull monotone quality in his voice makes me cringe. His hands hang limp in his lap. “You’re going to say that when you never even entered the same room as me?”

“I…” I release his arm as if his touch has seared my fingers and cross my arms over my chest, wishing I could roll away from him, could stare at the wall until the smudged lines of glue that used to hold up a hideous motif of floral wallpaper would blur into a dreamless sleep.

Eamon sighs and plunges his hands in his hair. His shoulders slump as he curls his back and rests his elbows against his knees, a broken man before me. I close my eyes, praying for this nightmare to end. Why do we keep doing this to each other? Maybe because we are home, where everything is a reminder of the pain we have both endured over the past year.

Clasping my side, I fight to sit up. For a moment I have to pause and will the room to stand still before the lightheadedness seems to pass and I’m able to rise. Eamon turns and mechanically holds a pillow behind my back, as if the action is expected of him.

“Thanks,” I mutter sourly. I push back the snarl of hair framing my face and wince. Memories of shivering in the dark, drenched from the geyser, and the slashing pain that staked me to the ground swell up within my mind. I remember watching the flames dance along Bastien’s outline as he leaned over me, feeling his hands upon me, cold yet steady. New memories to plague me in the long stretches of night when I am alone. I release a long, slow breath, forcing Bastien from my mind. “Did you at least capture Drakon?”

“No,” Eamon begrudgingly admits. He shifts in his chair and the metal legs squeal against the tile floor. “He was long gone by the time we arrived. Vikesh proved to be an adequate distraction.”

My lip curls with disgust, thinking of the countless lives we tossed away for nothing. “Kyan should have gone after him instead of me.” I bunch my fingers into the pillow beside me and hurl it across the room. It hits the far wall with a dissatisfying puff of air and then tumbles to the ground. I want to break something. No. I want to break someone.

“Easy, Illyria.” He presses back on my shoulders. “I know that look and you’re in no shape to be following through with that.”

“He was within our grasp and we just let him walk again,” I growl, digging my nails into the mattress. I can feel my anger mingled with an equally disturbing feeling: panic. “What if he is gone for good? What if he buries so deep we never find him again? What if this was our last shot?”

“It won’t matter,” he says, turning away from me. His hands drop back into his lap. “We found something.”