"I would know it in any world, any life, any form, anywhere in time and space. I would die for these lavender eyes to glitter with warmth - anytime, anywhere."
His words constrict around my heart like golden barbs. The beauty of them excruciating.
...
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Hollowness is a feeling on its own. Something that gnaws at you from within and dares to burn your heart while it still beats. Add to that the longing that keeps giving me a taste of whatever must be worse than death itself, the guilt that makes me want to flay my own skin to draw it out from beneath the surface of it, the remorse and the fury that war against each other and yet stoke each other into a venomous intensity.
There you have the most vicious whirlpool of emotions roiling around the sheer void that lies at the very depth of my being. It threatens to suck my entire existence into itself. I would probably let it.
Atleast that would allow me to escape this cursed ceremony. To make myself believe that I am not getting ceremonially betrothed to a witch that I cannot stop picturing dead.
Fucking bitch.
But I know that this filthy game is the only way to entrap her. So, I will play it. I will play it and make sure that it leads me to Elle. I can consider redemption once I have her back. TIll then, I'll embrace every ounce of wile and filth and viciousness that would lead me to my mate.
Till then, I would give up anything, anything but my loyalty to her.
So, I have to play very cautious, too. There are lines I would never cross, not when my mate awaits me. This is an evil dance between lines that I shall have to readily cross and lines that I shall never, and I won't allow myself any option other than victory.
I touch my lips to the glass in my hand with no intention of sipping. Standing in this decorated backyard, right behind the Knight mansion, bustling with oblivious people gathered to celebrate the fact that I have put the Knight family betrothal ring on Alyssandra's finger - supposedly, the Beta's daughter - all I feel is unadulterated and boundless rage.
But I don't let it burst pass the seams. It simmers within me with a burning intensity even as I calmly trace the rim of the glass in my hand with a single cool finger. Then a single tap on the side.
Where are you, Elle?
I subconsciously reach out to where the mating bond's shimmering thread, incomplete as it was, had always resided. But I tore that thread myself, with my damned rejection. And now all I feel there is a gaping void. Maybe Elle still feels her side of the bond, some remnant of it. Because she had refused to reject me back, or so much as accept my rejection. In retrospect, I am so proud.
Where are you, mate?
People all around are making toasts in the name of this and that, and all I can think about is my lavender. The one person in whose name I'm entertaining all these vicious charades. My body is on the verge of trembling with rage, with terror, at the mere thought of what she might be going through at this moment. And at the sight of this world. Uncaring. As if she didn't even exist to begin with. As if her absence, that is tearing me apart from within, doesn't even matter.
