“It’s not up to you,” I say back, my own hands balling into fists as I glare up at him. “If Cypress wants me there—”
“No.” His eyes drop to my mouth, and he shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, Cora.”
“Really? Why don’t you explain it to me, then? Since you seem to knoweverything.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cypress dismount, but I’m still focused on Aiden. “I am sosickof you telling me what to do.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you had a lick of sense,” Aiden snarls back, stepping close enough that his body presses into mine. “I’m only trying to keep you safe.”
“Iwillbe safe. I’ll be with Cypress. I don’t need you to keep—I don’t need you hovering over me one minute, only to disappear the next. I don’t—” I shove at him, pushing him back so that I can breathe. I can’tbreathewhen he gets this close. “I don’tneedyou.”
Aiden’s jaw tenses, his eyes flicking between me and Cypress before he simply says, “Fine.” Then he strides toward Helios.
My heart sinks, regret and guilt immediately swallowing meup. “Aiden, wait…”
He’s already gone, taking off without looking back. I turn to Cypress, watching him watch him leave. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t…”
“It’s all right,” he says, doing his best to give me a reassuring smile as he gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll go after him.” I nod, and within minutes, I’m watching Cypress leave, too. Hoping he will reappear as quickly as he vanishes into the landscape.
But he doesn’t.
Hours later, I’m still waiting, back in my old clothes, huddled by the fire that Aiden started and that I have witnessed die down to embers. All I can think is, what if neither of them comes back? Surely both of them have had enough of the disruption I’ve caused, although logically I know they will at least have to come back for their wagon.
By the time the moon has risen overhead, I can’t sit still anymore, and with nothing else to occupy my time, I finally get up and start wandering in the direction of the creek that Cypress led me to this morning to water the horses.
Dirt and thick brush crunch beneath my boots and tangle in my skirts as I walk, wondering why I said what I did to Aiden. Not only was it hurtful, but it was also untrue. Idoneed him. I know I do. And sometimes it scares me how much when he seems to need me so little in return. I feel worse the more I think about it. The more I wonder if I have already ruined the first thing in my life that has ever felt like it could be something more than what I’ve had.
That’s when I hear their voices.
“I’ve already said my piece, Cy.” Aiden’s voice breaks through the darkness first, and I realize they must be just beyond the pocket of tall trees in front of me, down by the very water I’d been headed to myself. I creep closer until I can barely make them out before dropping down into the brush, not caring that Iwill likely be covered with fallen leaves and soil when I stand.
“Don’t press me,” Aiden continues after another moment, and I think I can tell which figure is which by the way they move, as if Aiden’s ever-present hat isn’t enough of an indication.
“My wolf.” I frown in confusion when I hear Cypress’s voice, never having heard him refer to Aiden with that nickname. Nor have I ever heard the touch of tenderness in the way he says it. “Please reconsider the course you seem so intent to follow. All I’m asking you is to try to think about if—”
“I am right on this,” Aiden interrupts, his back to Cypress. “Deep down, you know I am.”
“No, afraid I am not inclined to agree.”
There’s a scrape and drag of boots in dirt as Aiden turns toward Cypress, stopping his advance close enough to Cypress that they are nearly touching. Then I’m waiting again, not daring to move, as the two of them square off, and I know Ishouldgo. Leave them to their conversation, but I’ve never seen them like this. And I want to.
“She can’t stay with us,” Aiden states at last, and I’m not even surprised to hear him say it out loud, even if it inspires something akin to grief in me. “She deserves better than what we can give her.”
You’re wrong,I think, wanting now to also hear his explanation forwhyhe thinks that. For how he could ever say I deserve better than either of them.
“She deserves the choice,” Cypress counters, and the emotion in his voice, spilling over on my behalf, makes my chest hurt. “You want her to end up kept as some other man’s possession? Back in that city where you’re so certain she’ll be safer?”
“No. No, of course not. I can’t…it’s too much.” Aiden’s hand comes up to knead the back of his neck, then switches to sweep back his hair beneath his hat. “It’s too much, Cy, and whatever price there will be for it, I don’t want to pay it.”
“Wolf…”
Aiden puts his back to him again, and after a few more moments, Cypress shakes his head and starts to turn away. I think that will be the end of it then, that they will both go their separate ways, and that I’ll have to figure out how to get back to the camp without either of them seeing me, but then—
Aiden pivots, his hand reaching out and grabbing Cypress’s arm to yank him back to him, and then his mouth is against his, a desperate kiss that is immediately accepted and returned as Cypress’s hands fist in Aiden’s shirt.
I gasp, burying my face in my sleeve to keep another sound from escaping, even if it can’t suppress theneedthat I feel whipping through me as I start my retreat. Both of them too wrapped up in each other to watch me run.
The fire is all but gone by the time I reach camp again, but I hardly notice it when I already feel like I’m burning up from the inside out. I can’t stop touching my fingers to my mouth, can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to have that with someone. To know without question how much you’rewanted. My gaze keeps drifting their direction, a compass finding true north no matter which way my thoughts turn.
And I know, from that moment on, there’s no going back.