The Beginning of The End
Chapter 68

It's been seven days, seven days since Miya was sent to work with the other human slaves, three meals a day, three people coming in and out without a word.

Seven days since anyone spoke to me.

Seven days since I had human contact, 168 hours all alone with nothing but my own thoughts.

I'm going insane. I can feel it.

Even all those days alone on the road didn't feel like this, it was never as crippling as this. I never wanted to end it all after just a week before.

But I do now.

I can't handle it.

I want to destroy the entire room, I want to tear it apart with my power and leave nothing left standing. But there are innocent people in this castle.

I can't hurt them just because I can't handle isolation.

I need to replace another way out. And fast.

I don't know how much longer I can play Maddox's game, I get the point, I disappointed him. I hurt him.

But he's hurt me so many times that I have lost count.

Is that what love is? Pain back and forth. Anger back and forth. Lust. Chaos. Heartbreak.

If this is love then I don't want it, I don't want any of it. I'd rather be alone again.

The door clicks open, I expect a meal, but instead it's Maddox standing in the doorway, watching me with black eyes.

He wants to hurt me, I can feel it in my bones, my muscles tight from apprehension. I would rather he kill me than leave me here any longer.

I stand from the bed, my teary eyes red and swollen, "How long longer?" I ask through

a sob, "how much longer do I have to suffer?"

He steps forward, his body towering over mine. He could crush me with his bare hands if he wants to.

I wouldn't even fight back.

"I'll take you away from this room today." He says softly, "we are going for a walk around the village."

I tense, heart beating erratically.

"Why?" I ask, "Why are we going to town?"

He takes my hand and drags me towards the door, "You think we are all heartless monsters, you think all we do is kill and destroy." He laughs bitterly, "I'm going to show you why we fight so hard, I'm going to show you the innocent lives we chose to save by destroying your world."

My chest tightens, my bare feet padding against the floor as I rush to keep pace with him.

I don't want to see who they were protecting, not when their lives were swapped for the lives of my people.

"I don't want to see it." I snap, trying to pull my hand back. "I don't care about your people."

He stops, slamming my body into the wall, "You think there is a choice here?" He growls in my face. "Do you think I want to have this conversation all the time?!" His hand wraps around my throat, "you are my mate, you belong to me, with me." His breath fans my face as he leans closer. "You would have destroyed me if it saved all your people, you would have destroyed this world to save your own." He releases me, stepping back. "I'm going to show you exactly what you would have destroyed."

I pant for breath, my eyes wide, "it won't change anything." I whisper, "it won't change what we have done."

"Maybe not." He says, "but maybe it will show you that you are not the only one who had to make sacrifices." He takes my hand again, dragging me along. "Maybe it will show you that we never had a choice either."

"But you don't even regret what you have done!" I argue, unable to catch my breath as he rushes me through the slaves corridors. "Neither you nor Ryker care what you have taken from me!"

He looks at me, really looks at me. "Would you regret killing to save the people that you care about?"

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I snap my jaw shut, the words falling from me and shattering on the floor, all the arguments my mind was prepared to have dying in my mind.

I would have killed everyone, all their people to save my family, to save the fae.

I don't even know if I would have regretted the choice.

Killing to save those you love is the highest of sacrifices. It's the purest form of love

because you abandon your eternal soul for them.

You give away your place in the eternal sky to save them, kill for them.

Is that what they have done?

Has Maddox damned himself so that his people could survive?

Did he destroy my family to save his own?

I can't breathe.

The world is so different to how I remember it. Everything is changing and I can't keep

up.

I don't know how to feel.

I don't know how to accept his words for the truth that's behind them.

"I don't need to see the village." I say softly, tears sliding down my cheeks. "I can

understand why you have done it, but that doesn't mean I can forgive you."

He stops just outside the castle, his shoulders heaving as he turns towards me, his eyes surprisingly so soft. So gentle.

"I don't want your forgiveness." He says, pushing my back until my back hits the wooden door we walked through. "I just wanted you to understand, that's all I ever needed."

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He leans close, so close that I can almost taste the mint tang to his breath. I can feel him, his entire body pressed against mine.

His heart beating with my own.

"I just needed you to see the impossible end." He whispers in my ear, "I needed you to accept me, even after what I've done."

"I don't know if I can." I whisper back, my eyes wide.

My head forgets how to think, my heart forgets how to beat, my lungs forget how to

breathe.

Then his mouth is on mine, so desperate and hard, full of desire and despair.

Full of pain and longing.

"You already have." He says, pulling back to look into my eyes, "I can see your heart, Elora." He says, "and I know it beats for me."

I can't say anything, I can't get any words to form.

I can't argue because he is right.

My heart knows him better than it knows myself, and I want him, I want him so bad

that it is physically painful.

I want him to love me.

I want him to accept me, and for the first time I relate that he wants the exact same

thing.

He just wants me to accept him.

I want the enemy, and it is against everything i have ever been taught.

It goes against my family and my people, but i can't fight it anymore.

I need him.