Chapter 18 - Sierra

Just like that, he'd given up so easily.

Staring behind him as he leaves my bedroom, a wave of disappointment washes over me.

I thought he'd fight harder. I thought that he'd beg for my forgiveness and prove to me that he wasn't the same man he was.

Maybe I was hoping for too much.

The sadness that crashes into me causes me to rush into the bedroom and throw myself on the bed. I'd spent years picking up the strewn pieces of my heart, only to have it broken by expectations again.

I should have listened to Ms. Walter. Having expectations about anything in life will do me no good. Crying into my pillow, I know I need to get myself together.

After all, I'll be going back home tomorrow.

When I'm done sobbing and my body finally stops shaking uncontrollably, I lift myself off the bed and stare at the door. A part of me hopes he comes back and fights me for wanting to leave.

The way he lost his mind when he saw me talking to his family in the courtyard, the way he lost his mind on the rugby field. The Felix I'd caught glimpses of whenever he became jealous is the Felix I'd been expecting to see after what happened on the mountain.

Maybe it's because I'd been drawn to that hidden side of him, a desirable side that stirred something buried inside me. Ever since I refused to tell him how I feel, he seems to have curled up into himself, unable to fight me on anything.

He didn't fight for me the way I thought he would. Now he's agreed to let me go back home. I should be glad that I'm getting what I wanted initially, but I'm not.

The home I know back in the real world doesn't feel welcoming at all.

Sighing with a heavy heart, I spot a bouquet of cherry blossoms on the pedestal beside the bedroom door, my heart skipping a beat. Compelled to cross the room on feet that feel heavy, I pick up the bouquet and inhale the sweet scent, only to be reminded of how he knows they're my favorite.

We'd been walking down a street in town, plotting our next move in my quest to find work, when we passed a flower shop. I'd been pulling my hair from my roots with stress, but the flowers caught my attention, reminding me of my mother, who nurtured them in our backyard in Louisa. He listened intently to the stories of my childhood and bought me a bouquet on the spot.

At that moment, I'd fallen madly in love with the angel sent to change my life forever.

He remembered. Even if he painted the angels bearing cherry blossoms on the walls in this room in my memory, he remembered. Even if his mate had been anyone besides me, he honored my memory and my love. It was something he never gave up on. Something I hadn't given up on either.

Not really. Even if I buried my feelings so deeply, I always knew that Felix was the love of my life.

A fresh set of tears sprout behind my eyelids as I relive the memories of our past. It wasn't all bad, and I'd just been seeing things the wrong way.

In my anger, in my quest to make him pay for the past, I've ruined my future.

When a knock on the door sounds, I'm jolted from my walk down memory lane. Hope reignites, but it's not Felix when I open the door.

Kairo sees my face and immediately pulls me into her arms, where I weep again.

"He told me you're leaving," she says, solidifying the inevitable.

If he's telling his family that I'm leaving, he's already made up his mind. There's no going back.

"Y-yes," I croak, stepping back to frantically wipe at my tears. "I'm going home. Tomorrow."

Kairo gulps and nods slowly. "Then you'll join us for dinner tonight? You have to say goodbye."

"I do- I don't know if that's a good idea."

Kairo offers me a feeble smile. "Felix has already requested it."

My brows furrow as I have a hard time accepting that this is it. My last night on Aurora Island. But if he's already making plans for me to leave, it means it's too late. He's not going to come in and fight for me.

This is the end.

***

"Goodbye, K-Kairo," I choke as I hold her close, not wanting to let go. I'd grown so incredibly fond of the weredragon female that it's almost impossible to imagine that I'd never see her again.

Not having many friends in the real world, it was nice to have a friend as dear as she'd been to me. I'd never felt the need to make friends before, but Kairo's friendship was needed while I was on the island. Last night's dinner was the worst torture I'd ever been put through, feeling like I belonged there but having to say goodbye nonetheless.

Felix's entire family has been so welcoming that having to leave now feels like a brand new heartbreak that I have to face. During my last hours here, he hadn't approached me once, despite the small flicker of hope that has since died out entirely.

"We didn't even get to see that spot I told you about," she pouts when we step back.

"I'd been there, and it was as beautiful as you said it would be. I'll carry that image of beauty with me whenever I meditate," I say, even though it's more than the image that's etched into my mind forever.

The memory of what happened on that mountain with Felix will remain with me.

"Are you sure you're doing the right thing by leaving?" she asks, taking my hand in hers.

I nod, glancing cautiously behind me, where Felix is waiting to take me back to Charlottesville. "Yeah, I guess," I shrug. "This is the best for both of us. It's not like we can erase the past."

"You can try," she pleads in a whisper, but I shake my head to brush aside the intense urge to cry. He already made it clear that he's okay with me wanting to leave.

"I don't think it will work out," I say, offering her a tiny smile as I slip my hand out from hers and turn to face Felix.

He nods at me, avoiding my eyes when he closes his eyelids and stretches his arms out to his sides. It's not the first time I've witnessed him shift from human form to dragon form, but this time, I watch intently.

It's almost as if time freezes, the only movement being his body as his ivory wings sprout from beneath his shoulder blades. With sapphire crystals bejeweling each web, the gems sparkle underneath the sun's glorious glow.

When scales ripple across his forearms, his arms distend, his scaled legs lifting him further into the air as they grow larger. I look up at his pointed face, which is no longer the face of the man I'd fallen in love with eight years ago.

It's the face of the weredragon—the supernatural creature I met only a few weeks ago. A creature I didn't know existed before. A magnificent being who I've fallen in love with.

Almost as if the past doesn't matter anymore.

When he turns his face to me, blue eyes meeting mine with sadness lurking behind the intimidating reptilian slits, my heart skips a beat.

A lump forms in my throat as I walk on leaded feet toward him, realizing I've fallen in love with him all over again. In his truest form, with the immaculate strength of just one arm that lifts me off the ground as if I'm as light as a feather, I'd fallen in love with Felix.

Not the man, but the weredragon.

I didn't think it would be possible to love him again, but it is. When he holds me to his armored chest with a protectively secured arm, I know I can trust him again. I feel those walls I'd built come down—not crumbling like they've been demolished, but willingly as I finally let go of the past.

A whimper escapes his dragon lips as he stares into my eyes. I don't understand the language of his dragon mind, but I understand his gesture. I nod in response, permitting him to flap his wings and send us toward the clouds.

Staring at his dragon face, the world around us fades into nothingness as all I can see is him. The weredragon who'd been too afraid to tell me who he was, afraid of the life we might never have had. He's huge, but his fears confining him to the destruction of our relationship make him appear small and fragile.

I want to cradle his dragon cheek and finally tell him I love him, too. But when we circle over the small town of Charlottesville, I know it's too late.

He chose to leave me before, and it's a bed he had to lay in for seven years. This time, I'd made my bed, and I have lay in it now. A shudder passes through me as we close in on my apartment building. I've run out of time.

Sadness washes over me when we enter my apartment. Somehow, we can pass through the walls without turning a single brick. Thanks to Kairo, I know a little about the true preternatural gifts of the weredragons. Experiencing it is something magical on its own, even if he did the same when he first picked me out of my father's house in Louisa.

He guides me to my feet, and I feel my body tingle as if I've just woken up from a dream. It must be because I'm no longer invisible, having lost Felix's touch. He closes his eyes and shifts into human form, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.

"Will you be okay?" he asks calmly despite how awkward the air has become.

I nod sheepishly, the inside of my apartment feeling heniously foreign. He glances around, probably soaking up the fact that barely anything has changed in the apartment he'd left me in seven years ago.

Despite how much I'd been hanging on to the memories of the past, I can't help but feel like this isn't right. Like this apartment isn't where I belong. It remains in the past, where everything between us should stay.

It's a past I cannot hang onto. Yet, I'm forced to do that because I hesitate to allow him in. Not the apartment, but my heart, where the walls slipped down a little too late.

"I'll leave, then," he says as he turns around. With only a meek glance over his shoulder, barely looking at me, he says, "I'm sorry, Sierra. I know I've disrupted your life, but you can go back to it now. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. For everything," he adds, before turning away completely.

"Felix… Wait," I say when he prepares to leave, lifting his arms out to his sides. He'll probably become invisible before he shifts in the small expanse of the apartment that will barely accommodate his mighty dragon form. The lump in my throat threatens to restrict my breathing, forcing me forward with a trembling hand reaching for him.

That's when I spot the traces of ink just below his nape, peaking out from the loose neckline of his tank top. "Y-you got a tattoo?" I ask with a frown, knowing that he didn't have one before.

Even when we'd been on the mountaintop, I'd been too preoccupied with my thoughts to notice it. I frowned as he turned around, his eyes saddened in the corners. He looked down into my face and said, "Yes, it's a tattoo of an angel."

I gasp when the flurry of emotions washes over me in the split second it takes for him to disappear. I rush forward with an outstretched arm but feel nothing in the air where he'd been standing.

As tears roll down my face, I hug my arms, letting the destruction of my heart take its course again. My unwillingness to part with the past is why I'm back in the apartment I shared with Felix, the human.

I could be sharing private quarters in the castle on Aurora Island with Felix, the weredragon, if I hadn't been so adamant about making him suffer for the past. If I hadn't been so vengeful, I would have realized that Felix truly loves me.

"I love you, Felix," I say to the air, my heart breaking all over again.

This time, I only have myself to blame. All because I realized too late that I could trust him again.