Chapter Sixteen

Ayden had been avoiding me ever since the other night by the river. Though not with his eyes. I still felt them on me every moment when I wasn't watching him.

I wanted to ask him about our next step with the mate bond. I wanted to know that he hadn't just used me to scratch an itch and was already bored with me. But every time I tried to get him alone to talk, somehow, he managed to bring Baer or Rory right back around us.

"If he wants to be a one and done all he has to do is say so," I grumbled to myself.

‘Our mate wouldn't do that, Sasha,'my wolf chastised me. ‘He was so frightened when we nearly died. I felt his fears and his desire for us to live. He loves us.'

I scoffed. "Love? It hasn't been that long since we stopped fighting like cats and dogs. Love is a bit of a stretch."

‘Love is unrestrained by the opinions of mortal beings like yourself,'my wolf growled back.

I rolled my eyes still, though the thought of him loving me made my heart flutter.

"Well, if he was so scared of losing me then why is he acting so weird and avoiding me now?"

"Are you talking to me or yourself?" Rory asked from behind me.

I jumped at her sudden appearance, irritated that she had sneaked up on me at all. It was clear that my mind was too wrapped up within myself.

"Oh," I blushed as I looked back at her smiling face. "Myself."

"Well, had you been talking to me, I would say that all you have to do is just give me a sign if you are wanting to get him alone and I'd make sure Baer and myself disappeared for an hour or two so you can ask him yourself." She smiled brightly. "But that's only if you were talking to me. Otherwise, I'm sure your wolf has some thoughts of her own."

I felt my wolf snicker in my head as I rolled my eyes. "Well, let's say that I am talking to you now. How quickly can you make yourself scarce?"

Rory smiled and turned around to face the camp where Baer and Ayden were setting up the tents. I watched as she gave me a wink before whistling and gaining her mate's attention.

With a wiggle of her finger, she disappeared into the trees with a giggle, and Baer was quick to drop everything, leaving what he was doing and followed her excitedly. I smiled as they both disappeared through the trees, and I turned my gaze to Ayden, finally catching his eyes on me. His eyes locked with mine before he turned to leave the unfinished tents.

"Oh no you don't," I called out, jumping over debris along the ground to reach him quickly before he disappeared.

I reached him before he could slip into the trees and disappear like Baer and Rory had. I held tight to his sleeve and glared up at him.

"What is going on with you? You haven't talked to me since the other night by the river. Just tell me if you think it was a mistake instead of avoiding me like a pussy." I demanded, rushing my words out before he could slip away from me.

He stopped and looked down at me. His eyes narrowed as he took all of me in, starting at my feet and climbing to the top of my head before settling on my eyes.

"Well?" I demanded again. "Say something, Ayden."

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was keeping my distance for a reason? That maybe I had more on my mind than simply that you and I fucked? Maybe, just maybe, I saw something that has me second guessing everything I know, and I needed time to think things over for myself."

My body jolted back at his words, my eyes widening as I began to comprehend what it was he was saying.

He saw. Through the darkness of that river, he saw what I had done to escape the kelpie. The use of forbidden magic, magic that I condemned his bloodline's use of countless times. A magic that no one ever comes back from, even as I stood before him completely unaffected.

He knew what he saw.

I swallowed hard as I took a step back.

"I think you've had plenty of time to think by now. So, just say it. I'm a big girl, remember? A god damned warrior princess. You don't have to coddle me with your silence, Ayden."

I poked his chest with each word of what he had told me. The words that had reminded me to fight the kelpie. The words that had inspired me to live.

Ayden grabbed my hand, his grip tight as he towered over me, but I didn't back down. I stood on the tips of my toes, my nose inches from his as we stared each other down.

"Say. It..." I growled.

His eyes narrowed down at me, his hand releasing mine as he stepped back the small distance, as if I was throwing daggers into his heart. Though that was nothing compared to the words he spoke next.

"Maybe we are meant to be enemies," he said, his voice not quite a whisper, though not quite out loud.

"What?"

He looked away from me, as if his own words hurt him, though they couldn't hurt him more than they hurt me. My fears that he had once banished now returned.

"You used dark magic. I could see it in your veins. It pulled back, but I know what I saw. That kind of magic doesn't just let go of a person that easily." He raked his hands through his hair before finally looking back at me. "You had that prophecy. It named us enemies. Not by riddle, but by our names. Maybe. Just maybe you received that prophecy because you are the darkness. You are the one who is destined to cast us all into war and discord. You are the evil we will find at the end of this path when we finally find that witch."

I shook my head, tears threatening to fill my eyes as I took a few faltering steps back from him.

"No," I gasped. "How can you say that? How can you think that?"

"How can I not?" he cried out. "When I watched the black tar of dark magic running through your veins. In your eyes! It was there. And then it wasn't. As if hiding your true nature behind a disguise of innocence. What would you think if it had been me instead of you?"

A sob betrayed me as I covered my mouth and turned away from him. I couldn't look at him. Not when he was so right.

Had the roles been reversed, I absolutely would have thought that he was the devil in disguise. I had suspected him to be the evil in my life for years now. A decade since the graduation when I had that prophecy.

Yet now, the roles were reversed. And worst of all, I had already begun to fear exactly what he was accusing me of.

Still, I couldn't deny it all. Even as I feared it myself, I could never admit that the thought had never crossed my mind.

"What if the reason the darkness left my body is because I'm the opposite of darkness," I argued, the thought coming from the back of my mind. A thought I hadn't had yet. A brilliant thought. "What if it just couldn't exist inside me?"

"If you were the opposite of darkness then you would have never been able to conjure the power to use it at all," he argued, his back straightened, making him stand taller with the claim. "There is a little darkness in everyone, I agree. The call of dark magic always tempting everyone, even the strongest of witches, but no one can withstand it's call once it's touched your core. And that darkness was deep inside you, Rigel. I have no doubts that it's not still somewhere inside you even now."

It felt as if the entire world had crumbled beneath my feet. His eyes dimmed with disappointment as he looked back at me. The mate who would be his enemy in the fight against darkness.

It was bullshit.

He was presuming without giving me any room for doubt. Just believing that I was the evil he would have to face down instead of the girl he had grown up with. The girl he had gone to school with. How could he be so willing to just believe that about me?

‘You believed it about him, though,'my wolf reminded me. ‘For years.'

Tears fell from my eyes as her words echoed in my head.

She was right. I had done exactly this to him long ago. I hadn't changed my mind until recently during this journey. And now, the tables had turned on me.

‘How poetic,'I thought bitterly. ‘Just when I open myself to the possibility of love, I lose it before ever truly knowing it.'

I wiped my eyes and rushed away from him. Ayden didn't move. He didn't even attempt to chase after me. He didn't even watch me run towards the tree line. He showed no care at all.

"Sasha?" Rory called as she appeared in front of me. Both she and Baer seemed to be returning from their little disappearance, their clothes ruffled and leaves stuck to their hair.

I ran past them as the tears began to flow. My cousin's eyes widened as she saw them running down my cheeks.

"Sasha! What's wrong?" she called after me.

I didn't stop to explain. Didn't stop to listen to the echoes of her voice as she began to interrogate Ayden. I just ran until I couldn't run anymore, and then I sat against a boulder and let my tears fall.

‘His wolf doesn't believe it,'my wolf whispered to me. ‘He is fighting Ayden on his suspicions. He will make sure that Ayden knows the truth. Don't worry.'

I shook my head. "I can't blame him for thinking like this. I would do the same. I have done the same. Even you said it. I deserve it."

‘No,'she barked. ‘No one deserves it. Not him or you. The past is the past, you both had agreed to move forward the night you lay beside each other at that river. Now, you both must choose to move past this as well. It's only a bump in the road. He is our mate. He will see the truth in due time.'

I couldn't understand where her confidence in Ayden came from, but I couldn't deny that it made me feel better. At least a little.

Still, the fears had returned. The voice in the back of my mind beckoning for me to listen to him once more.

I sat still, focusing on my wolf's voice as she helped me drown out the stranger's voice in our mind as he fed the fears of Ayden's words with his presence.

It had been the voice who beckoned me to use the dark magic. The voice who told me exactly what to do each time I was in danger.

It couldn't be a coincidence, and it couldn't have come at a worst time.

"Sasha?" I jolted at the sound of my cousin's voice; my tear-stained face turned towards her as she stepped out from between two large trees. "What's wrong?"

I bit my lip as I tried to decide what to tell her. If I could even lie to her at all. To the one person who had always been there for me. The one person who truly knew me better than I knew myself.

‘She'll know you're lying if you try,'my wolf said with a gentle nudge. ‘She can help us as well. After all, she understands the mate bond as well as any other mated pair.'

I looked back at Rory, sniffling my nose as I wiped the tears from my cheek.

"Can we talk?"