15. Fear and Forgiveness

"If only you hadn"t kissed me," I said, and at this he looked truly shocked, because clearly he would never have imagined ever cheating on his wife… even with me. I admit, it stung, but knowing of the love he had always held for his wife, then could I really be surprised?

"I kissed you?" he asked, and all I could do was nod my head.

"And… Lerna… did she…?" I shook my head telling him no, that she never found out. And I didn"t know if the reason it was so painful for him to say her name, pausing and doing so in a strained way, was down to the guilt he felt or something else. Perhaps it was saying her name in front of me. Or perhaps he was trying to spare my feelings the way I was trying so desperately to spare his. But in the end, I knew there was no possible way that I could tell him what I needed to and spare him anything.

"Then I don"t understand." I released a heavy sigh and told him,

"You kissed me… you didn"t want me to leave… I don"t know, perhaps you felt something for me, like subconsciously you knew that I was your Chosen One…"

"Oh, I undoubtedly felt something for you, Ella, for if it is even the tiniest shred of what I feel for you now, then it would have been enough for me to want you to stay." At that I couldn't help but gasp as more tears slipped down after instantly gathering. I even had my hand to my chest and told him on a staggered breath,

"You don"t know… how much I needed to… hear that right now." At this point, he could no longer stop the need to touch me, and he was up out of his seat and next to me in a heartbeat. He pulled me into his arms, and I couldn"t help but sob into his chest, just like I knew I would do the moment he hugged me. I then felt his hand stroking back my hair as he whispered down at me,

"I would have fallen in love with you, no matter what time or place in this world we were in and all worlds that follow."I gripped onto him tighter, and told him on a quivered breath,

"I love you."

He released a big sigh, as if he too had needed to hear this just as much as I had. In fact, I didn't know how long he held me for, but it was long enough for me to have composed myself to continue. So, I pulled back, and he let me. But he didn't leave his seat next to me and, this time, I didn't ask him for that space.

"Can you tell me what happened, baby?"

I nodded, wiping away my tears on the long sleeves of his thermal top I had found. One that wasn"t quite as baggy on me as one of his T-shirts had been. However, the sleeves still needed to be folded back and its long length tucked into the only pair of jeans that I had. Thankfully, he had more than one thermal in his drawers other than this navy blue one because, pretty soon, the sleeves would be soaked with my tears and even more gross… my snot.

An irrational worry, no doubt, that my mind was trying to focus on to replace the difficult story I still had to tell.

"I told you, I had to leave, and, in the end, you let me. But then as I was walking away, after a while I just stopped. Like I couldn"t do it. it was if I was compelled to run back to you and tell you everything that was about to happen. To warn you, so that you could make your own choice. I remember that conversation we had in the pub, when we had our date around London… do you remember?" I watched him swallow hard as if parts of my confession had meant something to him.

"I remember everything when it comes to you, Ella… so yes, I remember." I couldn't help but grant him a small smile at that.

"You talked about not having a choice, that you never asked to become a HellBeast King… and I kept playing those words over in my head, how unfair it was… I thought… well, I guess I thought that I could save you." Again, this last part came out in another sob and I was in his arms as he whispered,

"Oh Ella, baby."

I quickly pushed on, knowing I had to get it all out now, there was no turning back. So even with his arms around me, like a brave coward, I told him without looking at him,

"I got lost, and I stumbled across a meeting. Koro was there, and other men that I recognized as being the ones who dragged you into the caves. They were all discussing how the time was now, talking about how they would take you."

"You saw all that?" he asked, making me nod before continuing,

"I was spotted, so I ran as fast as I could and found your cottage. I begged you to come away with me, for us to run because they were on their way. I tried to save you… but in the end…" I paused as I shuddered thinking back on that day.

"They found me anyway," he finished for me, and once more I nodded, now pulling back to look up at him.

"They arrived before we could even make it out of the door. We didn"t stand a chance," I told him. He sighed before making his assumptions…

"Thank the Gods, they didn"t take you." This ultimately, ended up making me tense and my features winced in pain before telling him,

"They couldn"t do that, not if they wanted you to believe that it was me… that I was the one that betrayed you." He frowned at this.

"I never would have believed that, I would have had no reason to believe them." I closed my eyes at that, and the pain must have been easy to see on my face. But before he could ask, I pressed on.

"You had one reason,"I forced myself to say, making him narrow his eyes in question. Then it must have suddenly dawned on him what I meant, because he started shaking his head.

"No… no, she… she must have been mistaken… they must have convinced her that you were involved." I released a regretful sigh before I started shaking my own head.

"She knew I wasn"t involved, Jared."

"What are you trying to say here exactly…"

"I think you know what I am saying," I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

"No, because from the sounds of it, you"re trying to say that she was involved but that"s impossible, Lerna wouldn"t have done this to me. She died that day… she died trying to save me, Ella." His words were like a lashing to my heart and he got up out of his seat, dragging a hand through his hair in earnest as his anger gave a sour bite to his words.

"You have this all wrong," he stated firmly.

"I wish I did, Jared, you have no fucking idea how much I wish I did."

"She was played just like you were, she was a pawn in all this… she must have been." At this, the tears now flowed freely. Even as I shook my head, they dripped to my lap before I hammered the nail in Lerna's coffin.

"No, Jared, she wasn't, and I know that because I was there, I saw it all and I'm sorry to say but… she was the other person at that meeting, Jared."

"No! No… No," he started saying over and over and slashing an angry hand down. But I got up to my feet and followed him as he started to walk away.

"It"s the truth. She was there at that meeting, and she was the one who said now was the time to take you. To use the excuse that Francis Dashwood would have work for you… but this was all before they saw me and decided to throw me under the bus… then she was there playing the victim, casting blame my way with the others," I told him, making him grip his head with his hands as if this would help in shutting the truth out.

"No… no, this can"t be… this can"t…"

I swallowed down the heartbreaking emotions, and knowing that I had come too far now to stop, I continued to try to get him to hear me.

"I was there, Jared. I saw everything and trust me, if there was any way that your wife had been innocent in all of this, I would have been the first one to try and see it that way. But I can"t… do you hear me? I can't, Jared! Not when she was the one who looked like she planned this from the start." The second I said this, his face snapped back to mine, the anger I saw there made me flinch back despite knowing he would never lash out at me. He was hurt and I could understand that. Because I was no longer faced with the same man who had been hurt that day in the cottage. He had not been the same man who faced me now, the man who loved me. Not the HellBeast that had hated me… who didn't know me.

"Lerna, my wife… you"re trying to tell me that she was responsible for this… for all of this… this whole time, our marriage… that none of it was even fucking real?" he asked me, his voice breaking, and it again tore at my fucking heart. So, I started shaking my head, telling him,

"I honestly don"t know, baby. I wish I could give you more. I fucking wishI could give you the reasons why. I can only tell you that after that day, you blamed me. You blamed me right up until the moment that Marcus made you see the truth."

"Marcus,"he said his name while looking out the window, as if knowing that he was still out there, just waiting to pick up the pieces of his friend. More pieces I knew I still had left to break.

"You didn"t just not believe that I was from the future, Jared, in fact, you didn"t believe in most things I told you. It"s why I had to change my appearance, so that you wouldn"t recognize me at all," I told him, making him take a deep breath before repeating once more,

"Because I blamed you?"

"That, and more," I said in such a way, I was really hoping that it would be enough. But that hope was quickly dashed and driven away when I saw his face harden. Like he knew what was coming next but had to hear it anyway.

"What type of more, Ella?" I shook my head and turned away, now being the one to put distance between us.

"What more, Ella?"he repeated again, more sternly this time, before finally I snapped, giving in and telling him the horrible truth.

"I met an elderly lady, her name was Josephine. She was good to me, Jared. She got me a job, one I needed so I could save up money to travel. I needed to get to my uncle, and I knew that I couldn"t just walk there. But you found me, a week or so later. Before I could leave, you showed up at her cottage one night." The pain in my eyes must have been easy for him to see.

"What happened?" I shook my head, tears falling from my chin once more.

"It wasn"t good, Jared," I said, warning him and hoping once more that this would be enough… but it wasn't.

"What did I do?"He looked to force out the question through gritted teeth, adding to the most tense conversation we"ve ever had. A conversation that felt like it would never end.

"You were so angry. You blamed me for everything, you were still in mourning, heartbroken over your wife and…" I couldn't continue, tearing my watery gaze away from him.

"Don"t make excuses for me, Ella, just tell me what I did," he demanded, making me bite my lip, just to stop myself from crying. So, I started nodding, telling him that I would. That I would tell him everything.

"You came at me… you… you wanted to kill me… you tossed me across the room and…" I choked back a sob as more tears overflowed but it was the tears that I saw in his own eyes that fucking killed me. Not the past. Because now he looked more affected by this knowledge than anything else I had told him. His hands went through his hair, holding his head and looking more pained than I had ever seen him before. He looked like my words had gutted him.

"By the Gods no… fuck no… FUCK!" he roared in anger.

I jumped when he suddenly punched a fist through the wall, making the solid log crumble around the impact. I cried at that, covering my mouth to hold back the desperate sounds.

"What else did I do… just… just tell me how badly I fucked this all up!"

My heart could take no more, making me regret telling him the details, which was why I quickly tried to reassure him.

"You saw me on the floor and something stopped you, you saw the scar on my leg, and it was as if something broke through. You stopped trying to attack me then." However, my words seemed empty now, because he looked so far gone in his pain, he was barely listening to me. Which was when I could bear it no longer. I quickly rushed over to him and pulled his hands from his face, forcing him to look at me. But when I found the tears there still in his eyes, I felt as if my whole world was falling apart.

"Jared, you need to listen to me, you could have killed me that night but you didn"t. You blamed me for the death of your wife, and for what they did to you. You blamed me for all of it yet you couldn"t kill me and the moment you realized you hurt me, you stopped. Don"t you see? You couldn"t do it, in your mind you had every right to seek your revenge. You had every right to believe your wife, over me… a girl you had only just met. So, I don"t blame you, Jared, and you certainly shouldn"t blame yourself," I told him, and finally something made it through, as he crushed himself to me, gripping me close and pulling me in, now holding me so tight before whispering into my hair,

"I am so sorry… I"m so fucking sorry… so sorry I didn't believe you, Ella… I should have believed you."

I started to shake my head, but he stopped this by holding it cupped to his chest. So, I told him,

"You didn't know… you didn"t know who I was to you, Jared."

"It"s no excuse," he stated firmly.

"It"s not an excuse, it"s a horrible truth, especially when those around us, the ones we love and care for, lie to us, those are the ones to blame for the actions they cause in us." I felt him shaking his head before he pulled back to cup my face and looked down at me. Then he placed his forehead to mine and asked,

"How can you even forgive me?"

"Because there is nothing to forgive," I told him in return before pulling him down for a kiss, one that I poured my entire heart and soul into. One he returned with just as much love. And well, I was just happy that he was kissing me back, and that same blame that I had received that day hadn"t become an awful repeat of history. That he no longer blamed me for any of this.

Because, in the end, now we both knew that there was only one person to blame for this…

His treacherous wife.