I know he regrets doing that. He didn’t realize that by dropping it in there, it would become permanently sealed.
Not the best memory I have with Kyan – digging up his father’s grave only to find his Talisman reinforced the coffin and sealed it permanently. My entire body trembles with rage, and Kyan raises an eyebrow at me.
“So you don’t want her even though your father died for her?” I ask him, trying to understand his reasoning. How could he not want her?
“I never said I didn’t want her,” Kyan mumbles.
“Ah yeah, you did, bro. But where the fuck does that leave me? I will not watch you run off into the sunset with her, or lock her in your damn basement like some pet, just because you won’t do the right thing and let her go!” I snap. I have had enough of this.
For all these years, he knew. He always did. Yet, he listened to my rants, to my pain and desperation for the very girl who has always been his. How is it fair to me?
“You have a mate out there, Jonah, so drop it. She is my mate, not yours. I will do as I please with her.”
His words do nothing but anger me even more. “Like fuck you will. You think I will sit by and watch you destroy her?”
“She isn’t yours!” Kyan bellows before squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Fucking coward. She is your mate. If you don’t want her, reject her and let me claim her Kyan, at least I will look after her!” I snap at him.
“Jonah, enough. I am not arguing over my mate with you.”
I shake my head, looking at the creepy grimoires he keeps in his room, trying to figure out a solution. I can’t let Mara go. It is about more than wanting her. I need her.
“So what now?” I whisper.
“Nothing, go back home and drop Marabella back to her mothers tomorrow,” he replies, as dryly as ever.
“That’s it. What happens if she goes into heat, Kyan? Do you want to send her home by herself? She either belongs here with you or you reject her. Pick, you can’t have it both ways.” I refuse to back down. He isn’t holding only Marabella hostage, he is holding me too.
He holds the happiness and future of two people. Two people he claims to love and hold dear to his heart. Yet, since he allows his egoism to blind him, Kyan will rather force us both into misery than watch us find happiness within each other.
“I reject her, Kaif will kill me. If I claim her, she dies Jonah. Is that the answer you wanted?”
“You make no sense.” I shake my head.
“No, I already lost my father. I can’t lose her too. You think I don’t want her? I fucking love her. I always have, you know this, but this is the only way. The only fucking way, Jonah. She isn’t strong enough to survive Kaif. He fucking kills her, dad saw it! She dies if I claim her, I die if I reject her.” At this point, he is screaming at the top of his lungs.
And the worst part is that as much as I want to feel anger for what he is doing. I can’t. At least for now. At least for as long as I hear the pain and desperation in my best friend’s voice.
“So it isn’t because your father died for her?” I ask him.
“No… yes… I don’t fucking know. I hate her … but I don’t,” he sighs, and I move into his room, careful not to touch anything just in case.
You never know with all this witchy, mumbo jumbo shit in the room. It is probably possessed like the rest of this creepy house. I shudder, thinking of the finger in the jar. Why would you keep that?
“My father died for her, and for years she was fine. Then, once she started school she stopped fucking living. He died for no reason. I can’t even have her. And if I do somehow manage it, I don’t think I can forgive her,” he whispers.
Well, fuck the pain and desperation bullshit, someone needs to smack some reason in this motherfucker. “Forgive her for what? She was fucking baby!”
“For throwing it away, she threw my father’s sacrifice in his fucking face. He sacrificed himself for her, even though he knew I couldn’t keep her.” He shakes his head in disbelief.
I facepalm myself. “This is ridiculous. You are being a twat. She can handle whatever this is. She is your mate. That’s why she is bonded to you.”
“Which part of I kill her you didn’t understand?”
“You won’t kill her!” I argue, growing annoyed.
“Dad saw it, I have seen it, Jonah, my visions aren’t wrong,” he shakes his head again. Wow, up to this day, how did I fail to notice how delusional my best friend is?
“No, but they are sometimes out of sequence, misinterpreted, they don’t give you all the answers so you can’t be sure,” I try to reason.
“I watched her die in my fucking arms, in this fucking house. I broke her neck. That is what it looked like to me. I strangled her or grabbed her too hard, but I definitely killed her. Dad saw the same thing, but he couldn’t tell what started it. Mine was the same, just bits and pieces, and then you hate me for killing her.” I shake my head.
It doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t let him kill her. If Kaif got free, I would feel it.
“And that is the only reason? Because you think you will kill her?” I still try to get to the bottom of this.
“That is enough. Just get back to Ella,” he says.
I rarely hear him say it, but sometimes it slips out of him. His old childhood nickname for her. Kyan also seems to realize what he has said. “Just leave, Jonah!” Kyan snaps, walking off into the bathroom and closing the door.