Chapter 70 - Take me out of here

EMMA

The moment Gaia walks up to us, all warning signals blast in high alarm. She is dressed to perfection as always. Her demure appearance made me almost scoff, but that was before I knew that she was going to win this battle with a single look.

Everything goes so fast and still, I watch it happen in slow motion. It only takes a second to split my world apart and drop me into an endless abyss. One moment Hadrian has his hand securely around me and I feel the safety under his touch. The next his touch is gone and lands on the body of another woman.

I watch it happen as if time slows down. It crawls by tick for tick. I watch how his hands pull her against him. Those hands have been all over my body so many times. Those hands that know all my secrets. I watch how one hand tangles in her chocolate brown locks and how he pulls her face aside to expose her bare neck.

One word crushes my very soul. It obliterates me and I can feel several things rip in my chest.

“Mate.” He growls and his voice is doubled with his wolf.

My body trembles as it catches up to what is happening, but I still utter his name. “Hadrian.”

His eyes are black as they turn my way. His canines are bared and sharp and ready to mark. My mind catches up with what my body already knows.

He’s gone. He found his fated mate.

Everything that we had, doesn’t exist anymore. It never did in the light of fate. It was never meant to last.

I fell in love with a werewolf and the universe laughed in my face.

The ground crumbles under my feet and I do the only thing that I can think of to prevent myself from falling. The thing that my rational mind has been telling me to do for months.

I run away.

I run through the entrance of the ballroom. Eyes follow me and the murmur of gossip buzzes around me. I run past Miles and Callum. There’s shock and I can see the pity in their eyes as I pass them. They’ve never seemed more like brothers than now. They know. They’ve seen it happen, everybody did.

I lift my dress and run through the empty halls. I run past the corridor and memories of happier times roll through my mind. My knees are weak and I stumble to the marble floor. I catch myself on my hand and pain shoots through my hands and knees.

Heavy steps bounce off the walls as they follow behind me. For a second I think it’s Hadrian, but I quickly notice that it’s Miles instead. I get up from the floor and ignore the scrapes on my knees.

Cecile is there waiting for me at the end of the hall. Her face is ridden with shock. Her pixie cut is disheveled, there are food stains on her jacket and her hands are still dripping with water. “Shit, it’s true.”

The sight of the chef makes me halt. I shake and my knees buckle again, but I keep myself standing. “Take me out of here,” I whisper and my voice is thin and barely holding together.

———————

I don’t turn around to watch when the palace disappears behind me. The silence in the car is filled with the roar of the engine. Miles looks at me through the rearview mirror and there is worry in his eyes. I turn to look out of the window and watch the city blur by. First the lavish villas in the inner circle and then the bustle of the streets of the second ring.

“It just doesn’t make sense.” Cecile calls out from the front seat.

“Cecile,” I beg and close my eyes. I cannot forget, and still the reminder hurts.

She ignores me. “How can Gaia be his fated mate all of a sudden? She never was before.” She clamors through the small space.

“The Moon Goddess probably had a play in this,” Miles says.

Cecile crosses her arms. “Well fuck her. I never liked her anyway.”

Miles drives over the canals towards the third ring and he brings us to the familiar square. The moon hangs high in the sky and it’s unusually quiet. I get out of the car when Miles opens the door. The night air leaves goosebumps on my skin. There is a light drizzle falling from the sky. It coats the cobblestones in a subtle shine.

Cecile guides me in the opposite direction of the restaurant and I follow her without a train of thought. I’m numb.

She opens the door of a two-story home. The kitchen is filled with fruit, vegetables and herbs, but the rest of the house has little life. There aren’t any decoration and I guess that is to be expected.

“I think she’s in shock.” I hear Miles say through the mud in my brain. His voice is far away and his words are hard to understand.

“She needs to eat.”

Cecile guides me up the stairs and into a bedroom. The room is small, with nothing more than a twin bed and a dresser. There is a square window painted in mustard yellow. I walk up to the window and notice it has a view of the Golden Dawn. Nobody is sitting outside, but the lights indicate that there are people inside.

Cecile enters the bedroom again and I wonder when she even left. She places a plate with purple grapes, walnuts and crackers on the dresser.

“Oriane was the one who taught me to cook.” She says as she walks up to me.

“Hadrian’s mom?”

“Yeah, she owned the restaurant before she became Luna. She never changed after the King chose her as his mate. She still came here every week.”

I look back at the small restaurant and think of the kind-looking woman in the picture. “She sounds nice.”

“She was. She gave me the job at the palace when nobody else would.”

Thinking of the woman I’ve never met makes me think of Hadrian. It sends a new rush of torment to my chest. I cross my arms to hold myself together.

“Why do you hate the Moon goddess?” I ask to distract myself from the stabbing pain.

“Apart from the obvious?” Cecile scoffs.

I frown and turn to her. “What obvious?”

“I will never find my mate Emma. I can’t recognize them.” She waves a hand over her blind eyes.

“Sorry.”

“No, screw them. We don’t need them.”

He’s probably marked and mated Gaia already. She wouldn’t let him wait. Would he be glad that he found a worthy partner? My lips tremble and tears blur my vision.

“You should try to get some sleep.”

I nod at her and Cecile leaves me alone in the room. I walk over to the dresser and watch myself in the reflection of the mirror. My hands tremble when they run over the wooden surface.

I trail my shaking hand to the neckline of my dress. A lump forms in my throat and I take the next action with dread. I don’t dare to look beneath the fabric, but I have to know.

I lower the sleeve and come face to face with the harsh truth.

My hand trails over the smooth skin of my shoulder. The mark is gone and I break. My knees give up and hit the floor hard. The physical pain I feel is nothing compared to the wreckage happening in my chest. It tears and rips everything to shreds.

All of it.

Everything that has happened tramples down on me. All the losses over the years. All the grief and sorrow that I had to endure. The only thing I can do now is scream. I cannot see through the stream of tears. I can only feel the pain, the suffering, and all the misery.

I can’t take it. I’m not made to survive this.