The moment was gone.
Damn it.
“I meant what I said earlier,” I continued carefully. “You’re my mate. I didn’t choose this. You didn’t either. But it’s not a lie.”
She slowly picked up the tablet again, hesitating before typing. When she turned the screen toward me, it read.
“I don’t want to be your mate.”
A heavy breath escaped me.
“I know,” I admitted. “And I won’t force anything on you.
Ever. But I also won’t lie to you, Narine. You can look at me like I’m some psycho tyrant, but you’re not just anyone to me. You’re the only one that’s ever silenced the monster inside me.”
She turned her head, hiding behind the curtain of short platinum strands falling against her jaw.
“I’ll leave you to rest. I have some matters I need to see to.” I explained.
NARINE’S POV
The door clicked shut behind him with a soft thud, and only then did I let myself breathe.
I reached for another banana. The moment my teeth sank into it, that same sweet, vibrant burst of flavor lit up my tongue again. I couldn’t remember bananas ever tasting like this, ripe, tender, and oddly comforting. Maybe it was just the contrast, the jarring shift from starvation and IV drips to real food.
But food was fleeting. Comfort, more so. And as the silence filled the room once again, the overwhelming reality returned.
I couldn’t get comfortable here.
I didn’t belong in this gilded cage. I was nothing but a leech. That was what Ama would always hiss into my ear when I fell short of her standards, or when I flinched from her cane.
“Useless mouth. Living off my pity.”
Her voice still rings in my head, even now.
I stared out the window, the tall panes of glass were so clean it distorts the garden beyond them like a dream. The palace was a fortress, the walls were so high they disappeared into clouds.
I didn’t even remember what the world outside felt like anymore.
But I also couldn’t stay here forever living off his delusions of me being his mate, or could I? I shouldn’t be thinking this. Because no matter how many soft glances he gave me, or how many bananas he fed me like I’m some treasured pet…kindness never lasted.
That was what life had taught me. Over and over again.
I pushed myself off the bed and dumped the banana peel into the tray. The sweet aftertaste was suddenly sickening on my tongue. I steadied the IV stand behind me and made my way toward the balcony.
I slid the door open, and a gust of wind kissed my face, pulling strands of my hair into the air.
I stepped outside.
The view from here was endless. The palace sat like a crowned beast, high above the rest of the world, surrounded by miles of untamed wilderness and sharp stone cliffs that tore the land into jagged ribbons.
The wind caught the edge of my shirt, lifting it slightly. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.
My chest rose, then fell in a jagged sigh. I tilted my head up and stared at the sky, so wide, indifferent, and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Why?” I thought bitterly.
Why had fate made my life so difficult? What twisted game was this? For what purpose was the universe sending wave after wave of misfortune my way? What was the point of my existence in this wretched, cursed world? What was even keeping going?
I had no one to run too and nothing to my name. I’ve just been passed down from different people since I was born. People who at the end of the day broke me. And now here I was handed to the next, only this time this one was disguising as a mate. I was so tired. So desperately tired From existing in a world that never made room for me.
So what was stopping me from ending it all right now, from jumping off this balcony and being done with the pain once and for all?
The IV tube tugged slightly as I moved, but I ripped it from my skin with a sharp gasp, and blood trickled from the inlet onto the marble floor.
Death called to me like a lullaby now.
I stepped closer to the ledge. My breath caught in my throat as I placed one foot on the rail, then the other.
I was up now.
Dangling on the very edge between life and oblivion.
I looked down.
The height was staggering. The ground below blurred into nothingness, swallowed by shadows. Just one step, Narine. One more. And it all goes quiet.
I clenched my fists at my sides. My body trembled, not from the cold, but from the war raging inside me.
I wanted to move. But I couldn’t. My leg wouldn’t move.
I laughed. It scraped through my throat like shattered glass. Hot tears spilled freely down my cheeks, blurring the horizon, distorting everything. I hated this. I hated how weak I was.
” How utterly pathetic!! You can’t even do this,” a cruel voice whispered from somewhere inside me. “You can’t even end your own suffering.”
I hated that it was right.
I hated me.
I hated this body. This fate. This cruel illusion of a second chance.
And somewhere, deep down… I hated him. For being kind when he had no reason to be.
I wanted to curse the world. Scream at the sky. Rip the stars down from their indifferent heights and throw them back at the gods who cursed me with this existence. But I couldn’t even bring myself to do that.
There was no point.
At the end of the day I was nothing but a pathetic, useless, good-for-nothing, abomination of an existence.
A miserable, broken creature. Was there really no purpose to my life other than simply existing?
I was tired of being the universe’s punching bag. Fuck the universe, fuck fate too. If I had no purpose, then I would give myself one. I would take charge of my life. No more wallowing. I would get stronger. I would stop bitching about how life treated me and finally, finally, learn to keep up with this brutal, shifting world.
And then… I would hunt down Joe-him and every last filthy minion he used to break me.
I would track them down like the rabid dogs they were and make them pay for every scar, lash, and scream they tore from my throat.
Maybe then… maybe when their screams echo louder than mine ever did, maybe when justice is carved into their skin, maybe then I’ll be able to move forward with life. That alone was a purpose.
As for Sargis? I didn’t know what the hell he wanted from me.
I sure as hell don’t believe the mate bullshit he was spewing. The fates didn’t choose someone like me for someone like him. That kind of story doesn’t happen to abominations.
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