He’d abandoned me. He’d lied. For ten straight years. “We thought you were dead,” I said, body shaking. “We buried you.” I’d gone with his mother every Sunday to place lilies on his grave.
My head felt like it was going to float away. I stood stock-still, trying to get a grip. “Now you’re back. Not because you’re sorry or because you miss me, but because you trust me.” It hurt more than I would ever admit. And at that moment, a secret awful part of me wished he’d stayed dead.
His voice grew husky. “The army made a mistake.” He stared at me hard, as if he could make me understand by force of will alone.
My stomach hollowed. “You did, too.” He’d had ten years to correct the error, and he didn’t.
He reached for me. “Listen, I know—”
I held out a hand to block him. “Why’d you do it? What happened?” How had this gotten so messed up? “No more lies,” or wishing things were different. He’d had his chance, and he blew it.
He scraped a hand through his hair, making it spike up even worse. He was shaking. “Our unit was too close to the front,” he said. “We had to retreat. But I’d just done an arterial reconstruction. There was no way we could move that patient for at least twenty-four hours.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So you stayed.” I’d heard this part before.
“Yes.” He was tense, his muscles drawn painfully tight. “It was the only thing to do.”
I knew that. “I never blamed you.” His father hadn’t understood. His mother had been so angry. But I knew he didn’t have a choice. I would have done the same thing.
A muscle twitched over his cheekbone. “The camp was overrun, and the New God Army was ordered to take no prisoners.”
My stomach dropped. It was as good as an order of execution. “My side did that?” The shock of it loosened me. I stepped backward, hand on my hip, trying to make sense of it. We didn’t order killings. We were the enlightened ones.
Marc’s voice tightened. “My patient was given to the Shrouds.”
“No,” I said, the word tumbling out of me.
The enemy—their side—they were the ones who used the cursed creatures who fed on life like parasites. Shrouds moved like silvery shadows, sucking the life and souls from humans and endlessly torturing immortals to the brink of death.
Marc had confessed it without malice. He hadn’t asked for pity. He was telling me the plain truth. He’d accepted it. I couldn’t even fathom it.
His eyes held mine. “One of their special ops officers was supposed to take me out back and slit my throat. Only he pulled his punch. Left it to the fates. Said if I was supposed to live, I would.” The pain of it crossed his face. “I lived. I made it back to our lines.” He cast me a guilty look. “By then I’d been reported dead for a month. They’d shipped my personal effects back home. The funeral was over.”
I couldn’t imagine going through something so horrific, so wrong. Still… “You didn’t feel the need to tell us you were alive?”
Part of me died when I lost him. He’d been my entire world. I didn’t have anything else besides Marc and my studies at Tulane. He’d stayed and done his fellowship there so that we could be together. He was the one person who was never going to leave me.
I didn’t know what was worse: That he’d let me grieve. That he’d torn a hole in his own family when they lost him. Or that he couldn’t seem to comprehend just how much he’d meant to us.
He swallowed hard. “I knew I was never coming home. Sure, I could have given you false hope. I could have written you letters. But it was killing Mom.” He cast me a miserable look, as if daring me to deny it. “She wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t eating. She was afraid to live, because what if she so much as cracked a smile while I was dying somewhere? You know it’s true,” he said, noting my surprise. “She told me.”
My throat tightened. Of course it was true. “She loved you.” How could he expect his own mother to let go? How could any of us ask that?
As far as I was concerned, the family Marc had left behind was a gift. They truly loved one another. And me. Yes, we’d suffered together because of it, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
He grimaced. “You weren’t moving on,” he said, as if it cost him to utter each word.
I shrugged, helpless. “I couldn’t.”
The air around us thickened. “I know,” he said simply. “I never planned to let any of you go.” He cleared his throat.
He reached out for me and then changed his mind. I felt it like a slap. “It was better to let you have closure,” he said.
Of all the… “Do you honestly believe that?” I demanded. Did he have any clue how much it hurt to know that the man I loved was dead?
I closed the distance between us, wanting to at least hug him, hating myself that I refused to do it. I wanted to punch Marc and Galen and every man in the history of time who’d tried to be noble. “It doesn’t work that way. You can’t manipulate people like that. You have to live your life as it comes.” No apologies. No sugarcoating it.
We stood inches apart, unmoving. He didn’t back down. Neither did I.
He was so mad, spots of color streaked his cheeks and forehead. “I didn’t want you living your life for a day that would never come,” he ground out. “I didn’t want to hold you back. I was never going to make it home. You still had a life. I wanted you to move on, get married, have babies.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“I do love you!” he snapped.
I stepped back. “Well, then you’ve got a screwed-up way of showing it.”
He shook his head slowly. “Maybe I do.” He dropped his chin for a moment. When he faced me again, the pain of it was staggering. “I’d have done anything—even let someone else have you—if it meant you’d be happy again.”
What? Did I have move on while I go die nobly printed on my forehead?
I twisted my lips into a mock smile. “That was your mistake.” I’d never cared about anyone else. Not until Galen.
And look how that had turned out.
“Petra.” His take-charge bravado slipped, and I saw the Marc I remembered, the man who felt too much. The pain in his eyes seared me to the core. “I didn’t want you to suffer.”
Too late.
I let out a breath. This was so messed up. I leaned my back against the rough wooden tent pole. “It would have been nice to know you were down here when I got conscripted.” I could have used the support.
He dug a hand through his hair. “We’re on opposite sides.”
“Right.” He was the enemy.
A loud crash sounded outside. Quickly, Marc and I ducked back into the dusty shadows behind the last wooden shower stall. He drew me close, and for a moment I held my breath for an entirely different reason. I remembered the warm steady feel of him, the way his fingers gripped when he held me.
The heat of him seeped through my clothes as his body pressed against me. We used to wake up that way, his lips brushing my cheek.
I closed my eyes as his breath warmed my ear. His chest rose and fell against me. I felt myself soften. It was my body’s natural response to being held, nothing else. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to remember. I tried to draw away, but he held me close. He even smelled the same. Under the sweat and dirt, I detected the warm, spicy scent of him that used to make me feel safe and loved.