Zodiac Aligned

20

Kaden raised an eyebrow. "I hope it's not a belated Christmas present."

"Not exactly." I reached into my pocket and pulled out the moonstone necklace Larkin had given me earlier today when we'd had a moment alone. It was similar to the one Jordan wore, but not quite as large or as powerful. "Larkin got this from my mother when she visited at Christmas. I think she originally planned to give it to Ethan, but this afternoon she suggested I pass it along to you."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "If it's for Ethan, I don't want to take it."

"We decided you need it more. It'll stop the Sun Witches from getting into your head again. Unless you’d rather I take it back...”

"No." Kaden took the necklace and put it on. He let out a deep breath, as if something heavy had been lifted from his shoulders. "Thank you. Please give Larkin my thanks too when you see her."

"I will." The tension in my body relaxed too, knowing that he was protected. “Maybe I can take you to see my mother sometime. She can teach you to shield your mind.”

Kaden gave me a wry smile, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. “I’m surprised you'd want to introduce me to your mother after what happened between us."

My heart ached at the reminder of our past, but I knew this was why I had come to see him. “I know now that it was the Sun Witches who did all that, not you."

He let out a heavy sigh and sat on the sofa, looking defeated. “That's not entirely true. It wasn’t all the magic. Some of it was me.”

I perched on the other end of it, watching him gather his thoughts and wishing I knew how to make things better. My chest hurt with everything I wanted to say, but I had to keep control of my emotions, or I might blow up again...or fall apart completely.

"Ayla, what I'm going to say... It's hard for me, but I need you to know," Kaden said, his voice heavy with emotion. “When I died, it broke me. I couldn’t protect you and I felt powerless.”

“That wasn’t your fault."

"That didn't matter. The feeling only got worse when the members of my pack betrayed me. Then they came back to me dead, and the other alphas refused to do anything about it. And then you sided with Jordan over me..."

I let out a short noise of protest. "That wasn't fair. You never should have made me try to choose."

“I know,” Kaden said, sounding frustrated. “Trust me, I know. I knew it then too. But I couldn't stop.”

“I wasn’t really choosing Jordan over you anyway. I was choosing to not let you kill Jordan. There's a difference.” I’d told him as much when we’d been fighting, but he’d been so blinded by his rage that he hadn’t been willing to listen to me. “Not just because he’s my brother, but because I saw the rage and jealousy in your eyes, and it scared me. If you'd killed him, you would have gone to a very dark place, one you wouldn’t have been able to come back from...and I couldn't bear the thought of losing you both.”

"I was already in that dark place. The Sun Witches might have pulled the strings, but I’m not sure I would have done anything differently without their poison in my mind."

I shook my head, unwilling to believe what he was saying. “No, I should have known it wasn’t you. You weren’t acting like yourself. Not the Kaden I knew, at least. It was like you became a different person.”

"Trust me, it would be easier to blame it all on the Sun Witches. Don't you think I want to do that, knowing that might help you forgive me?" He let out a sharp, pained laugh. "It's tempting, but I'm done lying to myself, or to you. The Sun Witches were able to control me so easily because I had all of that darkness inside me already. The anger and jealousy, those were mine. All they did was give me a nudge."

"It sounded like a lot more than a nudge," I muttered, though I appreciated that he was finally being honest with us both. But as part of being honest, he had to admit to himself that the Sun Witches had been controlling him too.

"Maybe it was. I don't know. It's hard to tell how much was me, and how much was them. My memories of that time are...jumbled. But I know it wasn't all them, and I'm sorry for everything I did." When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “I lost my way. I lost myself. And worst of all, I lost you.”

I reached for his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin against mine. “You haven’t lost me. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Something in my words changed his demeanor, like they gave him hope when previously he had none. "Then I swear I won't ever let you go again. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you deserve. I love you more than anything, Ayla.”

My heart swelled with love and sadness at the same time as tears filled my eyes. I quickly blinked them back, not wanting to show how much this was hurting me. "I love you too, Kaden. I'm sorry for my part in all of this, and for not seeing the truth earlier. And I forgive you..."

"But..." Kaden said, as if he knew what was coming next.

“But we both need time to recover from all of this. We're still so freshly hurt from everything that happened over the last few weeks and all the new things we learned, and I think you need to work through some things on your own too. We both do."