Her words cut deeper than he would have guessed. The years have not softened the blow of his own failures and there is no quicker way for him to face it than standing here, her looking back at him. He wants to look away. Desperately wants to cast his gaze to something else, but he forces himself to stand there and watch her. Forces himself to stare into the sun that is the destruction of his own making.
He doesn’t answer her question though—not right away. He just lets it simmer between them because he doesn’t know how to put words to the way that he feels. He’s not even sure that he has the right to it. Why should he be thinking of how this makes him feel? Why should her pain cause him to focus on his own?
Because he is utterly selfish, he knows. Weak.
All of the things he had known in his first life cast into stark relief.
The silence remains, stretched between them, and he finishes closing the distance between them. He curls around and flares his large eagle wings up and out, settling them over her back. “There is nothing missing with you, Anonya,” he says, his voice strained. “You have always been far too good for me.” He can’t help himself—cannot stop the way that he leans over to press his muzzle against her cool cheek.
“Perhaps the thing missing has always been in me,” he confesses, hating himself for making this about himself again. “Agetta felt it too.” It’s the first time he’s said it aloud to anyone but himself. The first time that he’s admitted he came back to life for a love who was not his anymore—not wholly.
He shakes his head, disgusted with himself but hoping it could at least provide her some relief.
Let her see how much better she was off without him.
Everyone always was.
PLUME
but my heart, it don’t beat, it don’t beat the way it used to