Love Bites

Chapter 56: Faint of Heart

A deafening silence fell on the room when Damon left. Zoey didn't know what to say, and it wasn't like anything she could say would ease the situation. She just stood there wishing that it all hadn't happened. If she had stuck to the clear line she had drawn between them in the first place, then maybe things wouldn't have turned out so complicated. Perhaps she wouldn't feel her heart going in two ways right now.

"Do you love him?"

The question pierced like a knife through the silence, and it seemed like such a loaded question, but she was never one to lie, "I don't know. Maybe."

Cole chuckles at her response, finding it utterly ridiculous right now, "What do you mean you don't know Zoey? You either do, or you don't." She shakes his head and runs his hands up and down his face in frustration.

Zoey frowns, "It's not that simple, Cole... he helped me a lot when you were gone. Maybe I'm just grateful, and I might be confusing that with liking him. I don't know. You were all I could think about most of the time." She rubs the side of her arm, hoping her honesty will ease his anger toward her.

She had never seen Cole mad. It was like seeing a completely different person, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. He was entitled to be angry, but somehow it felt like it was more than that, like he had changed into someone she didn't know.

"Well, you have a decision to make. It's either him or me. If it's me, we can't ever be around him again. You understand, right? I'm still a werewolf, Zoey. We're possessive, and it's taking everything in me right now not to leave this room and slaughter him. You can't see him ever again, or someone will end up dead." He explains everything without sugarcoating it. He was still too pissed to bother, "And if it's him, then I don't ever want to see neither of you ever again."

Zoey flinches, and her heart sinks. She understood why it had to be that way, but she couldn't help but think it was a lose-lose situation all the way around. It didn't matter who she chose. She would still lose someone important in her life, and she wasn't the only one losing someone. Damon and Cole would be losing one another. Friends divided because of her. She didn't know which felt worse, the heartbreak or the guilt.

Zoey bites her lip and settles her green eyes on Cole. His disappointed golden eyes stared back at her. Even if she chose him, things between them wouldn't return to how they were. There was no going back once something breaks, but it could be mended, and something stronger could come from it. Cole was tortured and lost time because of her. It was the least she could do, wasn't it? But what about the man who had guided a broken woman back to normality and gave her unconditional support no matter what she did? And went above and beyond to put her needs above his?

"So? Who's it going to be?"

**************

Damon rests his head between his hands on his knees, impatiently tapping his foot in the hospital hallway. Zoey had been distant and barely spoke to him since she discovered Cole was still alive, so he already had an idea of her answer, but he still needed to know. He needed a straight answer, or there was no way him nor his wolf would be able to let her go. It felt like he was waiting for Zoey to come and rip the heart right out of his chest.

He didn't think he had been so impatient and dreadful in his life. Zoey's feelings of guilt, regret, depression, and uncertainty flowed through him, nearly suffocating him. She was overwhelmed with emotions, and so was he.

Not even his wolf could sit still within him. He could feel just how restless he was, he could feel her conflict, too, and he didn't like it. He wanted his mate always to choose them, but unfortunately, that wasn't in their cards, and it had him just as on edge. His wolf could not lose his mate.