The Betrayal

Chapter Forty-Two

I inhaled, needing and desperately wanting Luca's scent to comfort me. But his scent was no longer with him. And that's when it set in. He was really gone. This was real.

After a few moments, I forced myself out of the bed. I gazed at him one last time and gave him a shaky smile - a smile that failed to hide my aching heart.

I walked out of the room and quietly shut the door behind me. My gaze remained on the ground as I walked back to my office. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to see anyone. I didn't want to think about anyone.

Once I locked my journal in my desk, I went to the front yard and stared up at the stars.

There were so many of them. Too many to count. And, I wondered if Luca was one of them, staring down at me. Was he up there?

A body materialized in front of me - the body of a man, of a divine. He frowned. "You're sad again, My Radiance," Aeron said. He walked over to me, holding out his hand. I placed my hand in his, hoping to take comfort in it, needing to take comfort in it.

And that's what I did.

The stars on his body were the same stars in the sky and they both did one thing - comforted me.

I followed him to a grassy area in the front yard where the sky wasn't shaded by the trees. He sat in the grass, wrapping his hands around my waist and tugging me down with him. I rested my back on the ground, gazing up at the millions of the stars in the sky.

He interlocked his fingers behind his head, his torso flexing as he did so. He didn't say a word, and I could tell he was waiting for me to say something first.

"Luca died," I whispered.

He grimaced, turning his head to face me. After posting his forearm on the ground, he leaned up onto it. His fingers brushed against my cheek. "I know," he said softly. "I saw. I'm sorry..."

My lips quivered. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to cry in front of him. "There's so much death and heart break," I admitted. "Why did I go through with the removal? I should've just kept the pain to myself."

"Being a divine comes with many responsibilities. You must make sacrifices that nobody else could ever make. You have to think about your whole species instead of just one person who you care for." He frowned. "In the beginning, your mother was not so good at this, which I think is the reason why so many Challengers revolted against her."

I opened my eyes, staring up at the blurry stars.

"You're not your mother. You're stronger than her. You've made decisions based off of your species instead of yourself. If you intervened when Damon and Luca were in war, the species would believe you take sides, they would believe that you would choose the love of a mate over the love of all wolves. Now don't get me wrong, mates are important, but everyone worships you... everyone... not just your mate. Not intervening showed them that you make the hard decisions when it counts. As for Luca, if you kept the mark, it would've weakened you. You chose to be strong for your wolves. You chose to beat the Challengers over the love of a friend for your wolves."

He sighed, brushing his thumb against my cheek and leaning a bit closer to me.

He was right.

I did this for them. For mywolves.

They were my responsibility.

And I've been selfishly ignoring it for a long time.

I needed to do better. I needed to be better.

"You're doing the best you can. People are going to get hurt either way; it's best to make the better choice. Not everyone will be happy about it; not everyone will agree with you. You're learning. Your mother told you that you needed to know and understand pain in order to be a goddess, didn't she?"