Abyss - Book Five of the Alpha Series - MxM

Chapter 45

I'm marrying a woman.

A princess combining two kingdoms.

To fight a war that seems fruitless, wouldn't we just continue to attempt to kill each other?

 Would it ever end as long as my people continued to breathe?

 It felt as though the actual issue was with our blood, our magic. Verando had said in those very first days that Man would never stand to allow us to be more powerful than them, to allow a threat to loom in the distance. 

With each battle, I come closer to the conclusion that this was no half-hearted prediction. My warlord had foretold our future, and it cut me to the quick how right he was. There had been enough attempts on my life to convince me of this; war would not stop here. 

We would fight, but at what cost? 

I found myself hoping that enough of us would die, so that maybe the armies wouldn't feel the need to continue snuffing us out, or perhaps they would grow bored with our existence as a plaything should loss toll high enough. 

Such a thought disgusted me, leading me to drink. 

I'm watching the man I love slowly die. 

A caged animal, crammed into a train and brought to the stone crypt of France. While I'm certain city life is not new to him, the captivity is driving him mad, which brings out a side of him that I prayed I'd never see. 

The darkness surfaces so much more easily when he's locked in these ivory towers, the nightmares plague him so ruthlessly that he can hardly manage to rest, and I find him increasingly dark with each passing day. 

It frankly terrifies me. I'm afraid I'll lose him; I'm so scared I've already lost him. I want to ask him to tell me what has him tossing and turning, covered in sweat, and yet I'm not sure I want to know. He'd done his service in the elf kingdom, but he'd spent the majority of his youth back and forth between Spain and France. 

I'm sure he found being here tortureous, much as I would if I were forced to return to the school that had tormented me. 

Verando wanted to leave, for me to live an everyday life while he led the Mafia away. 

I suppose if I didn't need him so fiercely, if I didn't love him, it made sense in a way.

 We had changed each other, chipping and tearing away at the parts we didn't like until the raw reality was all that was left, his dark past confirmed, and my descent into the shadier side of justice was complete. The further he slipped, the more he worried for my soul, leaving me to believe he thought we would not live through this war. 

While I was quick to remind him that I wasn't a god-fearing man, his status as a vessel to the very god who began his race led him to prompt that his existence, as well as the unicorn's, was proof that an afterlife could be in my future. 

He did not want me to burn in hell with him.

In the coming days, I watched him slowly deteriorate, much like a wild creature does when it is caged. 

Every time he retreated, I tightened the leash of my hold on him, pinning him down with tasks, guards, and my command to assure myself he would be exactly where I left him.

Like a true monster, I watched him become as I envisioned, to make true my horrible premonition. Naptalion had congratulated me on my transformation, and such a title had never been more true. I'd become the very thing I feared, a master and a captor. 

The distant look as he gravitates towards every window and every exit haunted me. Verando lagged, doing anything to hold off on following me to another meeting, joining me at another party, or partaking in another tasting.