The pounding ache in the back of my head grew more acute and I blinked several times, trying to clear my blurry vision.
“I mourned you,” he said, his voice breaking for the first time. “You were right here, in front of me, while I was chasing a ghost. I fucking mourned you for three years, Julianna. How do you think I can… move past this? You turned this marriage into a joke!”
Killian took a step back. He made it obvious that he couldn’t bear to be close to me, to be in my presence. His hands shook and he brought a fist to his mouth, his expression pinched in agony.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated when my words failed me.
“I told you… I told what I wanted,” he said darkly. “I whispered things to you that I never spoke with anyone else. My fears, my dreams, my secrets. You knew what my parents’ marriage did to me. And you knew what I wanted for myself. Something real. But you walked into this marriage with lies and secrets…and FUCK!”
He stabbed a finger into my direction. “You’re a deceitful woman and I can’t even fucking trust you anymore. No, goddamn it. I don’t even know if what I feel for you is love anymore.”
“No,” I choked. The room swayed and I reached out for him, limping. More tears slid down my cheeks, my throat closing around the large lump.
“I crashed and burned for you,” Killian hissed. “And you left me there, bleeding. So cruelly. So mercilessly.”
His lips curled, in an almost threatening manner. “There’s a fine line between love and hate. And I just realized that I love you as much as I fucking hate you, Julianna.”
I thought giving up on Killian as part of my atonement was difficult. It killed me, to marry him, to watch him hate me while I loved him in silent. To swallow my lies like a bitter pill. To enter this marriage with deceit. My repentance had shattered my heart and turned my love story into something ugly and tragic.
But I hadn’t been prepared for this moment.
When my truth came out and I truly lost him.
I stumbled back into the wall as my body grew cold, numb.
My brain stuttered.
My left leg spasmed again and the muscle in my bicep jerked.
His face hardened, cold and impassive. “I thought you were just a mere storm, but you are the goddamn hurricane – fascinating but deceptive. Tempting but destructive. You’re pure chaos. Once upon a time, I would have gladly let myself be destroyed by you and counted it as a blessing, but now I want absolutely nothing to do with your martyrdom.”
A sob spilled from my throat and I clutched my chest, feeling as if I had been torn open and ripped apart.
This was what I wanted, I thought guiltily.
For him to hate me.
For him to leave.
So he could move on. Start over again.
For the burden of my guilt would not be so heavy anymore.
And I could finally find peace.
I had waited for this day – for my atonement to come to an end.
But God, it hurt.
The agony was brutal, cutting through me so mercilessly. I reminisced of my love, but it was a seed that never sprouted. That was never meant to be.
Tragedy ran through our blood and our love story was just a mere wilted rose.
Our beginning was tainted with lies.
Our ending was stained by my deception.
But it was the wailing of our broken hearts that tormented me.
Killian’s gaze roamed my face, lingering over my scars before meeting my eyes.
One heartbreaking eye-lock.
Two agonized heartbeats.
Three shattering seconds.
“You were the thorn, Julianna. You always were,” Killian said, his voice deceptively soft.
When he spun around, a devastating sob spilled from my throat.
I watched him walk away.
Thud.
The numbness spread through my body.
Thud…Thud….
The room swayed. I gasped.
My tremors started from my toes, slithering up my legs, digging into my stomach and slicing through my chest. My tongue grew heavy in my mouth and my jaw locked.
Thud… Thud… Thud…
The moment my body seized; the world went pitch black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Killian
It was Julianna’s pained whisper, my name on her lips, that made me pause at the threshold of her bedroom. And then a crash – something slamming into the floor had me spinning around.
My stomach dropped when I saw Julianna’s body on the floor, seizing. The rage immediately dissipated, like ice water had been dumped over my head, and I jerked into motion without really thinking. My heart thudded in my chest as I rushed to her side, kneeling by her convulsing body.
“Grace–”
My immediate reaction was to gather her in my arms, but her body was almost rigid and her limps jerking rhythmically.
I didn’t know where to touch her… how to…
Oh fuck.
“Help! Shit!” I screamed. Where the fuck was Emily or Stephen? Goddamn it, who would even hear me? We were in the middle of the night and the castle was big enough that no one would hear me screaming from the East wing. Hell, someone could be murdered in here and no one would know until they’d stumble upon the rotting dead body.