1 8

g u i l t

BUSINESS AT THE diner seemed to slow to a crawl that day.

And because the day dragged on, it was incredibly easy to wallow in the aftermath of Spike's death or to worry about the rest of the pack. With half of Titan gone, it didn't even matter that Lorraine or Lance or Adrian weren't there to help. Dimitri and I managed the breakfast, lunch and dinner crowds all on our own; with occasional help from the teenagers who seemed to spend most of their day at the diner.

"It's a lot better than being locked up at home, scared and staring at the four walls," said Terence, when I thanked him for his help. He and Harvie had agreed to serve the food, while the others took up different jobs – like washing the dirty dishes or manning the cash register.

"Staring at the four walls has to be better than having to see all your stupid faces," muttered Dimitri, as he passed us, and simply rolled his eyes when Terence flipped him the middle finger. He leaned back on the counter, an aggravated look on his face as he glanced around at the other kids busy with their respective tasks, mostly because a couple of them were pretty much yelling at each other from across the kitchen.

"Don't listen to him," I told Terence and gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. "I know how much Spike meant to all of you."

"It's impossible not to miss him," Dion said, as he stuck a new order to the tabletop and leaned against the counter. There was a flicker of hurt in his eyes when he talked about Spike but he offered me a faint smile nonetheless, as a vague reassurance that he was coping well. "He was the only one apart from Alpha who actually cared enough about us to teach us how to fight."

I tried to blink away the mental image of Spike teaching the younger ones, the bright smile of pride on his face when he was satisfied with their accomplishments and the fact that Spike would've been such a fantastic father if only he'd been alive. No wonder Lorraine was so distraught. There were a million and one this-would-be's and this-could-be's that was never going to be fulfilled.

I took a deep breath and smiled brightly at the two boys. "Well, if you want, Dimitri over there can teach you – "

"Over my fucking dead body," growled Dimitri, who'd clearly overheard us and was glaring at me with annoyance while I tried my best not to smile. He narrowed his eyes at Terence and Dion, both of whom were staring at him with hopeful gazes. "If you kids want to learn how to fight – you get beaten up. The more beatings you get, the tougher your skin gets and eventually, you learn to block before you can take a fucking hit. Simple as that."

I shook my head at him because, truth be told, there was no arguing with that logic. It made a lot of sense. It reminded me of Jed, who'd been abused so many times and taken the brunt of it so many times until, one day, he eventually snapped and fought back. And killed. You didn't know how far you could go or what you could be, until you were pushed to the limit.

But I pushed that aside for the time being and headed back outside to the corner booth that Jed usually occupied. I'd spent the afternoon lull studying more about wolves – actual wolves this time, and not werewolves. Dimitri was right. Werewolves essentially behaved like their counterparts. They had the whole pack dynamics down to a tee, albeit with slight variations here and there. And the brown wolf I'd seen the night before had stood in a way that didn't seem at all passive or submissive in front of Jed.

I mulled over the situation for a while longer before noticing Dimitri serving a customer out of the corner of my eye. Before I knew it, I was calling him over. "Hey, Dimitri?"

He set the plate down and turned to me. His eyes immediately zeroed in on the books I was studying and he quickly strode over, gaze sharp and with none of that usual abrasiveness but with plenty of caution in his tone when he finally spoke. "What do you want?"

"Take a seat." I gestured him towards the bench opposite me. He reluctantly settled down, his long legs folding out of the booth as he braced an arm on the tabletop. "The outlier," I started quietly, and Dimitri quickly cast a swift glance around, a guarded look slipping on his face when he realised what I was getting at. "No loyalties? Or misplaced?"

Dimitri's gaze sharpened as he quickly caught the underlying meaning of my vague words – is the rogue loyal to no one, or is it loyal to another Alpha altogether? The implications were vastly different – a rogue that was loyal to no one would be a lot like Dimitri. You could keep guessing. You could wait for it to make a move. You could give it a second chance, even.

But a rogue that answered to another Alpha was a very dangerous one. Especially if the Alpha that rogue answered to happened to be Malthus Trevino.

"I'm thinking misplaced," answered Dimitri, after several seconds of consideration. He kept his voice low as he continued, "There are not many like me – most find a need to integrate themselves into a pack. It's instinct. Lone wolves are rare and few – "

"What about Bianca?"

"Not a lone wolf," Dimitri returned flatly, and shook his head. "Remember how she was so fucking helpless when that happened? She wanted to be part of that pack so much, wanted to be Luna so much, that she blindly walked right into the trap. Lone wolves don't behave like that. They take what they need, take what they can, and run."

"Run?" My eyebrows rose as I regarded him warily. "You're going to run? Where're you going to go off to – "

"For fuck's sake, could you not make this about me?" He shot me an exasperated look. "What else do you want to know before I have to get back to the kitchen and hear those teenage girls make hyperventilating noises about how hot Trevino apparently is?"

Despite the overall sombre mood around, a bubble of laughter escaped me at that and I hastily clamped a hand over my lips. "They say that?" I asked in a conspiratorial whisper as I slowly removed my hand. Dimitri gave me a disgusted look and my smile widened. Really, I was just thrilled that those girls thought that way about Jed, because his was the kind of beauty you couldn't possibly miss. He was silent, but that made him all the more striking. "But it's true, he's absolutely gorgeous – "

Dimitri looked utterly repulsed. "I'm going to go into the kitchen right now and stick my head into the oven – "

"Oh, don't be jealous," I cooed deliberately, knowing that my words were only serving to irk him even more, but an irritated Dimitri was actually pretty entertaining. "People talk about you too! The other day, Lorraine's friends were all gushing about you and, I quote, they just wanted to drizzle caramel sauce and whipped cream all over you and eat you right off the platter like the forbidden fruit that you – "

"Stop – just stop fucking talking," Dimitri growled, looking so torn between embarrassment and disgust that I almost wanted to laugh.

I bit my lip to stop myself and leaned back. "Alright. Back to the previous topic," I said mildly, feeling the mood immediately spiral back down into something entirely serious once more. "Do you think the outlier is one of – them?" When Dimitri frowned in confusion, I threw another quick, cautionary glance around before lowering my voice. "The syndicate."

Dimitri shrugged. "Unless you're working together or a person goes bragging about it – " He shot me a pointed look and I knew at once that he was talking about Claudius Trevino, who'd made his crimes fairly known while he was still alive. " – otherwise who's in, who's out – that's all unknown. You know what to look for though, right?" He tapped his index finger twice when I began to shake my head, and my attention was immediately caught by the gleam of metal on his finger. Two green lines winding like snakes wrapped around the ring. "Got it on initiation. Everyone has one."

I caught his meaning swiftly and nodded. To look for the rogue, to prove to the rest of Titan that one of the monsters was among them the whole time, all we had to do was find the ring.

The only problem now was convincing Jed that the enemy had been far closer than he'd ever expected all along.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It was dusk by the time the rest of Titan returned but none of the customers at the diner had left since. The sounds of cars revving up the driveway made me glance up, but since the doorway was crowded as people began to stream out, I remained where I was for a couple more minutes to finish up scrubbing out the pans.

"Go," Dimitri told me, his hair falling stubbornly into his eyes again as he roughly scrubbed the oil stains off another pan. "I've got this."

"Thanks." I smiled at him and set the pan down in the sink, untying the knot that held the apron around my waist. "When you're done, just lock up the back door and get some rest. I'll lock up the rest of the diner."

He made a vague noise of agreement. "Tell Trevino I fucking told him so when you see him."

I was confused for awhile, until I realised that Dimitri was referring to the warning he'd given Jed the night before. You can't, he'd told Jed, when the majority of Titan had pushed for a war in the wake of Spike's death. You're underestimating Prometheus.

I remembered his words perfectly and began to worry my lip as I looked over at him. It was difficult to stop that sinking feeling of dread from spreading through me. Suddenly, the prospect of losing a war seemed very, very real. There was going to be prisoners of war. Injuries. Casualties. Deaths.

"You really think they couldn't do it?" I asked, at last.

Dimitri let out a derisive, almost bitter laugh. "I was the Beta of Prometheus, a pack made up of rogues used to spending their entire lives killing in order to survive. What do you think?"

I fell silent, hardly wanting to answer. I didn't have an answer to that. Of course I knew that Prometheus was a powerful pack; I just hadn't realised how powerful they were. But it made sense, and I hastily headed out to the front of the diner.

The place now seemed flooded with about half of the pack, but Jed was nowhere to be found. I was about to leave the diner so that I could find him, when the woman standing by the doorway suddenly made me freeze as I recognised her immediately. She was gesticulating wildly with one hand and running aggravated fingers through her hair with the other as she spoke to Brutus and Vaughn, her fingernails a bloodied red that looked a lot like crimson blood, but a second glance made me realise that it was just nail-polish.

"Bianca?" The word slipped past my lips before I could register it, and they were suddenly all turning to me. Several of them shot me wary glances when they saw me standing by the counter, looking nervously between Bianca and me as though pre-empting that I'd fly into some sort of rage upon seeing her there in the diner. But I was more surprised to see her here than anything else, and I quickly took several steps forward, a relieved smile spreading across my face. "Hey! How are you?"

The aggravation faded from her features and her lips curled up in a slow, almost lazy smirk. "Quinn," She greeted coolly, only to stiffen when I pulled her into a quick hug. She pushed me away half-heartedly, but the expression on her face was now fractionally warmer as she regarded me. "I see you're still that disgusting, over-affectionate sap I've had the misfortune of knowing," She mused, her smirk now softening into a smile that was almost wry. "Jedediah's been waiting outside pining for you with his sad little heart."

I veered past her a little and caught a glimpse of Jed, who was leaning against the glass wall of the diner while Adrian spoke to him. His head was lowered and he cut a sorry sight standing in the dark. I wanted desperately to go to him, but then, I also needed to get a good grasp on the situation. And another glance at Jed made me realise that he was in a kind of mood that was almost volatile. Blood-stains on his jacket and jeans – not only on him, but on everyone else as well – along with the sombre looks on all their faces and I knew at once that the mission hadn't gone well at all.

Damn Dimitri and his knack for prediction.

"What brings you here?" I asked Bianca, gazing up worriedly at her, then at Jade and Vaughn. They were all covered in nicks and scratches; Vaughn was cradling his arm to his chest and Brutus had a nasty cut along his neck, but Bianca seemed relatively unscathed.

"Had to save your pack's sorry little asses," She told me bluntly, now looking faintly aggravated. "I heard rumours that Titan was launching an attack on Prometheus and I figured I'd drop in since I was just a couple miles south. At first, I thought Jedediah was going on a suicide mission, bringing half a pack to face off a full one. But you've got some solid fighters in your ranks, I'll give you that."

I was almost pleased, until I saw the defeated looks on Vaughn and Brutus' faces, and I immediately tensed. "So what happened?"

"Well, it was all going fine and they'd razed half the place to the ground, until Little Miss Moronic Airhead over there decided she wanted to face the Big Bad Wolf," Bianca added in disgust, throwing a frosty look over at Lorraine, who was sitting in one of the booths with her friends. "Oh, you should've seen her." Bianca's voice turned mocking now, her red lips curled in revulsion. "I was still heading into the building through the side gate so I saw everything. She ran straight after the Alpha of Prometheus with nothing but a cute little dagger in her hands and screaming bloody murder like a deranged woman – "

Lorraine immediately jumped to her feet, an expression of fury on her face. "I was trying to avenge my mate – "

"You were trying to get everyone killed," returned Bianca sharply, unfazed by the way Lorraine looked as though she was about to attack her. "Almost got your sorry useless self killed too, had it not been for your brother who stepped in before the Alpha sunk his teeth into your skinny little throat." Bianca threw Lorraine another cold glare before turning back to me. "Neither pack could've won today, but Titan could've easily had an advantage if they razed half of Prometheus to the ground and retreated, regrouped and reattacked. But no, she – " And Bianca jabbed a finger in Lorraine's direction. " – had to dive right into another battle and caused Titan to lose two of your best fighters in the process, not to mention all the injuries the rest of the pack had to suffer because of her absolute idiocy."

I swallowed, finding it impossible to meet Lorraine's gaze. I wanted to feel sorry for her, truly I did, I wanted to empathise and sympathise and I would've helped her if only she wasn't so hell bent on pushing everyone, everything away in her pursuit of revenge. So I lifted my eyes and met Brutus's gaze instead. "Who did we lose?"

Brutus dragged in a pained breath. "Lance and Giles."

It felt like the oxygen had been sucked right out of my lungs. I felt Bianca unexpectedly place a steady hand on my elbow when I let out a shuddering exhale and I forced myself to keep a levelled head. "Dead or – "

"We don't know. We managed to get eight from Prometheus, though."

"It's not the same," Bianca said evenly, the only one able to keep an emotional distance from all this. "Titan cannot afford to lose anyone. Prometheus can lose any number they want, because they can always recruit. Anyone and everyone is dispensable to Mattheus Norvil."

A chilling silence settled in the wake of her words and, for awhile, everyone was quiet. Thinking about the ramifications of what had happened. I couldn't help but wonder if Lorraine was regretting everything. Was it worth losing a brother to avenge a mate that she'd already lost? And what about Jed? I couldn't even begin to imagine how devastated he must've felt, now that he'd lost both Spike and Lance, along with Giles, who'd always been one of the most reliable and fearless members in the pack.

But not a minute later, Adrian stepped into the diner. The expression on his face was sombre and he seemed to be keeping his grief at bay, if the way he held himself rigidly was any indication at all. "Alpha says that we should all head home," He said at last, after a cursory glance around the diner. "Get some rest. He'll figure out a plan to counterattack soon."

A wave of relief seemed to flit through the crowd at Adrian's words. After biding Bianca and the others a quick goodbye, and closing the diner, I headed outside. The wind nipped at my cheeks in a frigid chill and I didn't hesitate to step close to Jed the moment I saw him. But instead of smiling and intertwining his fingers through mine like he normally would've, Jed kept his bloodied hands firmly to his side, as though terrified that just touching me would taint me, and deliberately maintained a fair distance between us.

I knew better than to push. And so, we headed back in silence, the kind of uncomfortable, unsettling one that you could never get used to. I couldn't even begin to decipher him – the expression on his face was so impassive, his eyes so painfully blank that I knew he'd completely shut down. I just didn't know how to trigger him out of it this time. All I could do was to stay close, but never close enough, to Jed; all the way until we were safely in the house, the front door latched shut behind us.

Jed didn't even wait for me this time and he headed up the stairs two at a time, striding in such a swift manner that he was gone in the blink of an eye. In the distance, I heard the faint sound of the door slam shut and I jumped involuntarily, before dragging in a deep breath and heading into the kitchen to get a calming drink of water.

I stood there for awhile, closing my eyes as I lost myself in a myriad of thoughts – Jed, Spike is dead, is Lance alive, what about Giles, Jed, will Lorraine ever snap out of it, maybe Bianca will help, Jed, we have a rogue on our hands, Dimitri was right, Jed, don't trust anyone, maybe the rogue already told Prometheus about Titan's impending attack, Jed, that's how they got Lance and Giles, that's how we lost, Jed, Jed, Jed –

A distant shattering sound jolted me from my reverie, and I quickly set the glass down, making a swift, but wary trek up the stairs. After all, one couldn't afford to let their guard down at a time like this. I paused along the hallway when I saw a faint light streaming through from Jed's room. Hesitantly, I went in, stiffening when I heard another crash that sounded distinctly like glass.

"Jed?"

After several knocks that he didn't respond to, I hesitantly pushed his door open. It was the first time I'd properly been into Jed's room – we'd spent the previous two in mine – and I glanced quickly around. It was everything I expected it to be – meticulously neat and organised, the large bed with a blanket that was deftly folded in place, a bedside drawer and a desk, with its furnishings more or less the same as what I had in my room, save for the closet in the corner. Mine was a walk-in, stocked to the brim with clothes he'd gotten me when my house was destroyed. His, on the other hand, was just a simple, small one that leaned against the wall.

I felt my breath catch at that. Pushing that aside for a moment, I made my way through his room and towards the bathroom, where I figured he probably was. The door was left ajar, and when I caught a glimpse of Jed's jacket chucked on the floor, I quickly placed a hand on the wooden surface to push the door right open.

"Jed, what're you – "

I froze when I realised what he'd done. The mirror was smashed in, a broken cup lying on the counter a perfect giveaway of the fact that he'd used it to smash the mirror in. Jed was leaning against the sink, faucet turned at full and the water was rushing into the sink in a whirl as he haphazardly scrubbed at his hands. His breaths were unsteady, jaw clenched as he gritted his teeth to hold the bare threads of his sanity back together. Under the faint light, I could see the water tinted a faint red as the blood from his hands slowly but surely trickled away under the relentless force of the water.

The blood wasn't his, I realised, his actions suddenly making perfect sense to me. He wasn't washing the blood off his hands, not really. Just the guilt.

"Jed," I breathed, taking a firm step into the bathroom and ignoring the possibility of stepping into a splinter or a mirror fragment along the way. Reaching over, I stilled his hands, curling my fingers tightly around his even as he flinched under my touch. I turned the faucet right off and, for a moment, there was nothing but the ragged sounds of his breathing amidst the dead silence.

For a long while, neither of us spoke. It was just us, just the silence in between, all the guilt and bitterness and regret and sadness mingled in the aftershocks of the metaphorical earthquake that we'd been through. I kept my fingers firmly wrapped around his; felt the warmth and the water and the blood seep from his skin into mine until my hands too were stained red.

"I'm not a monster." His voice was a whisper in the silence when he finally spoke. His eyes were tightly shut, the slide of his Adam's apple in his throat unsteady as he swallowed brokenly. "I'm not like them."

The first thing I wanted to say was – everything's going to be okay. But how could I say it when I wasn't too sure I believed in that sentiment anymore? We'd lost Spike. Maybe Lance and Giles. Titan was falling apart. So were we. Things weren't going to be okay, not for awhile, at least.

So I took a deep breath instead and leaned in, shifting on the tips of my toes so that I could sponge a quick kiss along his jawline, just beneath a bruise that darkened his cheek. "I know you're not," I said softly, wishing I could convey in words just how much I believed in what I'd just said.

The only response I got from him was his fingers tightening around mine.

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It was the muffled sound of conversation coming from the porch that greeted me the next morning. Running a lazy hand through my hair, I slowly headed down the stairs, pausing by the landing when I heard Adrian's voice waft through the door that was left half opened.

" – leave it in the bloodstream. Not long enough to kill but it's going to be painful and – "

His words made me freeze. Standing stock still with one hand still on the railing, I held my breath and listened to them. Adrian's voice. Then Katya's. Brutus's. Jade's. Vaughn's. I had no doubt that Jed had gathered them there, and their voices were hushed but audible enough if I listened closely.

" – maybe just a few threats here and there might trigger – "

" – too easy. Try a couple of hits. You'll get them talking soon enough – "

" – no, I'm with Beta. Silver's the way to go – "

It was wrong to eavesdrop and I knew that, but I couldn't stop myself from listening in, heart pounding in my chest and head throbbing when I suddenly realised exactly what they were discussing. Brutus had mentioned the eight rogues that Titan had captured from Prometheus last night, but having been so caught up in losing first Spike, then Lance and Giles, I hadn't even considered what this meant.

Lance and Giles had been captured by Prometheus, and even if they'd been kept alive, who knew what atrocities were now being inflicted upon them? But who was to say Titan wasn't going down the same path when it came to the eight rogues?

And, suddenly, I felt very, very afraid.

Dragging in a deep, shuddering breath, I forced myself to maintain my composure and headed to the counter. Jed had already brewed a fresh pot of coffee and I filled my mug to the brim. With unsteady hands, I lifted the cup to my lips and took a long sip, feeling the bitter aftertaste linger in my mouth no matter how many times I tried to swallow it down.

If grief had a taste, this must've been what it tasted like.

It wasn't until another ten minutes or so when Jed finally entered the house, carefully latching the door shut behind him. One glance at me and the guarded expression in his eyes intensified, his lips tightening in a grim line as he quickly realised that I'd been privy to what he assumed was a private conversation. He was so caught up in...whatever this was, that I didn't even think it occurred to him to shut the door in the first place.

Striding quickly through the hallway, he made a deft manoeuvre past me. Bracing one arm on the counter, he reached for the pot of coffee to pour himself a generous helping. His hand was steady but the veins along his arm were strained and it seemed to take him a tremendous effort to keep his gaze averted from mine.

For a long, agonising moment, there was nothing but an unsettling silence lingering in the still air between us, the seconds that ticked by seeming to last forever. It was never like this. From the very moment I met Jed, it had always been a strange sense of familiarity that I felt with him. Foreign, but I never felt like I was standing opposite a complete stranger, even though that was exactly what he'd been to me at first. It wasn't until then that I realised that you could think you knew a person, and you could actually know a person – the two lines were easily blurred but they were vastly different things.

I set my mug down at last, placing my unsteady hands flat on the counter, my fingers instinctively digging into the surface as though searching for purchase in a situation that made me feel like I was slipping, forever spiralling down into a pit that had no bottom.

"So – " My voice was a quiet chill when I finally spoke, like the coldest of winter days. I hadn't meant to sound so cold, but it had unconsciously slipped in and there was no taking it back now. I took a deep breath and looked up at him. " – silver and violence. That's what you fall back on?"

Jed kept so still and stared so fixedly into his mug that I almost regretted my words the moment I said them. But I couldn't take this back either, nor was there any way for me to back down when I knew very well what path Jed was now taking.

"Using a person's fear against them," I continued, still looking at him evenly. "Isn't that what Claudius did to you? What Malthus is still doing to you?"

His fingers tightened around his mug until his knuckles turned white and I wondered if the porcelain would give under his grasp. And when he spoke, his voice was strained. "I'm not like them."

"I never said you were. And it's true – you're not. Not at first. But you're beginning to blur the lines. You're using the same methods of torture that Claudius used on his prisoners when he was still alive." His jaw clenched and his gaze darkened at my words, but I forced myself to meet his gaze boldly. "Using the same methods of torture that Malthus is no doubt using on Lance and Giles right now – "

"I'm not them!"

I froze when Jed flung his mug against the cabinet where it shattered into fragments. Hot coffee splattered against the pristine walls, the sharp splintering sound jarring amidst the tense silence. The remnants of my words dried up on the tip of my tongue as I stared at him with wide eyes and, for a few moments, neither of us spoke. His fists were clenched by his sides and he seemed to be fighting to drag in a deep, shuddering breath that simply wouldn't come.

Then he glanced over at me and saw the frightened look on my face. He paled rapidly, the furious expression on his face swiftly collapsing into something akin to horror as he held out a shaking hand towards me before retracting just as quickly. "Fuck, Quinn, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry – " The words were tumbling out of his lips in a flood and he swallowed, his eyes scanning my face for any injuries as he tried several times to reach out to me, only to backtrack and think the better of it at the very last second. "I didn't – I didn't mean to scare you, I'm sorry – "

I blinked and quickly snapped back when I saw realised how terrified he was. He wasn't wrong – he had scared me earlier. His actions were so unexpected and so instinctively violent, and the fact that he'd done it in front of me was even more alarming. But he'd broken out of it just as quickly and there was his old self surfacing again – the man who would never, ever intentionally hurt me.

"It's okay." I said softly and reached out a soothing hand to place on his arm. He immediately flinched away, his features crumpling in an unspoken apology, but I kept my grip on him steady as I tugged him towards me. "Come over here, I don't want you to get feet cut on those pieces by accident."

Hesitantly, he inched closer to me until he was finally standing less than a feet away. His eyes were glistening as he scanned my face and a low, broken sob wrenched itself from his throat when I stepped closer. It was like seeing a version of him that wasn't the Alpha of Titan, wasn't the powerful man I knew he was, but was instead that frightened boy who'd grown up in the shadows of two men that had completely destroyed his world. There was that version of him; and the determined, protective version of him who never left my side no matter what; and the vengeful, guilt-ridden version of him that he was now. And I realised that it didn't matter – every single side of him that he had to offer; every single side that he used to be, now was, and would be – I was going to love them all. All of him.

He looked at me with all the apology in the world and I shook my head and smiled. "It's okay," I repeated, slowly sliding my hands up his arms, to the crook of his elbows and then to his shoulders so that I could feel the tension taut in his muscles, his shivering frame beneath my fingertips. "It's not your fault. I just wanted to get through to you. You understand that, right?"

Without waiting for him to answer, I slipped my hands further up, tracing the slope of his neck. His eyes immediately fell shut at the feel of my hands on his skin. Shifting even higher up, I tangled my fingers through his hair, gently tipping his face down so that he was a hairsbreadth away from me. Through it all, he kept himself rigidly still, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his breaths shallow and unsteady.

"I never want to lose you," I admitted softly, watching as he slowly opened his eyes again. His irises were the softest kind of green, the kind I could absolutely sink in and never wish to get out for the longest time after. "Physically or otherwise, least of all to revenge. If you shut me out, I can't help you. But if you let me in – I don't know how much help I'll be, but I'll be there. With you. I'll never leave you."

For a moment or two, he was absolutely still. Then he let out a rushed exhale and tipped his head down just fractionally so that his forehead was pressed against mine. Shutting his eyes, he swallowed heavily and took a deep breath.

"I love you," He whispered. "I always have."

I felt the air rush out of my lungs at his words, only to be replaced with a feeling of euphoria that spread through every inch of me. I'd always known, in my heart, that Jed felt the same way I did. But hearing him say it was another and I felt tears prick the corners of my eyes. Pushing myself up on my toes, I swiftly pressed my lips to his, stealing his breath of surprise right from his mouth and capturing his bottom lip with mine, kissing him over and over and over again for as many times as his words replayed themselves in my head.

My actions seemed to have taken him completely by surprise because he was entirely still against me for awhile, until he slowly relaxed and reached his hands up to tighten around my waist, a quiet, low groan resonating from the back of his throat as he responded to my kisses with equal fervour.

After a few blissful seconds, I pulled back, a bright smile spreading across my face when I met his gaze and saw the glazed expression of desire in his dark eyes, as well as the hesitation and uncertainty lacing his features.

"I love you too," I whispered, my smile widening when a glimmer of sheer happiness lit his eyes as he finally registered my words. "I always will."