And that was just the start, of both the pain and the progress.

“I’m done with Tower. I’ll do whatever it takes to break my binding to him, even if it means carving these damn marks out of my own arm.” I lifted my sleeve for emphasis.

“If it were that easy, you’d have already done it,” she said. “Everyone would have. But removing the evidence of an oath doesn’t unseal that oath. It doesn’t work like burning a contract. Please tell me you understand that.”

I forced a grin. “Yeah, but it makes an impressive gesture, right?” But she didn’t even crack a smile. “Olivia, I will break this binding. I swear. I’ll find the original contract and destroy it, even if I have to burn down an entire building in the process.”

“Cam, it won’t work….” she insisted, warily backing toward the door. “And even if it did, it could take you months just to find your contract, and even if you were able to destroy it, Tower would never let you live. You know that.”

I shook my head. “You’re getting tangled up in the details, and I don’t give a damn about the details. We’ll make it work. I’ll take a new oath, like you took as a kid. Right now. Write something and I’ll sign it. Write whatever you want—write that I’ll never leave your side again—and I’ll call a Binder right now so we can make it official.”

“It’s not that simple.” She shook her head, but her eyes were shiny and red with unshed tears. “It won’t work, Cam. It can’t.”

“Yes, it can. But I can’t make it work on my own. If you really want to leave, then leave. But don’t go just because you’re scared, of Tower, or anything else. Cedo nulli, Olivia. If you yield to no man, why should you yield to fear?”

“I’m not yielding to fear and I’m not running away. I’m facing facts. We don’t have any choice about this.”

“I have choices,” I insisted, refusing to break eye contact. “We both do. I may have to make mine carefully, and make a few compromises along the way, but I have a choice. I choose you.”

Fifteen

Liv wiped tears from her face with the back of one arm and retreated until her leg hit the arm of the couch. “I can’t do this.”

“Then you’re a coward.” It took effort for me to unclench my jaw and loosen my fists. “I’m willing to risk my life to break my contract with Tower and you can’t even risk your pride to tell me it won’t be for nothing.”

“This has nothing to do with pride.” Her blue eyes blazed, and I could practically see her temper flare. “And yes, I’m afraid, but that fear isn’t just for me.” She had one hand on the doorknob, but made no move to turn it. “I’m leaving to protect us both, and that’s the same now as it was six years ago. I left then because I had to.”

“You had to,” I repeated, and she nodded, holding my gaze. “You had to get up and leave in the middle of the party? You had to go right home, pack everything you could fit into two suitcases and drive straight to the city?”

She hadn’t just left me. Hell, she hadn’t even just left the party. She’d left the whole damn town. Her parents didn’t know why. Anne didn’t know why. If Kori or Elle knew, they wouldn’t say.

Liv nodded, looking miserable, but her regret now was nothing compared to what she’d put me through. It couldn’t be.

“Why?” I shouted, fed up with the lies, and the silence, and the secrets. I could feel the end of my patience flapping in the ind, like the last bit of kite string about to slide through my fingers, and no matter how I clutched at it, I couldn’t quite catch it. “Why did you run, Olivia?”

I saw the secret crack inside her, like a dam under too much pressure, and the truth came gushing out in a painful jet of words she seemed to regret before the last syllable even fell from her tongue. “Because you would’ve killed me!” she shouted. “Or I would have killed you. If we’d stayed together one of us would have killed the other. I left to stop that from happening, and if I stay now—if I stay with you—it will happen, and I can’t live with that, no matter which way it unfolds.”

She sagged against my front door, as if there was nothing left to hold her up, now that her secret had leaked out, and I could only stare at her.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I felt as if I’d just stepped into bright sunlight and couldn’t bring anything into focus, least of all Liv. “I would never hurt you, and I can’t believe you’d ever intentionally hurt me.” Physically, anyway.

“Six years ago, I couldn’t have imagined myself killing anyone. But things change. I have killed, when I had to, and dealing with that wasn’t as hard as I expected it to be. As I wanted it to be.” Liv watched me through haunted eyes, and I realized that it wasn’t me she was scared of. It was herself. “We don’t know who we’re going to be in another six years, Cam. Hell, I don’t know who I’m going to be in another six months. I don’t know anything about the future except that if we stay together, one of us will kill the other. Elle told me, that night. At the party.” Liv exhaled, long and deep. “She said that if we stay together, one of us will kill the other.”

“Kill, like accidently hit with a car, or serve something with food allergens?” I said, still trying to understand what made no sense.