“Take care, Darian.” The brotherly tone had returned to Raif’s voice. “He’s not himself.”
The plane came to a stop, and the pilot stepped out to open the hatch. I wasn’t about to waste time walking down the stairs. “I’ll talk to you later, Raif. Thank you for coming for me.” I didn’t wait for a response or reciprocation on his part, though I knew Raif was dying to show his gratitude again. Instead, I became one with the shadows and headed straight for downtown and Tyler’s apartment.
Chapter 34
I’d missed the hell out of Seattle, but the cityscape passed in a blur as I raced with preternatural speed to Tyler’s penthouse apartment. I’d gawk at the scenery later. Right now, I had to make sure he was okay.
I didn’t bother with decorum as I glided like a wraith to the top floor of the building. Waiting on a slow-as-fuck elevator would not have been conducive to my mounting impatience. When I got to Tyler’s front door, I became my corporeal self. The door was open a crack, and a sliver of light shone out into the hall. Strange. Tyler was usually so concerned with security, it didn’t feel right that his door was open.
Tentatively, I pushed it open and stepped inside. The place did smell a little like Xander’s training room after a workout-musty, sweaty-and my stomach twisted into a tight pretzel that felt like a fifty-pound weight. Tyler liked to have his place lit up like a Christmas tree, but tonight the only light came from his bedroom. I walked, silent as a shadow, my gaze drawn inexplicably to the island counter in the kitchen. The granite slab of the counter was cracked down the center, and the island slumped in on itself as if a giant had tried out his karate chop on its surface.
In fact, the whole apartment looked pretty damned trashed. Forget college dorm room; someone had partied like a rock star in Tyler’s penthouse-or thrown a king-sized shit fit. My mouth went dry, my hands shook at my sides, and I felt like dry-heaving. What was I going to find on the other side of Tyler’s bedroom door? Did I really want to see the havoc I’d wreaked?
I pushed open the door, and it didn’t even squeak to betray my presence. Bathed in light, Tyler stood at the foot of his bed, an open suitcase in front of him and a stack of clothes ready to be packed beside it.
“I felt you the second you came back,” Tyler said without turning to face to me. “It was like someone had switched a light on in my soul. And then you left again for three weeks, and snap! The light came on again.”
His voice was hollow, emotionless. Too calm. My heartbeat kicked into high gear, pounding against my rib cage, and I felt as if I needed to swallow ten times more than usual. “Tyler-”
“Do you know how that feels, Darian, to have that light flipped on and then extinguished over and over?”
“I didn’t know.” God, what a lame-ass response. “When I left, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t.” His voice became hard. “If you had, you probably would’ve included it in your note.”
“If I told you what I was going to do, you would have tried to stop me. Or worse, come with me. I was trying to protect you.”
Tyler turned to face me, and the fist squeezing my heart constricted at the sight of him. He looked freshly showered and shaved. In fact, his hair was still a little damp, and he smelled of shampoo and body wash on top of his natural scent. His hair was a bit longer, curling at the base of his neck and over his ears. He raised his brows in question and those too disappeared into longer, curling, bronze-streaked locks. But what did me in was the look in those beautiful hazel eyes of his. His gaze was empty, dull, completely hollow, and I realized at that moment that what I’d done-leaving without a trace-had nearly killed him.
“Where did you go?” His tone was that of a demand.
“The Faerie Ring.”
“O Anel?”
I opened my mouth to speak, too astonished at his knowledge to put a coherent string of words together.
“What, Darian?” He became agitated, almost defensive. “You didn’t think I was smart enough to know what that was? I’m older than your friend Raif and twice as clever as that asshole who managed to gain your trust and lure you away. Fallon,” he scoffed. “The least he could have done was picked a better alias. It didn’t take long for me to figure out who-and what-he really was. Maybe if you’d checked one of the twenty or so voice mails I’d left you, you would have realized that I was already one step ahead of you. You knew I’d been talking to people. Investigating. You didn’t even give me enough time to confirm what I’d learned before you took off on me.” My eyes widened, and he gave me a bitter smile. “I guess you didn’t think I was strong enough to help you, so why should I be any smarter?”
“That’s not true.” Goddamn it, I needed more saliva in my mouth. It was too dry to even form words.
“That is true.” He sat down on the bed, crossing his legs at the ankle and his arms in front of him. The laid-back attitude he’d adopted put me on high alert. “You didn’t think I could hold my own with what you had going down. You lied to me, deceived me, withheld information I could have used to help you. And then, to top it all off, you left in the middle of the night with a cryptic note for explanation and fled the city with another man. A man you obviously trusted and held in higher regard than me.”
“Tyler, that’s not what happened at all. I was deceived. It was a trap.”
He pushed himself off the bed and walked toward me. I had to fight the urge not to cringe away from him, his expression was so dark. I’d seen fury boiling under the surface like that before, but never from Tyler. That terrified me.
“I thought I could prove myself to you,” he said, almost murmuring. “I thought if I gave you space and let you think I wasn’t just another user trying to control you, you’d learn to trust me. I bound myself to you out of love, and I prayed the gods would let you love me too.” He traced his fingers along my jawline, and I felt the tears welling in my eyes spill over onto my cheeks. I couldn’t bring myself to speak; the tenderness was killing me. “I should have known better,” he whispered. “I should have known you’d never let your guard down. Not for me, not for anyone.”
“Tyler,” I said as I fought to talk through the dryness in my throat, “I’m so, so sorry.”
A slight, sad smile curved his lips. “I know you are. But sorry isn’t good enough.”
“What do you want me to do?” At this point, I’d have done whatever he asked me to. “Just tell me what I have to do to fix things between us.”
“You were gone, Darian. I told you how it was for me, but you didn’t listen. It was like part of my soul had gone dark. After you left here, I could still feel you. You wouldn’t answer your phone, the PNT was looking for you, and I knew you were running. But at least I knew you were alive. Your wish made me damned near powerless. I couldn’t come for you even when I sensed you were in trouble. But then-” He paused, and his voice seemed to catch somewhere between his chest and his mouth. “You just disappeared. The light went off. Nothing. It was as if you’d never existed.”
My throat closed up; I felt as though I were suffocating. There wasn’t enough air in the world to fill my lungs. “I did what I thought was best for you. I would have died if anything had happened to you and you were already in danger-”
“You don’t get it, Darian.” He locked his gaze with mine, and I bit back a sob. “I knew you weren’t dead. After all, we’re bound. My life force is tied to yours. But at least with death there’s some sort of finality! There’s nothing worse than not knowing. And I had no idea where you’d gone, what had happened to you. Once…” He brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “Once I could’ve sworn I felt you reaching out for me. Right here.” He pounded a fist against his chest over his heart. “And it felt so real. But there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do about it! I couldn’t go to you. I couldn’t help you. No, I knew you weren’t dead, but I mourned you just the same.”