I should have called out to Marc. I should have called him back and figured out a way to explain myself to him. But I was too tired to think, and beyond frustrated.

“He doesn’t get it,” I whispered, wadding the first empty wrapper into a cellophane ball. “Why can’t he get it?”

Jace laid back on the bed next to me, one arm propping up the pillow beneath his head. “Because he’s never failed to measure up. Failure has never ripped a hole in his gut so deep and wide that physical pain is a mercy and a punishment all at the same time.”

“But you have?”

Jace sat up and met my eyes with a gaze so intense my next breath caught in my throat and refused to budge. “I left Ethan in the woods, and he died. We were partners, and I left him, Faythe.” He glanced down at his hands, and I started to argue. He’d only left because Ethan told him to get Kaci to safety. He hadn’t abandoned his partner. But before I could put my argument into words, he looked up again, and something deep in my stomach clenched. “And every time Cal hurts you, and I can’t kill him, I feel the same way. Like I’m not worth the air I breathe if I can’t protect you.”

Twenty-seven

“Wow. It feels insane to be coming back here so soon.” I pulled my duffel higher on my shoulders and glanced around the Roswell airport and the small crowd of morning commuters.

Marc veered toward a row of waiting-room chairs within sight of the car rental place, where Jace was at the front of a short line. Marc sank into the first chair, dropping his bag at his feet. “Considering what happened last time, and everything that’s happened since then, I’d say ‘insane’ is putting it mildly.”

I collapsed onto the seat beside him and stared at my bag in my lap. I had no idea what to say. Things had gotten quiet between us since he’d walked out after my frenetic Shifting extravaganza, and every time I looked at him, it felt like someone was sinking claws through my chest. It felt even worse when he looked at me, and yet worse still when he didn’t.

But I was thankful for my mostly healed body, even after what it had cost me, physically—I’d been practically comatose for nearly another twelve hours after I’d fallen asleep.

“You okay?” he asked, and in my peripheral vision, I could see him watching me.

“Are you?” I wanted to take his hand. I stared at it, lying all alone on the chair arm between us. But I was afraid that would make me look needy. Weak.

“Right now? Yeah.” He twisted in his chair to look at me with unbearable, heartbreaking longing in his eyes. “Because it’s just the two of us.” He glanced around at the harried morning commuters and shrugged. “Relatively speaking. But in a few minutes, it’ll be me, you, and him…” He nodded to the rental counter, where Jace was now talking to a clerk with really poofy hair. “And there’s only so much of that I can take.”

“Marc…”

“Just let me finish,” he said, and I nodded. I didn’t know how to complete my aborted thought, anyway, and I welcomed words from him, when he spoke so often with his fists lately. “I can see how connected you are to each other, and I know that it’s not just physical, which means it’s not just going to blow over. But sharing you with him is like being asked to cut out my own heart and hand half of it over to someone else. It fucking hurts, Faythe. Like I’m dying.”

“So…I’m killing you.” It wasn’t a question; I already recognized it as the truth. Marc wasn’t himself because he couldn’t have all of me, and that was killing both of us.

“And every cat instinct I have is telling me to kill Jace, but I can’t. My human half knows that if I try to rush you into a decision, or do anything to dissuade you from picking him, it’ll backfire on me.”

I blinked, confused. “Why would it backfire?”

He frowned, as if he knew me better than I knew myself. “If I make Jace into the underdog, you’ll fight for him out of instinct. You always fight for the oppressed. That’s just who you are, and that’s one of the reasons I love you. Even if that isn’t working out in my favor this time.”

My next breath felt almost too thick to drag in. “He’s not the underdog, Marc.” I exhaled heavily and fought the urge to drop my gaze. “There is no underdog.”

“That’s the whole problem. You and I have a real history, Faythe. By rights, I should be the front-runner, and he should be the underdog.”

“I know.” But I couldn’t make myself not love Jace any more than he could make himself not love me. And that’s when the reality of the situation truly sank in. I was going to have to walk away from one man who truly loved me in favor of another. And choosing one didn’t mean I’d quit caring about the other.

But did they both understand that? Hell, did either of them?

Yes. Jace understood. He knew that loving Marc didn’t make me love him any less. But Marc couldn’t compromise. It just wasn’t in his skill set.

“And the worst part of this?” He hesitated, rolling his eyes at his own statement. “Well, it’s not the worst part, but it’s bad enough. The thing is, as much as it kills me to see you with him, when I’m not there, he’s the best qualified to protect you. So even if I thought either of you would listen, I couldn’t ask you to stay away from each other right now. I’m not going to stand in the way of your safety, even if it means losing you to him.”