Qaletaqa Read Free

never should have
left you behind.”
    Claire sniffed and pulled back. “Why did you
do it?”
    “I thought I was protecting you, but I
wasn’t. I was only protecting myself from any more pain. It was
selfish. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” I asked.
    “Only if you promise never to do it again,”
she said. Her voice was serious. She was not playing some lover’s
game. She wanted a real, binding promise from me.
    “I swear I will never leave you again, Claire
Brant. I couldn’t bring myself to do it even if I wanted to,” I
said.
    Claire watched me, her eyes searching my
face. “Even when you reach your Twin Soul and rescue her from the
Matwau? Can you promise you won’t leave, even then?”
    “You know?”
    “Yes. I know that right now you’re searching
for her, and you’ll fight the Matwau to save her life. I know when
you rescue her, the Twin Soul bond will form between the two of
you,” she said. “What I don’t know is if you’ll still want me after
that.”
    “Of course I’ll want you, Claire. Nothing
could ever change that. I promise I will never leave you again,” I
said. “How do know all of this?”
    A deep frown crept onto Claire’s lips.
“Quaile told me.”
    “You spoke to Quaile?” I asked, my hope
speeding its way through my veins. I left the potion to break the
Twin Soul bond with Quaile. I couldn’t give it to Claire directly
because of the risks of it harming her if she didn’t take it
willingly. If Claire spoke to Quaile, then she should have found
out about the potion.
    My thoughts closed down and I let myself
feel, search for the bond that linked my precious Claire to her own
Twin Soul. For the second time in just a few minutes, I couldn’t
find my voice. I shouldn’t have felt anything. The absence of
consuming passion should have left her clean and pure again. The
fact that I could still feel it pulsing against me sent a tremor
through my body. I didn’t understand.
    “The bond,” I said quietly, “I can still feel
it.”
    “Yes,” she whispered.
    “But why? Didn’t you…?” I stopped myself from
completing my question. She spoke to Quaile, but if for some reason
she never asked for the potion I couldn’t bring it up now. Samantha
warned me that if drinking the potion wasn’t Claire’s idea it might
hurt her. Frustration made it impossible for me to keep quiet.
“Didn’t you know why I left, what I went to find?”
    Claire nodded, her hand coming up to my cheek
when I started shaking my head in confusion. “I know you went to
the Shaxoa, and that you came back with the potion. I asked Quaile
for it, but I didn’t drink it.”
    “Why?” I asked, my heart threatening to
burst.
    “Because I couldn’t, Uriah. Quaile lied to
you about what the potion would do.”
    “No, Samantha said it would be fine as long
as you drank it willingly.”
    “But she wasn’t sure,” Claire said softly.
“She didn’t know because she wasn’t trained by another Shaxoa. She
didn’t know what the potion would do, but Quaile did. She told me
the truth and gave me the choice.”
    More lies. My hands clenched into fists at
the thought of that woman lying to me again. Her lies started this
whole mess. Would they never stop?
    “What did she tell you?” I ask stiffly.
    “The potion would break the bond, but only by
stealing my ability to love. I would be free of Daniel, but I would
have lost you too.” Claire’s face crumpled, her bottom lip
trembling as she tried to hold back tears. “I’m sorry, Uriah, but I
couldn’t drink it. I dumped it down the sink.”
    Numb, I pulled her against my chest and
stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Claire. Of course you couldn’t drink
it.”
    I spent days away from Claire to get that
potion, bruised and skinned my knuckles, bled for it, sacrificed
for a chance at freeing her, and it had all been for nothing.
Seeking penance, I opened myself up to the bond hovering around
Claire and forced myself to feel it. She asked me to break