Chapter 218: My Dear Darling

Tera’s fingers stilled on his arm.

"My mother would tell me not to go past the eastern boundary. Every older beast in the tribe would warn us cubs. Even adult beasts were not to cross that side under any circumstances."

He paused, and Tera could feel his jaw working against the top of her head.

"I crossed it."

The way he said it, so flat and final, as if the words had been rehearsed in his own mind thousands of times, made Tera’s stomach tighten.

"I crossed it so many times. I was curious. I thought I was brave, and I wanted to see what was on the other side. I had always wanted to see what they didn’t want us to see."

Xavi exhaled slowly.

"This was before I knew what a corrupted beast was. We were hidden from such things, and there was a particular group of them that roamed that side. I was too young to understand. I just saw something large and strange, and when it saw me, it followed me."

Tera’s blood went cold.

"I ran home."

The words dropped like stones.

"And I led it straight to my tribe."

Tera stopped breathing.

"Despite being such a large tribe, we had a hidden settlement that was difficult to track, and I led it there. It killed so many of them..."

His voice cracked, and he paused. When he continued, it was steadier, but the steadiness was clearly forced.

"The tribe lost over fifty beasts before it was killed. And they wanted to kill me after for bringing destruction upon them. It would have been a fitting punishment."

Tera’s eyes were burning. Her fingers curled tightly around his forearm.

"My mother took me and ran. Along with my younger sister."

The silence stretched again, and the breeze stirred the silk leaf umbrella above them.

"We walked for a very long time. She gave us everything she found, and when she would tell us she wasn’t angry, the silly little cub that I was would believe it." He smiled bitterly. "I did not know what starvation looked like."

A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the smile faded.

"I learned what it looked like when she stopped waking up."

Tera’s chest crumpled.

"It was just me and my little sister after that. I was still a cub, but she was even smaller, and she was always getting sick. I carried her most of the time everywhere we went. I didn’t even know where we were going. I just kept walking because stopping meant deciding what to do, and I didn’t know how to decide or what to even do... I still don’t understand how I survived for so long."

Xavi told Tera about finding a group of young beasts and elderly wolves who had lost their own tribe. How the elders had eventually died, and because Xavi was a bear and larger than the other young beasts even as a cub, they had looked up to him for protection.

He had navigated them through hostile territory on nothing but luck and the desperate instinct to keep moving.

Some of them died. Corrupted beasts found them, and Xavi fought when he could and ran when he couldn’t, and each loss carved a new scar into whatever was left of the cub who had crossed that boundary.

They merged with other small groups and clans over the years. The group grew slowly, and Xavi grew with it, his body filling out into the massive frame it was now, but the weight on his shoulders growing heavier with every beast who depended on him.

His sister got sick again. She had been weak for days, and he had left to find food for her.

And when he returned, there was a corrupted beast eating his sister.

He did not remember what happened, but he killed it, and that was the period when he had sustained most of his injuries.

The quiet that followed was the heaviest silence Tera had ever sat inside.

Everyone he had ever loved or cared for over the years kept dying, and a lot of those times, Xavi felt he was at fault.

And when Tera had disappeared and returned injured, every single one of those memories had surged back at once.

Xavi murmured, "Even the females I had mated with back then died. It does not matter the reason. Everyone around me seems to die. I don’t know if it’s punishment for what I did to my tribe... I am scared..."

Tera was lying against his chest, and she could not stop the tears that were running down her face.

She looked up at him.

Xavi wasn’t crying. His golden eyes were distant and dry, fixed on the canopy above them with the expression of someone who had made peace with a grief so deep it no longer produced tears.

But the sadness on his face was so profound that it hurt Tera to look at.

"Oh, Xavi..."

She took his hand and pressed it against her chest, her tears falling onto his knuckles.

Xavi’s calm cracked. He looked down at her with something close to panic.

"Tera, I did not mean to make you sad. Please don’t cry—"

"No." Her voice wobbled. "Don’t say that."

Xavi paused.

"You carried all of this alone?" she managed through her tears, squeezing his hand so hard her fingers ached.

Tera sniffed, looking up at him. "You will never experience that again. Do you hear me? Things are stable now. Our clan is strong. Our cubs are safe. You are not that cub anymore."

Xavi looked so sad and lost. "Tera..."

She wiped her face with the back of her free hand, smearing tears across her cheek.

"This isn’t about me, Xavi. Don’t console me. I should be the one doing that to you."

Tera felt the strong urge to wipe the sadness from Xavi’s face.

From now on, she didn’t want him to face any struggle for the rest of his life.

"I am here, Ermin is here, your daughters are here, I am here. And none of us are going anywhere."

Then he pulled her into him, wrapping both arms around her body with a strength that was barely controlled, his face pressing into the crook of her neck.

His chest ached so much.

"I like things the way they are," he whispered against her skin. "As long as there are no corrupted beasts nearby, I am happy. I am beyond happy with the life we have."

Tera’s heart cracked.

Because there was a corrupted beast nearby. A massive one, sitting in a swamp, guarding the resources she needed to make their lives better.

And she needed to kill it.

Leaving it alive was a ticking time bomb. What if it left that place and came here?

But Tera’s heart felt heavier.

If something went wrong and she didn’t make it back, it would destroy Xavi.

She didn’t want that.

Tera held him tighter, her face pressed against his chest, and the guilt she felt was so sharp she could taste it.

She shifted slowly and pulled away from Xavi. Then she leaned back against the tree trunk. Then she gently guided Xavi’s head down until it rested against her chest. His cheek settled against the soft curve of her breast, and his ear pressed over her heartbeat.

Xavi went still with surprise.

"Everything will be fine," Tera murmured, her fingers threading into his hair.

His eyes watered, and his chest ached even harder. He did not understand why he felt like this, but he felt so happy and relieved to talk about this with her that it hurt him.

The tension bled out of Xavi as a tear slid from the corner of his eye.

His massive frame melted against her, his head heavy on her chest, and a long, shaking exhale left his body.

Tera’s fingers carded slowly through his dark hair, scratching gently along his scalp. She traced the shell of his ear, ran her thumb along the nape of his neck, and repeated the motion over and over in a rhythm that had no purpose except tenderness.

Xavi’s breathing slowed.

She held the male who held everyone else, and her tears dried quietly against her cheeks.

’You are safe now. I promise.’

Even as the words settled in her mind, a cold whisper followed them.

She had to kill that beast, and she needed to make sure she succeeded.

There was no room for failure.

Night fell, and Xavi fell asleep against Tera’s chest.