“That I love you?”
Cameron ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled quickly. “Yeah. I mean, look at you. You’re already a goddess. And a caring and compassionate and funny one and once they hand you that Cauldron…” Cameron bit his lip and looked over his shoulder toward his empty room. “Thank you, Selena. For what you did back in the Basin. Refusing to let them give me the Spear, saving me from a future I didn’t want. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who would’ve risked death to save one man’s free will.”
Selena’s mouth seemed dry, and her head ached with a pain that radiated throughout her body. She wanted to grab him and tell him she loved him, more than she’d ever loved anyone, more than she’d ever thought she could love another person. But if she told him the truth, if she confessed now, how much more difficult would that make his future and his decision to return to a normal life if they succeeded against the New Pantheon and their enemies in the Otherworld? So she told him nothing instead.
Cameron lifted his eyes and grinned at her. “I’m going to take a shower. And a nap. Who knew fighting pissed off Aztec gods could be so exhausting?”
A small breath, what was meant to be a laugh, escaped her lips, and she watched him walk across the hallway and close his door. She stared at the dark stained oak for a long time, hoping he would change his mind and return to her room, confess his own misgivings about the future he had chosen but couldn’t envision without her, but the door didn’t open. Selena eventually closed her own door and retreated into the bathroom to wash the dirt and blood from her body, but the stains of her wounded heart – of knowing the one thing she’d always want most would always be the one thing she could not have – could never wash away.
Shadows of the Gods (The Unbreakable Sword Series Book 1) Page 20
