Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(130)

He looked down as he took my hand, placing the vile in my fingers. "I will always love you, Mena."

"I will always love you, too, Phoenix," I said, still confused.

"You need to go with Ace," he said, a little more than a whisper, but I had heard him.

I jerked my hand out of his. "Are you breaking up with me?" I hissed in a low voice, but I had caught the attention of a few people close to us. They looked away quickly as heat filled my cheeks and hot tears stung my eyes.

"I'm not strong enough to do that. I thought about doing something to make you angry with me, enough that you would make this a bit easier, but—"

"You want me to break up with you, because you are too much of a coward to do it yourself?"

"Mena, be reasonable. I'm not good for you. You've seen how strong the bond is. You're only making yourself and Ace miserable trying to keep me in your life. You can be happy again." So that's what he meant about me being happy in the end? That I would be happy with someone else, not him. "Love is only an emotion, Mena. It will pass—"

"It will pass?" I shouted, and flung the vile at him. He caught it. "You're really going to go with that after all we've been through? Am I that easy to forget, Phoenix? I'm just an emotion that will wither away in time, is that right?"

"No," he said. "I could never stop loving you—"

"How could you think I could ever stop loving you?"

Ace appeared beside me, but I backed away when he reached out to touch me.

"Because you should. You have Ace and the bond now. I'm just in the way."

I shook my head, disagreeing with him. The tears were pouring freely now, and I couldn't stop them. He was breaking my heart. "You lied to me. You told me that I would be happy in the end. If I can't have you, I never will be. I love you. I want you—"

"But you need Ace, and I can't compete with that damn bond!"

"I'm not asking you to compete with it or him, Phoenix. I'm just asking you to be there for me, to love me and to never let me go."

"I'm too selfish to let you go, Mena, but I will always love you and I will always be there for you. You need to do what's best for you, because I'm not strong enough to do it." I sobbed as he closed the distance between us and framed my face with his hands. "Close your eyes," he whispered. My face twisted in anguish as I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, sending two streams of tears down my face. He wiped my heated and damp cheeks with his thumbs. "Shhh…" His lips brushed mine tenderly, and then he pulled back. "Tell me goodbye, Mena."

I shook my head.

"It is what's best for you."

I opened my eyes. "Having you in my life is what's best for me. I need Ace, but I want you. That will never change. If the men in my life would stop trying to reign over me and give me time, we could all be happy."

"Ace is a bonded Alpha male, Mena. He's not ever going to be happy about you wanting me."

I turned and gave Ace full eye contact as I said, "He's going to have to get happy about it, because I'm never giving you up."


Phoenix huffed as he looked at Ace. "That's all I got, man."

"I'll make you a deal, Ace. I shouldn't, after what you just tried to make him do, but I will compromise… a little." A sigh of resignation laced my voice. I didn't really want to do this, but couldn't see any way around it.

"Do I have a choice?" Ace said.

I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. "Nope."

He lifted his hands and placed them on his hips. "Let's hear it then."

"I will drink the potion and go with you to Las Vagas—" his eyebrows lifted, "—under two conditions…" then they fell.

"I'm listening," Ace said.

"You need to be there with your pride, and I need to be here with my pack, Phoenix and his clan, but we can't be apart, so each full moon we will move. I'll go with you tonight, but you have to return with me in twenty-eight days. Take the deal or we can see just how long we can be separated before we both collapse for good. I'm not leaving him. I'm not leaving Phoenix… ever. Do you understand me?"

Instead of responding to my question, Ace frowned at Phoenix. "I'm disappointed in your acting skills."

"I never said I could act," Phoenix replied, maybe a bit too cheerily.

Ace huffed, and then growled in frustration. "Fine."

"And Phoenix gets conjugal visits," Phoenix threw in, with a grin and a wink.

Ace snarled. "No. Six months out of the year, Andra is completely mine."

Phoenix shrugged. "Fine, then the other six months when the two of you are here, Mena will be completely mine."

He held up a lone finger. "You can come visit her one day per month, but not on a weekend," Ace shot back. I rolled my eyes at the two parental figures negotiating custody. I figured I had to give them something.

Phoenix chuckled. "How about I come when I want and you suck it up, buttercup. You heard the girl; I'm not going anywhere."

Ace's fists clenched, causing his knuckles to pop, and he bit his lip. I knew by his thoughts that he didn't like this plan, at all, but he knew by my thoughts that I really didn't give a damn what he thought, at least not about this. I wasn't going to give up a man I was in love with just because I was bonded to Ace. Nobody could force me to do that, not even Phoenix's weak attempt to end our relationship.