Aldous doesn't tear me limb from limb like he did with Ellis. He does nothing at all but stare at me, breathing heavily, covered in the blood of my childhood friend.

Or, well, once he was my childhood friend. He'd been about to be my murderer.

Now, Aldous will be. My husband. My mate.

My heart is breaking.

Maybe he feels it too, because he swallows hard, as if he's gulping down the same emotions.

"What's your name?" he finally asks.

The question slaps me in the face, just as much because it's painful but because I'm not expecting it. There's no use beating around the bush anymore. I can be fully honest with him now.

He takes my hesitation as defiance, because he growls, "What is your name?"

"Aera Tremblay." I don't know how I even have any tears left, but they fall. Despite how totally fucked everything has become, it feels good to say my name out loud to him.

My wolf likes it, too. She's still fearful but her chest puffs out a bit as I tell him our name. It thrums along the bond, that little bit of pride, and he winces.

"Not Lydia Delacroix," he says, hoarsely, as if he wishes it were true.

"I think you just met Lydia Delacroix." I can't help but feel sour over that—I can still imagine her in his arms and it churns my guts.

His muscles tense, fingers curling into claws, and this is it. This is where he shifts and kills me.

He screams at the sky, but he doesn't shift. He presses his palms against his forehead, as if he's trying to hold his skull together.

"What am I supposed to fucking do now?" he spits the words and begins to pace back and forth. "I was never going to marry. Never going to bear children. The Quinn line was going to die with me, and I would pass the pack on to an elected alpha in my old age, appointed by a council."

I can't tell if he's specifically talking to me, or just venting, but I can understand that my role is to listen now. I owe him that.

"I thought maybe if the Quinn line was finished, then future generations of our pack wouldn't even have to worry about the curse. But then, of course, we started getting sick, and I thought that it was my fault, that somehow my plan had fucked things up, that the old curse knew what I was planning to do and that it didn't like the loophole and was punishing us." He smacks his chest like he's beating a drum. "Then, one of my scouts hears that the Delacroix's do have a daughter, they've just been keeping her secret, and all of my carefully laid plans to keep my pack safe have to change."

My heart aches for him. He'd been so welcoming but he hadn't wanted it either. He'd never wanted any of it. I want to speak, but I still don't feel like it's my time, yet.

"I was going to be bound to Cedric and Marla's horrible offspring forever, I was dreading it, but I knew I had to, to save the pack." He stops, turning towards me, his eyes wide. "And then you showed up."

I want to apologize so badly, but my voice doesn't work. My mouth won't even open. The tears won't stop.

"You." He scrubs his hands down his face. "You."

He falls to his knees, and he still towers over my crumpled form. I stare up at him, unsure of the turn this is taking. It feels like he's in agony, and I just want to hold him, like I did at the lake, but if I'm the cause of that agony, what right do I have?

"You were an omega, you weren't like them...and I was so relieved," he says, his voice so low it's almost a whisper. "I couldn't believe how protective I felt so quickly, how much I wanted to take you away from them, keep you all to myself, because I knew you were my true mate. You were mine to protect. Mine to keep."

A sob wrenches its way out of my throat. What is he doing? Does he have to torture me with this before the end? I suppose I deserve this. I didn't think my heart could break any more than it already has but I'd be amazed if it were even still beating.

"We chose each other out of necessity because of the curse, but I thought it was perfect fate, like all of the generations hadn't been forced together until now because it was always supposed to be us." He shakes his head slowly as he continues to stare at me, and I almost can't take his gaze anymore. It's too raw, too powerful. "But it's not us. You came here under deception and now both of our packs are going to die because of it."

I can't stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. "I'm so sorry, I wanted to tell you, I so badly wanted to tell you, but Marla said if I said anything they would kill Ellis and he—" I choke off at that, because Ellis is dead now.

The man who had been by my side since childhood, despite the bitterness of this night, he'd been my best friend my whole life. My memories of him felt tainted now that I knew he resented me never loving him back, but could I fault him for that? I could fault him for trying to murder me, yes, but not for loving me.

Perhaps my life would have been simpler if I had loved him back.

Except he's dead now. Aldous knows the truth, and Ellis is dead. Marla's threat, however inadvertently, has been fulfilled.

"That man was who they were blackmailing you with?" Aldous follows my gaze to the body that was once my best friend. "The man who was about to choke you to death?"

"He was my best friend," I offer, though the words sound hollow. "At least, I thought he was."

"You left with him," he says, voice accusatory.

"He thought he was rescuing me." I stare down at my hands. I can't look at him anymore. "Before I came here, I was terrified...we thought you would be an old tyrant like Cedric. I thought I was being pulled from one hell and thrown into another, only with the threat of having to deceive you lest my best friend be killed." I take a deep breath. "Instead you were everything I never knew." I have to be brave, now, and I raise my gaze to his once again. "And I fell in love with you."

"But the curse is not broken!" he yells, and I flinch. "Your pack tried to break the rules and now it's killing faster than ever!"

"I'm so sorry," I whisper, shrinking away from him. "I don't have any excuses, I know it was wrong. I already didn't know how to live with it, with watching people you love die and leave you behind, knowing why and being unable to stop it."

He surprises me by grabbing my shoulders, and we're so close and I'm afraid but my wolf isn't, our souls are still so intertwined and despite everything, still in love, still mates.

"What do I do now?" he asks, and he sounds desperate, lost. "What do I do?"

I draw in a deep breath, summoning every ounce of my courage, because I didn't think I would have to be the one to tell him this. I thought he would have come to this conclusion himself—either in his rage, or in his logic after the rage.

But it seems, it has to be me.

"You have to kill me."