He heard her approach hesitantly, his body prone in damned aching despair. She speaks low, so gentle as if he wasn't totally ripping his own heart to shreds before her. He hears "if that's what you want" and grimaces. It wasn't at all what he wanted, but he was confused by what he truly wanted.
He wanted her here. Her body hot and wild beneath his again. He wanted it to mean something. No, he didn't want her, didn't want a mate. But there was no middle ground, not for him. His heart and his body ached for something his mind refused to accept from her. He didn't know her enough for a real relationship. Was he even ready for one? Would he have to survive losing another one?
His stare hardened but he wisely held back any response. She apologized and wished him well, with an almost-promise to openly avoid him. Those words that he'd wished she'd said when they first met, now scoured salt in his wounds. How hard he'd tried to push her away, and how easily it turned out to be to do it. Why did it torment him so? It was what he'd wanted.
Her retreat whispered to him, his mind dulled. He'd be content to just lie here, maybe forever. It was a pathetic thought, but what the hell did he care? He thought of the sire he'd never met. What would he think of this son of a king so broken on the ground? Probably nothing, he'd never bothered to meet his offspring, after all. Not this one, anyway. Did he even have siblings out there somewhere? Probably.
And then his mother. Fierce Amazon warrior, their General, even. Oh how she'd despise this weak coward he was turning out to be. I am not a coward. But he really was, wasn't he? He supposed there was far too much of his worthless father in him. Maybe he'd change that one day.
Bastard of an insignificant king, soldier-son of an Amazon General.
"I am... Ainlif," he sighed, the heat in his words dissipating on his murmured name. Maybe one day he'd actually tell it to her, this fiery Revol. If she still cared to know it.
If he ever saw her again.