I'd started to overcome the stain on my name from Lote and a select number of leaders discovering what I'd done with Jax. I'd even started to feel happy again most days.

Then I felt the warmth of Jax's power nearby. I'd gone to the market and he must have followed me here to this neutral territory.

At first, I pretended not to see him, stricken by an onslaught of all the feelings I'd tried to run from. Hope and defeat mingled into one because I knew we could never be together. Our guilds wouldn't let us. Even if we overcame what Elias did, I'd learned convincingly that we would only hurt each other. I had to forget about him and stop doing this to myself.

But for all the time that had passed and all the new that came, I couldn't forget this man or that feeling he gave me deep in my chest. The fluttering, warm, sticky sensation I could not manage to feel with anyone else.

We hadn't known each other long or even well. We hadn't discovered nearly enough of each other. So why was he so deep in my heart? Why couldn't I forget about him?

It hurt to think about this, but as much as I had loved Elias and as close as I still felt to him, I'd never struggled to let go of him like this.

Finally, he slid into my view and I feared I would give away everything I felt.

"Ash," he said quietly, looking at me over a crate of apples.

"We can't do this," I said.

"Just give me a few minutes."

"Absolutely not." I looked around to make sure no one was listening.

When he followed, I groaned, and fled for an alley, walking until I was sure no one would see me.

"What?" I asked, wheeling around to face him. I nearly ran into him. Everything rushed back at me, every touch and kiss, how I'd tried to deny him and failed miserably in the end. The humiliation of being caught.

"We have to talk. It's been too long."

"I meant what I said in my letter. We can't see each other again."

How could he look stunned when it was so clear that this was our only option?

"We made a mistake and we need to move on."

"We didn't."

I steeled myself against the pain lacing his words, my own resonating with his inside of my chest. Both of us helpless against the same waves in the same sea. "Jax, are you going to betray your guild?"

"It doesn't have to be this black and white."

"I'm not going to betray mine. I'm not going to leave them either."

He breathed out slowly, silent as he looked away, and then finally met my eyes with his emotions cooled, though still bursting beneath the surface. "Don't let what Elias did ruin our chance at exploring a future. We get to make this choice, Ash. It's been months already. I can't keep doing this."

"We already made our choice a long time ago. You're a threat to my guild."

"Don't do that. You don't believe that."

"I do. You're a threat. I know what you've been up to."

"If we're together, we're not going to hurt each other, or take action without consulting the other. We'll be a team. It might be exactly what our guilds need."

I shook my head. "You're living in a fantasy world. If you want to be with me, then you renounce your guild, and join us."

He laughed bitterly. "I can't believe you're acting like this."

"What do you think our life will look like? What Elias did simply reminded us of reality. We are enemies, Jax. Enemies."

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"We don't have to be. We both love the Valley and we care about the people in this kingdom. Our values align. Our passions align."

"Our allegiances never will."

He reached for me and I tried to force myself to step away, except I couldn't. My feet were frozen in place. My body paralyzed. I couldn't even draw in breath as his large hands smoothed up my arms to my shoulders and then he pulled me against his broad chest. The heat of his body melted me as it had every time he ever got close to me. It'd fooled me, hadn't it? Being able to feel this good with him made me forget that a life together could never feel this way.

My guild would never let me be with the enemy without using me, using us, to get to his people. I'd thought that I could find a way to make it work. Weren't there worse things than being from different guilds? If we could work together to defeat a common enemy couldn't we come together to love each other?

"I can't love someone who won't fight alongside me." I uttered the lie against the soft of his neck, wanting desperately to melt my lips against his skin instead. Breathing him in intoxicated me. My hands ached to crawl up his tight chest. "I should never have made you think I could."

"I don't believe you."

I let myself dig my fingers into his shoulder blades and rest my face against his chest. "How could I, Jax? Our values don't align as much as you think if we can't fight on the same side."

"We need to bring our people to the same side. We're the evidence that it doesn't have to be a feud or a war."

"We'll only become pawns and either we'll betray each other or we'll betray our guild. I won't do that."

"So you'll preemptively betray me."

"It isn't a betrayal to say no to a life together when we haven't made any promises." I swallowed down the painful lump in my throat. "It might break our hearts, but it isn't a betrayal. It's a choice and one that is best made from a sound mind before we hurt each other too badly."

I pushed him away from me and made my voice sound cold.

"We can never see each other again, Jax. From here on out, we're enemies."

"You'll never be my enemy."

"I am, though. You'll understand that soon enough."

"What's that supposed to mean."

I nudged him back. "Go. Just go."

It looked like he would fight me but finally his shoulders fell and he turned away, voice sorrowful. "This is the mistake."

"Jax."

He turned with a vague hope softening the sorrow, like I'd changed my mind.

I steeled myself, certain that I had to put an end to this once and for all. "If I ever see you again, I'll kill you."

The attack hit him like the most swift and lethal did–the blood pouring before the damage could actually be felt. Several seconds passed where nothing changed except for an endless sorrow in his eyes, and then came the tightening of his jaw, the flicker of betrayed and hurt anger.

"It's a promise we should make to one another."

"You don't mean that."

Tears fell down my cheeks. Pain suffocated me so I spoke without breathing. "Jaxon, I swear to you on everything I am. If you show your face again, you are dead."

"Why? Because I refuse to stop fighting for our kingdom?"

"Because if I let you live, someone in my guild dies. You proved that."

This time, he said nothing. "I mean so little to you?"

My throat felt like it was on fire. "It doesn't matter what you mean to me. None of that matters."

"Only that we're enemies."

"Yes!" I tried so hard not to sob but it broke free. "You're my enemy. You're the enemy of my people and I cannot let you hurt them, not when I swore to protect them and uphold them. I cannot betray the people who have loved me every day of my life."

Jaxon grasped my hand suddenly and ripped me so close that I could feel the warmth of his body once more. He took my face into his hands and gazed down at me. "Tell me again. Prove to me you mean it."

The tears blurred my view of his face. I tried to speak and couldn't. Tried to look away, but he caught me. Forced me to face him.

With my voice lowering a near growl, I held his stare and I spoke with the utmost truth. "Jaxon, I will kill you. Don't come near me again."

The pain in his eyes was as severe as if I had actually killed him, or at least tried to do so. "If you meant it, you'd do it now. You don't want to have to face me again because you'll melt."

I ground my teeth.

"You want to hide."

"What's the alternative? Will you leave your guild?"

"No."

"Will you betray them?"

"Never."

"So what's the answer?"

"I don't know." Despite the pain and anger, he started to reach for me again before stopping. "I just know it isn't this."

"It's over, Jax. It's over and it never should have started. If you see me, you should do it too. Because I'm not going to hold back no matter what."

"We promise to kill each other." He laughed bitterly. "Ridiculous."

"Say it. If you care about me at all, then you'll match what I give you, because I already cannot bear it. Come at me with all you have."

"That is so fucked up and twisted, Ashton."

"I don't care."

"If you ever loved me, then you'll say it."

He fell completely silent, staring at me. I struggled for breath. Right when I was sure he'd walk away, the emotion fled his face.

"I promise."

Those two words hurt far worse than any damage I'd ever taken.

"Good." I choked the word out, unable to hide how badly it hurt me as well. "Now leave."

The pain I knew was ravaging him was locked away too deeply for me to see. Jax looked unmoved. Unfeeling.

"If we ever see each other again…" My voice died out.

"It means death."