SPELLBOUND

Gideon began to see the past, like they were a dream flashing before his eyes. And this past, as he continued watching, he realised that it was not his. This recollection of occurrences did not belong to him. It was hers… Leah's. It was with this realisation that he was taken aback. Why? Why was he seeing Leah's past in this moment? Was he not getting his mating bond with Vera? So why was he seeing the past related to Leah?

Guilt rose within him again, and this time, it crashed into him, much stronger than before. Though he had decided that he would leave his past behind, to move on from Leah as she belonged with his past, he could not help but be affected when something like this happened. The fact that he was seeing Leah's past and not one of his mate's threw his mind and heart into utter confusion.

But the longer he watched and observed the flashing memories, the confusion and guilt slowly turned into pain as he realised all the times that she had been with him. From those moments he never thought that she had deliberately arranged just to be able to see him when they were younger, sneaking from her room to take a glimpse of him when he visits Azrael, until those little moments of her just looking at him from afar, admiring him, all the while when he did not even spare her a glance. The things that she had done for his sake were innumerable and his heart ached for her.

He never thought that Leah had liked him that much even back then when they were still children. He had thought Leah only developed romantic feelings for him when she had grown up and was a little bit older and more mature. He had assumed it all started only when he had saved her that night during their training in the abyss.

And as the memories continued to flow like a quiet shining river, the dull ache within him continued to grow until it became a sharp pain. He began to see her struggles through this past memory of hers. He saw her cry in silence that time when he had ignored her and told her to go away. Gideon remembered how she had smiled at him as if what he did to her was nothing wrong, and she had easily brushed it off as though it did not hurt at all. However, now he was looking back at the memories, and seeing her sobbing her heart out when he was not there to witness her tears is just hurting him so bad right now. He did not realise the magnitude of her love for him.

The beautiful memories they had shared together as a couple then appeared next and Gideon wanted this flow of memories to stop now. He already knew what was coming. Why must he see that dreadful moment again?

But the memories continued rolling along and no matter how he tried to shut his eyes or look away, they still appeared in his mind. There was no way he could escape it. He was going through that nightmare again. He was going to witness it happening all over again.

Gideon began to see her running in the woods. She as all by herself. He knew that route so well, like the back of his palms. She was heading towards the abyss of darkness. What was she doing there? And why was she all alone? The pain in his heart was mixed with fear now. As if this was not something that had already happened in the past.

He knew that this was during that fateful night. The night he had lost her… no, killed her. He saw himself killing her.

That night, Gideon had decided to deal with the monsters all by himself. Leah and many others had gotten poisoned by a certain monster that had come out of the abyss. Many young dark faes had fought back and died and he had nearly lost Leah as well, if it were not for the queen's help. His fear that the monsters would endanger his loved ones again made him rush to the abyss to deal with it. He wanted to protect his loved ones from coming to harm. And the only thing he could do to protect them was to stop the monsters from coming out of this cursed abyss. He had a strong belief that he was the only one who could end it, that the purpose of him being born with these tremendous powers were for this sole purpose. Therefore, he had decided to try. He had thought everything was working in his favour until an explosion of darkness overwhelmed him and everything went dark.

When he opened his eyes again, he was somehow lying on the ground without any recollection on what had happened during the entire time that the darkness had seemed to consume his vision. And it was then that he found out that Leah was gone. She had disappeared just like that. He had jumped into the abyss to find out where she was, and he saw her being killed by monsters. He saw her die right before his very eyes and incinerated herself before taking her last breath. He did not see anything else before that, but he just somehow knew that at that moment, she was right by the abyss. Gideon immediately realized something had happened in the duration while his vision and everything else darkened. And he could only deduce that he must have lost his mind in that moment and had just stood there, letting her get killed and unable to control himself. He was there, but he had let her die, and he would never ever forgive himself for that.

After seeing what had killed her, Gideon did not bother looking at anything else. He did not even question why she was there by the abyss in the first place. Because trying to know more of it was like trying to find excuses for himself, as though there was someone else to blame for the disaster that befell her. There was no point in that. As he could never bring her back anymore. And there's no one to blame but him.