"Yeah, maybe you are," he hissed back, eye thinning. Her anger upfront was undeniably overwhelming; Jefferson was accustomed to a gentle-hearted, sway-with-the-wind Geneva, not one whose fury actually sent chills down his spine and lodged lumps in his throat. Yes, he felt guilty. Yes, it would be worth it. Crimson Dreams had far more to offer a kind soul like Geneva's than Jefferson or any of the other hopeless dreamers of Phoenix Valley. She'd always have a place there, even if she left... even if Jefferson said she didn't, he knew she always would.
The brute pushed himself up gradually from his hinds to three legs, scarred leg nearly numbed with sting and bite. He faced her eye to eye, undauntedly pointing emerald green against olive. "You're angry," he growled. "So the confounding idiot was right all along. I warned you." ...Too much. He'd warned her too much. He'd told her to go away, to leave him be. His eye turned to the ocean gravely, still hearing its devious tempts and yearnings, but the cyclops only cringed and lowered his head. Some day, but not today.
He turned as he always did, facing his gaze away from her and starting away in his three-legged retreat. "Go home, Geneva," he muttered darkly. The idiot's heart ached, his stomach twisted, his jaws clamped. His voice didn't want to speak. And yet he did not know why... he did not know why his mood had so quickly changed again at the mere mention of her mate's name. He'd been shocked, awestruck before -- and then suddenly dragged in the dirt upon his own falling. "There's nothing left for you to find here." Or in Phoenix Valley.