AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The door closed, and Pol turned to me, bewildered.
“What in the actual fuck just happened?”
Chapter18
Reagan
Water sluiced down my skin. It hurt to move. Then again, hurting was better than dead, which is what I would be if Caius hadn’t forced me to shift.
As much as it killed me to admit it, probably what I would be had Eres not taken control as well. While I was competent enough to handle myself, master assassin I was not.
Eres remained blessedly quiet in the shadows, pushed into the background while I processed things on my own. I wasn’t ready to talk to her, keeping the barrier between us while I took my time to think. She accepted it, not trying to worm her way into my thoughts, and I appreciated the respite from our bickering.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Clara asked, her fingers gently scrubbing my scalp, trying to rid it of blood.
“No,” I said. “But I probably should.”
Clara chuckled, but it lacked any real amusement. “Internalizing is bad. Especially for you.”
“Why me especially?”
“Because you blame yourself for things you have no business taking the blame for.” While that was a correct assessment, this was different.
“This isn’t one of those times,” I said quietly. “Jana’s reason for attacking me was so weird. She was pissed that I hadn’t accepted the bond. That he deserved someone better. She said I was better off dead.”
“Everyone knew she didn’t like you, but apparently giving you cold baths wouldn’t suffice.”
I huffed. “I guess not.”
Clara used a cup to wash the soap from my hair. “Wonder what made her think killing you was the better option?”
Water splashed and I replayed her words in my mind. “I don’t know, but she knew I was the guardian.”
My cousin stiffened, her eyes widening. “How?”
“I don’t know, but she said ‘we know more than you think,” so someone else is involved. She said neither of us should be here. I didn’t know where you were or if you were okay too.” The thought made me shudder.
“I was snooping in the library,” she said, squeezing a bottle of a floral-scented liquid onto a loofah. “Seeing what I could find for Jo.”
I smiled. “He asked me to find him new books. I’ve been too bent on avoiding Caius that I haven’t even bothered to look around this place.” Clara scrubbed my back in smooth strokes, alternating between washing and rinsing. “You were right,” I finally said. “I should at least try to get to know him more. I know all the stories say he’d betrayed the other primordials, and that he'd been destructive and on the verge of eliminating mankind, but I don’t think there’s any truth to it.”
“Damn, one dinner and that’s the takeaway?”
I chuckled softly. “Hardly. I wasn’t very nice to him at dinner. Honestly, I think he has the patience of a saint when you think about how I’ve been treating him.”
“Okay . . .” She waited expectantly for me to finish. I was quiet for a minute, getting my thoughts together.
“I had a dream last night, except it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory,” I began, twisting around to look at Clara. Her dark eyebrows were pulled together. “You don’t believe me.”
Clara sighed. “It’s not that, Rea. I heard your dad say what happened with your memories, and before you ask—no, I didn’t know. That was a secret your dad and Sin kept from both of us.”
Relief flooded me at her admission. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear it. The desire to ask her about it was there, but I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer if it had gone the other way.
“Would you have told me if you did know?”
She paused, pursing her lips in thought. “I’m not entirely sure. If I thought it truly protected you, maybe, but Jo says we can’t hide from our past, no matter how much we try.”
“That kid is too smart for this family.”
