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“You ok?” Fuck it. I’m not going to sit here in silence. I’ve got Fox’s sweetness lingering on my lips, and we’ve got to attend one of the council Gatherings of the Anguis downtown. We don’t exactly have the luxury of time to sit around not talking to one another.
He shoots a look at me as we leave the compound. Those cerulean eyes are dulled by an emotion I don’t know if I’ve ever seen in Thorne Calliano before.
Guilt.
“Thorne. It’s ok.” On instinct, or intuition, or whatever it damn well is, I lay a reassuring hand on his arm. “What happened the other night…”
But he cuts me off with a shake of his head.
“Ky, no, it’s not that.”
There’s more than a little relief in the hasty breath I blow out. Ok. It’s not about us fucking for the first time. I can handle whatever else this might be, I think.
“Fuck.” He drags one hand through his air. “She found out the truth about her mother. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Shit.” I don’t need him to spell it out. There’s not much imagination needed to figure out that Fox would be devastated, and not to mention, I know how hard Thorne has worked to keep that sickening truth hidden from her.
“I’m trying to give her some space.”
“Ven’s got her.” I don’t move my hand off his arm. “He’ll make sure she’s ok.”
“I know, I just wish…”
Yeah. Don’t we all. Wishing things were different to the way they’ve been, and knowing that you can’t change a goddamn thing about all the sick shit we’ve been through.
Silence flows between us for a long while, as the forest starts to give way to the outskirts of Port Macabre. Both of us a little lost in imaginings of what our lives might have looked like had things turned out differently.
“How did she find out?”
There’s a muscle ticking furiously in Thorne’s jaw. “Our plan at the fight night worked a little too well. A message was sent directly to her phone. A photo of me and her mother from, I don’t know, years ago.”
Everything in me stiffens. “They could get to her that easily?” I know it’s only a text on a phone, but it sends a message that they can access her anytime and anywhere they like, and that makes me feel like I want to start blowing heads apart like watermelons with my shotgun.
“We can work on tracing the message and see if it turns up anything. But the damage is done. I don’t know if she’ll ever look at me again, now that she knows.”
The rest of the drive passes mostly in silence, until we pull into the discreet basement parking. We’re early, getting here well before the council arrives as always, so the lot is vacant.
Thorne looks like shit, and also a little too much like he’ll murder anyone from the Anguis who even looks at him sideways today. Fuck. The last thing I need is for him to fall apart, not when we’re so close to succeeding with this plan for the Pledging ceremony.
As he parks the vehicle and cuts the engine, usually, we would be on the move straight away, but this time, neither of us touches our door. The scent of leather and him is swirling and making it so damn hard not to want to turn us straight back around and get the hell out of here.
But we can’t do that. He knows it. I know it.
“I fucked up. I should have done more to protect her. There’s so much more I could have done.” He rests his head back against the seat.
“Thorne, look at me.” I twist my body so that I’m facing him as much as possible.
Muted blue eyes follow my movement.
“You put everyone and everything before yourself, and you’ve done all that was in your power, I know you have.”
“What if I haven’t?”
“I know you, Thorne Calliano.”
“You’d all be better off without me.”
“Fuck that.” I shake my head. “Want to know something? You’ve never just been a brother to me; it’s always been something more—at least on my part, it felt that way. Hawke is my sibling, but you were my protector, and the one who I always looked for in a room.” I lean forward to rest my hand on his shoulder. “It was your sorry ass who I lost sleep worrying about whenever you didn’t come back at night, because I knew the only reason you were putting yourself in danger was to keep me safe.”
