“He thinks he’s protecting me as well. He seems to be rather obsessed with protecting people, even those who don’t need it and haven’t asked for it,” I muttered.
Anya looked at me carefully.
“He believes he is the protector, and he is always ready to go to any lengths to make it happen for those he genuinely cares about.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No,” she agreed. “It does not. But sometimes people can’t distinguish between what is right and what is wrong, and that only makes them human.”
I studied her, knowing she was right.
“You’re not defending him, or is this your way to defend him by outlining his flaws so he seems normal to me?”
“I am not defending the method or what he did to you. I know what he did was wrong in more ways than one,” she said gently. “But I know one thing with complete affirmation, and that is that he would never harm you.”
“That’s reassuring, considering he married me without my consent and is practically keeping me here as a hostage.”
Anya winced faintly.
“I told him he was reckless with this when he told me what he had just done.”
That surprised me.
“You did?”
“Of course. No girl deserves to go through something as outright scandalous as what he put you through last night, and knowing that you were here with him in this absurdity makes me even angrier at him.”
“So what did he say?”
“He said he did not have the luxury of caution.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “That sounds like him.”
Anya tilted her head slightly as she studied me.
“You care for him.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She smiled faintly.
“I don’t.”
“You are angry because you care.”
I stepped back slightly.
“You don’t know me.”
“No,” she said softly. “But I know him.”
Silence stretched between us.
“I cannot undo what he has done, Elisse,” she continued. “But I can tell you this, he has not been himself since the masquerade, and I know this because I was there when he came home in the morning after you walked away, and for the first time in his life, he told me about a girl he had met and how she didn’t want to be with him.”
My heart stuttered.
“I don’t want to hear that.”
