“Yes,”he says, nose screwed and lips peeled back.“You fuckingreekof him. Short of giving you his own cupla, he’s contested my claim. And it doesn’t look good for you. You’re either his whore or his mole or he bent you over and fucked you against your will. Which one is it?”
“None of them,” I growl.
I don’t want to show him the map of my bruises. There are too many, inside and out. And thesmellhe’s condemning me for? It’s just another blackened patch of self-hatred he wouldn’t understand.
“If he took you by force, I could decla—”
“He didn’t.” The words rip out of me, and I watch Cainon’s eyes glaze over like hardened shields.
A beat passes.
Another.
The space between us seems to swell.
“Well. If Rhordyn’s Unseelie,” he finally bites out, “there’s only so much I can do to save you. And only so much I’m willing to do to savehimfrom getting slain by what’s quite possibly his one and only weakness: the Vruk.”
There’s a ruthlessness to his words, and again, I recall the writhing flames chewing his ships and the men screaming inside them …
Sacrifices.
His hand rises, the tips of his fingers sweeping a lock of hair behind my ear, gaze tracing the motion. “I want to help your people. I want to helpyou,”he whispers, gripping my cheek so tight it hurts, gutting me with a look that holds more weight than my fraying composure. “But you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”
I hold his solid stare. “And the ships?”
The words wobble free, as though my hands are clasped around my throat and I’m gasping for breath, my knotting stomach trying to reject the poison he just spoon-fed me.
“You said you could handle Rhordyn.” His eyes narrow. “You failed.”
My heart plunges onto a rib.
He drops his hand, leaving a smudge of his wrath that bites.
“So long ashe’sstill sniffing around, there will be no coupling.” He pauses, gaze scoring my face. “No ships.”
My nostrils flare as I drag in air thick with death.
No ...
“I can’t risk it. Not when I have a city of people to protect.” His voice is a soft placation I barely hear over the frantic thump of my heartbeat pounding in my ears. “And you should be very careful. I can’t bear the thought of your light blinking out simply because you’ve underestimated him.”
He touches my cheek with his fingers, head tilted, then lets them drop. I almost crumble, watching him stalk back the way we came.
Panic roots through my chest, the tapered tips of this poisonous tree strangling my ribs and heart and my fucking conscience. A thousand lives caught within its cage, condemned, chanting …
You failed.
You failed
You failed.
“That’s it?” I choke out. All this death and hurt and suffering, it was all for nothing?
I fixed nothing?
He stops and turns sidelong to look at me. “No, petal,” he says, offering a kind smile. “You have a home here while you work things out.”
While I work things out.
