“And you proved me right,” she added. “You let me go.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I did.”
“So don’t worry about it.” She shrugged, taking a mouthful of stew. It was surprisingly good. “At least you didn’t leave marks.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying–” he stopped. Watched her intently. Like he was working something out. “What did you mean by that?”
Kara looked up, unease pooling inside her. She hadn’t meant to say that. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Kara.”
“Really, it’s nothing–”
“Tell me.”
She sighed. “My father wasn’t happy when I suggested I wanted actual love over an arranged marriage.”
Sebastian’s expression darkened. “He hurt you?”
Kara shook her head. “He didn’t mean to, he just grabbed me too hard.” She blanched at Sebastian’s murderous expression. “He’d never done it before–”
“That doesn’t make it better,” he snarled.
His hands had curled into fists. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He stared into the treeline, his face lined with barely contained fury.
“And Hale think Thorne are brutal,” he hissed. “He’s a hypocrite.”
“Yes,” Kara agreed. “He is.”
Sebastian looked at her, surprised, but she said nothing more. She didn’t want to talk about her father. They sat in silence for a few minutes, then the question slipped out before she caught herself. “You’re older than me, aren’t you?”
He frowned, visibly thrown by the sudden change of topic. “What?”
“By a couple of years?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, confused. “I’m twenty-seven.”
She didn’t look up from her bowl. “Why aren’t you married yet?”
He snorted. “Didn’t have the time. Training. Fighting Ice Land raiders. Two years in the Southern Isles. And there was my peacekeeping rotation.”
Kara listened raptly, drinking in every bit of information he’d choose to share.
“I actually liked that one,” he admitted. “Normal people, normal problems.”
“The rotation? Where was it?”
“Durent and Sorrel, mostly. Bit of time in the City.” He paused, glancing at her. “Never did duty in Hale, though.”
Kara smiled at him. “Shame. We’ve got good wine.”
He grinned, leaning back on his hands. “I’ve heard.” Then quieter, he said, “I think part of me always knew if I married, it would be for the wrong reasons. Duty. Expectation. Not choice.”
Kara didn’t respond right away. “I understand,” she said at last. “That’s exactly what mine would have been.”
She drained the last of her bowl. “Well... we’ve made our own choices lately.”
His smile faded, but he nodded. “Yeah, we have.”
