Well, that answeredthatfucking question.
Everyone within earshot turned to stare at her. He didn’t want to knowwhyshe did it. He didn’t want to even know if she felt guilt over doing it. No, he was askinghow it felt.“I?—”
“When you put the knife in his neck. When he was offering to save you, to get you out of there alive. You cut his throat. How’d that feel?” Kalo had the tone of someone asking about the weather. But in his eyes, he had thatglint.That shine of pure and unmistakableevil. The bastard wanted to throw a match into gasoline and watch the explosion. Just for the laughs.
She knew there was an element of his own revenge in it. There was also more than a little bit of lingering jealousy in it, Nadi was certain. Her choice had been made long ago, and it hadn’t been Kalo.
Even if she might regret it a little now.
No.
That path was long gone. There was no use in regretting the past. The only way was forward. “It felt like nothing. Is that what you want to hear?” She stared down at her bowl of food. “He was just another kill. The blade went in, the blade went out, and he died on the floor. Just like everyone who came before him. And just like everyone who’ll come after.” Finally, she met Kalo’s gaze. “But I had no choice. He knew who I was. And before you say that I could have let him live, you know you’re full of shit. He would have sold that secret to the highest bidder in the blink of an eye. And if you honestly think otherwise, you’re lying to yourself and everyone else here.”
Kalo stared at her.
“I keep trying to warn you, Kalo,” Raziel interjected between mouthfuls of his food. “You have not known my wife for many years.”
“She is not your wife.” Kalo huffed and set down his bowl of food. “Your marriage was a sham.”
“And who are you to declare that?” Raziel laughed. “You weren’t there!”
“You weren’t married by any fae ritual. So down here you aren’t married,” Kalo argued.
Nadi wondered when or if she’d get a say in the discussion.
“And since when does it matter? I’m not fae, for one. And two, she hasn’t lived as a fae for most of her life. She has lived as a human?—”
“Because she has had no choice! She wasn’t even wearing her own face or using her own name when you married her?—”
“I marriedher,and I certainly havefucked herenough times to?—”
“Will you bothshut the fuck up?”Nadi shouted over them both. “It doesn’t matter!”
That now had both KaloandRaziel staring at her in surprise. Raziel was the first one who spoke. “It doesn’t matter?”
“I—I mean—” she stammered. “It does, it just?—”
“Do you feel as though we’re married, Nadi?” he asked her, his voice quiet.
“We’renotdoing this here.” She stood and stormed away from the gathering. First Kalo, then Raziel? No. She wasn’t going to have her entire life ripped out and put on display in front of a group of veritable strangers. Strangers who wanted nothing to do with her.
Strangers who were already leaning in toward each other and whispering, gossiping over their argument. Over her reaction.Fuck.Fuck. If she was supposed to be leading the Iltani clan, this wasn’t the way to be doing it.
This was a terrible start. And there was no way that Kalo didn’t know that.
He’d torpedoed it on purpose.
Fuck.
Staring up at the ceiling of the cavern, she let out a long, wavering, heavy sigh. This wasn’t ever going to be her home. The best she could hope for would be to get the Iltanis on her side long enough to help them take out Mael and Lana. After that? Whatever waited for her, it wouldn’t be here.
It would never be here.
Kalo was making that point when he had asked what it felt like to kill Luciento.
She’d killed this future when she’d taken his life. She decided she needed some space. Some air. Some distance. She’d made it exactly twenty feet from the crowd when she heard a voice behind her.
“Nadi, wait.”
