Didn’t they?
“And yet there’s a reason that even back home people would speak your name with fear,” Sean said, all blasé like he wasn’t throwing David’s worst memories right in his face.
David kept his fists loose in his lap, though he wanted to clench them. Wanted to scream at the world. He didn’t choose that life. It had been thrust upon him with no escape. He forced his voice into a precise balance of apathetic curiosity. “How much do you even know about what I did back home?”
Sean shrugged, giving away nothing.
He lowered his voice. “I didn’t do it because I wanted to.”
Sean’s brows rose, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Then why did you?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? The one David had asked himself hundreds of times.
Why?
Why am I doing this?
Why do I hurt people just because he asks me to?
Why?
Blue eyes didn’t waver. The chatter from the other room had ceased. David opened his mouth and said the truest words he could find:
“I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 23
ANNA
In the library, David tossed Anna a small book. “You might enjoy this one.”
She plucked it from the air. The wordsLust Magicwere embossed in gold script across the front, followed by a smaller subtitle,The Role of Libido in Our Magical Core.
Flopping it onto their usual table in the library with a loud smack, she said, “You think you’re being funny, but I’m inexplicably interested.”
Green eyes flashed at her, then dropped to his own book. “Page fifty-seven.”
Against her better judgment, Anna opened the book and read three sentences before laughter overcame her. The passage detailed a raunchy deva ceremonial orgy meant to charge their Light.
“Why can it only be done at the full moon?” she asked through her giggles.
“Because,” came David’s dry response, “nourishment of life, obviously.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a metaphor for”—she made the mistake of turning the page—“oh no, there’s a picture.”
A faint smile touched his mouth as the hilarity overcame her. An indulgent, teasing glint in his eye unlocked the smallest kernel of warmth in her chest. It reminded her, strangely, of Sean.
Odd, that. The two men couldn’t have been more different, but for one infinitesimal moment, a similarity revealed itself, there and gone before she had a chance to explore it.
The glint disappeared behind ice, the moment passed, and Anna returned to her regular book in silence. Days and days had glided by since his mother had returned, and he’d not spoken a word. Anna was dying to ask how their meeting went but already knew he’d shut her down. The dread from that day was the sharpest thing she’d felt inside him. She wanted to understand it, but it was just another David curiosity to add to the ever-growing list.
“Autumn knows about you, by the way,” he said after a few minutes. He kept his head down, gaze locked on the pages before him. “Just thought you should know.”
In the space of one heartbeat, Anna’s insides twisted into a tight knot. “Wh-what?”
A hint of regret darkened his eyes when he peeked up at her, but then he returned to his book.
Hiding from her.
