ANNA
“Wait—” Isobel rushed after Sean as he deserted the suite, leaving Anna squeezed to David’s side and Autumn, face scrunched.
“Get out,” David said.
At first, Anna thought he was speaking to her, so she tried to escape, but he wouldn’t remove his iron arm from her shoulders.
Autumn stepped closer, uncertain, emotions brimming with consternation. “David, it’s not?—”
His voice came out clipped. “Get. Out.”
Her mouth clicked shut. A moment passed before she turned toward the main door. Once it closed behind her, a minuscule degree of tension eased from David’s body.
Anna didn’t bother to ask why he’d dragged her here with him—he wouldn’t answer anyway. Instead, she tried to think of something to say, tried to forget the sudden coldness that had overtaken him in the clearing earlier.
I’m always okay, Anna.
But he wasn’t okay, was he? He was cracking ice, holding himself together with sheer willpower. She didn’t know what this meant forhim or how binding his soul to Sean’s would change him. She hadn’t even known such magic existed. All she knew was that today David Berkeley’s life had changed irrevocably and for some reason, he wanted her at his side during the fallout.
She waited for his grip to release so she could face him, but once it did, he marched into the sitting room, raking both hands through his hair. “Fuck!”
Anna shadowed him, silent, morbidly fascinated by the shattering of his perpetual ice. A bright mosaic of colors and feelings lived inside this man—a dazzling rainbow she wanted badly to see. Now it burst across her senses, neon edged in sharp shadows.
She flinched from the bombardment, trying and failing to shield herself. Despite the onslaught, she crept closer, just barely resisting the urge to hug him again. The man needed a hug bad. A thousand hugs. A million.
“How can I help?” Her voice was small, barely filling the scant foot of space between them.
Green eyes lifted, expression blank. He took her chin in his hand, holding tight. “You have no idea how dangerous Caden Sidera really is. If you ever again find yourself near him when he’s that angry, you run—don’t walk—away. Do you understand?”
Something tickled her insides. Something like…surprise. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”
David released her, still impassive. “Sean has no clue how lethal he is. Let him find out on someone else.”
Was this concern? Did hecare?
She longed to touch him, to offer some sort of comfort. Something terrible had happened to him, but he was looking out for her, even though she’d upset him at training earlier. The man was utterly mystifying. Isobel had just hammered deep dents into his already disfigured self-worth, and he was worried abouther? How did he have the capacity?
He’d been abused in ways Anna couldn’t fathom, placed in impossible positions, and managed not just to survive but to retainhis decency. His empathy. He wore masks to hide it, but he couldn’t kill the considerate person he was deep inside.
She stared at the familiar lines of his face as a newfound respect actualized.
Anna wasn’t sure how to proceed. The wrong remark and he’d shut down like he usually did, finding whatever words he could as slings and arrows against her—his trustiest defense mechanism.
So, she sank onto the cushy sofa, patting beside her in invitation. When he obeyed, a thrill shot down her spine, and she took his hand in hers, holding tightly.
Deep breath.“Look,” she said, “this sucks. It really does. It was a shitty thing she did to you.”
He said nothing. His concentrated stare gouged into the wall while the colorful emotions retreated behind their fortress of ice.
Anna forged on. “But look at it this way. You haven’t lost anything. You’ve only gained something. Maybe you hated him at one point, but it’s obvious you don’t anymore. So use this to your advantage. Sean has a lot of strengths. Maybe you can tap into some of them.”
It took a moment before his gaze crawled across her face and landed on her eyes. “I’ve done nothing to her, and she did this anyway.”
Anna squeezed his hand. “She called you soulless, David. She has ridiculous opinions.”
He froze.
“Andwrongopinions,” she added.
