Page 30 of Dark Night of the Soul

He turned from the window then. His gaze met mine. Steady and unflinching. “He was a Watcher.”

I swung my legs off the bed. My bare feet hit the floor with a thump as I stood.

“You weren’t going to tell me.”

“No.”

My chest tightened. “Why?”

“Because you didn’t need to know.”

Something snapped inside me. “But you came back here with blood on your shirt, and you didn’t think I’d notice? I noticed.”

His jaw muscles ticked along the edge. I was pushing him and I knew it. He said nothing.

“So, I don’t need to know when you kill someone for me?”

“I decided what needed to be done. I did it.” No hint of remorse whatsoever.

“And who made you the arbiter of that?” I demanded.

“I’m not having this argument with you again.”

His tone told me I needed to shut up and back off, but that was never an option for me. I was too hot-headed.

“Oh, right,” I said, the words searing through me. “You’re keeping me alive. You can’t lock me up and throw away the key.”

He was furious. He turned away from me, back to the window.

But I was furious, too.

“That wasn’t the first threat, Anna.”

I knew that but didn’t want to accept it. That’s why he sent Silas away. That’s why he stood guard outside the manor like a watchdog. Why he stood guard at the window now, not facing me.

“I want to stand with you, not against you,” I said, my voice quiet.

He turned to face me then, his eyes dark and dangerous like earlier in the day. “And when they use you to get to me?”

My chest went tight.

“Because they will,” he added.

And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? He hated the thought. He’d do anything within his power to stop that from happening. He’d lie to me, kill for me, without ever letting me have a say in the matter.

I stared at him for a long moment. At the man who would burn down the world to keep me breathing.

“I don’t want you deciding what I can face,” I said.

His expression didn’t change, but his eyes did. A fracture. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly,” I replied. “That’s what scares me the most.”

That he was willing to become something—someone else. Willing to cross lines without remorse. Was this the man he always was, and I never saw it?

I snatched my boots, shoving my feet into them without sitting. My hands were steady. My heart was not. Then I stomped to the door.

“If you keep fighting this war without me,” I said at the door, “you’re going to lose me, anyway.”