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“You know you can ask me anything, Angel.”
And I did know that.
Jorik had never once said he couldn’t tell me something or, from what I could gather, withheld the truth. I’d been trained to detect when people were lying: the acceleration of their heart, the scent of their nervous sweat—because believe it or not, nervous sweat smelled different than other kinds of sweat—but Jorik hadn’t shown any of those signs. He held eye contact with me, smiled, and there was no unease about his posture or expression. He was open and ready to tell the truth.
Yes, he was also trained—just like me—to lie without detection, but everything inside of me wanted to believe him. I trusted him.
I trusted all of them.
“Why does Zane hate me?” I glanced up at him. “I don’t understand it.”
Jorik gave a noncommittal shrug. “I honestly don’t know. I mean, I have my theories but—”
“But what? What are your theories?”
“He doesn’t trust you.”
“I know he doesn’t,” I replied, keeping my voice to a whisper as well. “I just don’t know why.” I turned my head to face him. “Have I given you guys any reason not to trust me? I mean, I trust you. You’ve given me no reason not to.”
His sensuous lips curled up into a small, lopsided smile that brought out one of the dimples in his cheeks. But that lone dimple was enough to send a rush of warm tingles careening through my body. “I trust you, Angel. You’re right. You’ve given me no reason not to.”
That eased the strain of my heartstrings slightly. “But …”
“But Zane is the alpha on this team. He feels …is… responsible for all of us, and now he feels responsible for you, too.”
“He’s not though. I can—”
“I’ve known Zane my entire life. You can’t peel that alpha responsibility cloak off him for anything. You’re part of this team now, so he feels responsible for you.”
I made a “hmmph” noise, which just caused Jorik to chuckle.
“It is what it is, Angel. He’s three years older than us and has always taken care of us. We were raised together like brothers. Rix, Zane, Chance and myself.”
“Chance?”
His face turned dark. “There were four of us.”
Were.
He nodded. “Werebeing the operative word.”
“We were told Chance was killed …tortured… and then killed in front of us because he’d gone against orders and mouthed off to our commander. But Rix and I don’t believe that story. We can’t come up with anything better, but we know there is more to it. Zane won’t say anything, though, as hard as we’ve pressed him for more information over the years.”
“How old was he when he was…?”
“Eighteen. But I remember it like it was yesterday.”
I flipped my palm around and clasped my hand with his, squeezing his fingers. “I’m really sorry you lost your brother. I can only imagine how much that must still hurt your heart.”
And that was the truth of it. I could ONLY imagine because I’d never cared for anyone, never loved anyone to know what it would do to your heart to lose them.
Yes, I had felt guilty and sad when a tutor would be executed for answering too many of my burning questions about the real world. But I hadn’t loved those tutors. I didn’t even really care about them. I hadn’t been given the chance to care. But they lost their lives because of me, and I carried that guilt around with me daily.
Their deaths were senseless and unnecessary. They were good, kind people—or at least the kindest I’d met—and they didn’t deserve to die because they’d simply given in to my never-ending curiosity.
“Are you guysactuallybrothers?” I asked, untangling one of my hands from his and scooping up a pile of bubbles and holding them in my palm, only to blow them into the bathwater a second later.
“No. Not as far as we know. And the breeding program is pretty good about diversifying its soldier stock. We might share the same egg donor, or two of us may, but we’ve always been called ‘Team North’ or ‘The North Brothers.’ But I don’t actually know orthinkthat we’re biological. And as I’m sure you know, we can never get a straight answer out of the scientists who test on us like lab rats.”
