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I thrashed in his grip, fighting and straining to get to Calix. My love straightened in the chair, his perfect lazy grin as lopsided as his wonderful hair.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Don’t judge me, Xander. We should’ve been at the funeral. Ajax needed us. Galen needed us! Even if it took burning these fucking ward spells down, we should’ve been there.” He shrugged. “If I need a distraction to get my mind off the unforgivable betrayal to our brother, then you can just fuck off and slam the imaginary door on the way.”
“I know what today is,” snapped my captor. “Galen’s dead and you’ve got your tongue down the throat of the girl who did it. Dammit, Cal. If you had taken a break from putting that shit up your nose for one fucking minute, you would’ve connected the face to the name.” He shook me. “Aella Galanis. This is her.”
My love’s smile vanished. “Can’t be,” he croaked. His beautiful, foggy eyes sharpened. “This skinny little treat? She’s the one you’ve been ranting about? She got Galen killed?”
“Yes.”
“Calix.” I clawed the air reaching for him. “Calix, my love.”
“Get out of here.”
Calix looked into my eyes—reading my pleading, my agony, my absolute love for him.
Then he walked away.
“No! Calix, please. I—” The fog vanished. Rocking on my heels, my head smashed into his chest as those worries, concerns, and the real me exploded through the lake’s surface. “Oh my gods,” I breathed. Horror deadened my bones. “What was that?Whowas that? What did he do to me?”
“Nothing you can’t forget, since believe me, he is paying for it as we speak.” Alexander spun me around. His grip was iron around my arms. “What were you doing up here anyway? Everyone knows what goes on in the archives. Were you looking for milk or nectar, Galanis?”
Incredible that even though he kept his word to call me only by my name, he still made it sound like an insult. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let me go.”
“Sex or drugs,” he hissed. “What pain do you need numbed? On the day they put a good man in the ground, how have you made yourself the victim?”
I gaped at him. “Victim? I wasn’t looking for either of those things. This is alibrary. I came up here for a book.”
“Really?” Anger scorched through him, burning me where our skin connected. Or at least that’s what it felt like so close to his rage—his heat. “Tell me something, Aella.” He spat my name out like a curse. “Did you mean a word you said today? Are you truly sorry your ignorance and stupidity got Galen killed?”
I swallowed past the rock in my throat. “Of course I am. What do you think of me, Alexander? How could I not be sorry?”
“You weren’t sorry about the border watchers who risked their lives following you into a pack of typhons,” he dropped, tone flat. “You weren’t sorry about the man you tore to pieces.”
“That was different!” I ripped out of his hold, backing to where the torchlight didn’t reach. Anything to make it harder for him to see my filling eyes. “I had to get away, but you and the border watchers didn’t have to follow. You made your choices like I made mine. And Nico,” I cried. “How dare you throw him in my face? You know what he tried to do to me. I know you know.”
“I do know,” he said, following me into the dark. There wasn’t time to run as his hands slapped the wall on either side of me. “I’m not shedding any tears over the man, but for such a seemingly naïve, sweet little thing, neither were you.
“You ripped a person into shreds and it didn’t disturb a minute of your rest. The cool, logical calm of a killer.” Alexander bore over me, pressing me flatter against the wall. Gently, he caught a tear off the tip of my nose. “As cool and logical as this little performance. Tears on cue.”
“This isn’t a performance, Damien. Gods, what’s become of you?” I burst out. “What made you so hard and distrusting? Sometimes— Most times, an apology is an apology. And tears are just tears. I don’t relish the pain you’re in now.” I couldn’t stop myself touching his clenched jaw. “I don’t relish it, and I had nothing to gain from it. Galen’s death was such a senseless, terrible tragedy. I mourn him.”
I claimed the tear staining his finger. “I cry for him.”
He stared at me for a long time—the body molded to mine stiff and unmoving. I didn’t mistake this for passion. As he said, skin to skin made it hurt worse.
“I want to believe you, Aella. To trust his death was an accident, and not the act of the brass, unrepentant traitor you’ve always been.”
“Of course it was an accident. Why would you think otherwise?”
“Are you saying I have no reason to?”
“Yes,” I replied without hesitation.
“I can trust you to tell me the truth?”
My head bobbed. “Nothing I’ve hidden is because I’ve wanted to. I want to be honest with you. Honest with everyone.”
“Okay, Aella.” He tipped my chin—his callous both tender and scratchy on my sensitive skin. “I’m going to ask you something, and if you tell me the truth, it can all be simple from here on. You and I will know where we stand.”
