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Morana thought about Amara, about the torture she had resisted and survived for days at the hands of enemies, and realized how truly lucky she had been in comparison. She'd never been abducted, never been tortured, never been violated like so many other women in their world. And she wondered why. Was it because of her father? Or some other reason?
"My sister loved the rain."
The softly spoken words, in that husky, rough voice of whiskey and sin, broke through her thoughts.
And then the words sank in, stunning her. Not just because it was something supremely private he'd shared with her, but because of the deep, deep love she could hear in his tone.
She'd not thought him capable of the kind of love she heard in his voice, not for anyone. And that's what stunned her. Morana didn't turn to look at him, didn't even glance at him as he didn't at her, but her hands pressed into the glass, surprise
coursing through her at his words, even as it confused her.
She swallowed, her heart pounding. "I didn't know you had a sister," she spoke in the same soft tone, never looking away from the view.
Silence.
"I don't anymore."
And the flat tone was back. But Morana didn't believe it. She'd heard that warmth, heard the love. Even he couldn't snap back to that detached mode that quickly. But she didn't call him out on it for some reason.
They sat in the complete darkness, facing the sky and the city and the sea, facing the quick droplets that fell in sync with heartbeats, the silence between them not thick but not brittle either. Just silence. She didn't know what to make of it.
Her mouth opened before she could think about it.
"My mother loved the rain."
A pause.
"I thought you had a mother."
A familiar knot constricted her throat. "I don't anymore."
She felt him glance at her then, and turned her head, her eyes locking with deep, deep blue. Something dark flashed in his eyes again and he looked away.
Morana swallowed. "Why did you want me to stay here?"
He sat there, not tensing, not looking at her, his gaze outwards. Silence.
"Dante was right. I could have been safe, comfortable there," she told him quietly.
"You are safe and comfortable here," he told her in an equally quiet voice, the words heavy with meaning.
"For tonight."
"For tonight."
Morana looked back out the window, seeing the rainfall, hearing it clap against the glass as she sat a foot away from him.
They sat in that utter darkness, with a kind of silent truce that she knew would lift the moment the sun came out, a silent truce they would never acknowledge in the light of the day, a dark stolen moment against a glass wall that she would remember but never speak of.
She would remember it because, in that moment, something inside her shifted. Shifted utterly, because in that moment, the enemy, the man who hated her more than anything, had done what no one had ever done.
In that moment, the man who'd claimed her death had given her a glimpse of life by doing something he probably didn't even realize he'd done.
In that moment, the enemy had done what no one had ever even tried to do for her.
He had made her feel a little less lonely.
The moment would be over when the sun came out.
