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The question flew out of her mouth, direct and harsh. “The day of the fire, you held a torch, Roe—I saw it with my own eyes. Did you set flame to my family’s farm? Were you with those bastards? Did you kill my family? Or am I wrong?”
{ Chapter 10 }
The guttural question had come out sharp, but so easily from her lips.
The one question she’d been wanting to ask him for days, but had been too afraid to do so. Afraid for his answer, or afraid she wouldn’t believe him, she wasn’t sure.
But this was the moment.
After what she’d just witnessed, death closing in on her and then Roe appearing, bursting into the vestibule, a violent storm that laid waste to the threat on her life. His face—fury and panic and brutal, unmistakable rage that was directed at the brute about to hurt her. A one-man force of enraged demon warriors coming to save her.
To see him like that should have scared her to the marrow of her bones. To see what he was capable of.
It didn’t.
For it hadn’t just been about keeping her safe. It was about her. About the way he looked at her as the brute slumped to the floor between them.
The heat—the raging mania that had been in his eyes. It was suddenly incredibly clear. For some twist of fate she couldn’t explain, she was his world.
His world.Her.
There was no denying it, nor was there a shadow of doubt that he would die for her.
A truth she could barely begin to process before she had to pull the trigger on the other brute charging at Roe’s back.
She’d never killed a man, never even considered her life would deem it necessary. But there wasn’t the slightest hesitation of her finger on the trigger. Nor regret.
If Roe was going to keep her safe, she was damn well going to keep him from harm as well.
In those seconds, the hatred that she’d harbored for years for Roe had splintered into fine threads—wisps that she could no longer grasp a hold of, no longer clench to her gut to nurture the fury.
What if she had been wrong all these years?
She hadn’t wanted to admit to that possibility, but she couldn’t look at Roe another second without considering the very thing that could help her release every stitch of hostility she had toward him.
This was the moment she needed to know the truth. This was the moment she knew she would hear it.
Had he killed her family?
Roe’s lips pulled tight, disappearing in a thin line for a long second. One. Two. Three.
Her breath held, she couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop the torture of the moment until he opened his mouth.
“I told you I would never say it again.” The words from his lips slow, rough.
Her eyes closed for a long breath. “I need to hear it, Roe.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I need to hear it now—in this moment—now that I can listen.”
His dark grey eyes pierced her, his look not veering from her eyes as he shook his head. “I didn’t do it. The torch was put in my hand by their leader when I arrived. And he put a pistol into my back. But no. I never made one step with the torch toward the farm. I wasn’t with them. I never was. I was there for the smuggled barrels we were storing there. That was all.”
“You were only a smuggler?”
“I was.”
“Not a murderer?”
His eyes closed as a pained look crossed his face.
“Not a murderer?” she repeated, her voice lifting in desperation that she hated to hear in her own words.
