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“He what?” Cassia cried.
“Ask Mak and Lyros for their professional opinions. I made a move I knew Lio was capable of evading. The same punch he’d already dodged twice. He had the time, opportunity, and skill to avoid the blow, and I fully expected him to. He chose not to, although he was near victory.” She plucked at her scarf. “He removed the artifact that shields my mind. He could have used thelemancy to win.”
Cassia gave her sister an incredulous look. “No one saw fit to explain to me that your scarf is a powerful artifact that negates his magic? What in the Goddess’s name has given you two the idea that I am to be a clueless spectator in this contest between you?”
Solia opened her mouth, then paused. “We are both trying to protect you.”
“‘Keeping a woman tucked away from danger is no way to keep her safe.’” Cassia quoted her sister’s words back at her. “I’ve had enough. From both of you. Do not ask me to decide whether I’m angrier at you for putting a burning fist in his face or at him for letting you! He already nearly died for me. Isn’t that enough?”
Solia’s eyes flashed, although her voice was calm. “All I have seen him do is nearly kill you.”
“Is that what this is about? Punishing him for my Craving?”
“I am your elder sister. It is not in me to tolerate any threat to you, even—especially—this.”
“Lio didn’t choose to inflict the Craving on me!”
“He chose to drink from you. Every Hesperine knows the risk. Why do you think Karege has never acted on his love for Tuura all these years? She could never transform to be with him without giving up her ancestral magic.”
Cassia sucked in a breath. “That’s why Karege never does more than flirt with Tuura?”
To remain human, never knowing if you were your Hesperine’s Grace, was among the worst fates she could imagine. One that had almost been her own.
“Grace has consequences for mortals,” Solia said, “and some Hesperines are willing to think about that before they unsheathe their fangs.”
Cassia’s arm tightened on Lio. “You have no idea, Solia. You cannot imagine how careful Lio was with me. How patiently he waited for me to ask him for that first bite. We didn’t think we had a future together. All we knew was that we had that moment. The only time in my life I had ever felt safe letting someone close to me. A Hesperine’s bite was the only thing in the world that could have saved me from that isolation.”
Solia looked away. “I can imagine, Cassia. How do you think I felt when I met a wind mage who could snuff out my unruly fire spells?”
Cassia had known Tendo was the only person who could spar with Solia without getting burned. But she had never considered the other implications. Now it made sense. He was also the only man Solia could lose control with. “Tendo made you feel safe for the first time.”
“But that was…reversible.” Solia’s voice was toneless. “Unlike Grace.”
“You cannot actually believe that the way you and Tendo still love each other is in any way reversible. Are you saying you don’t feel as if you’re starving every day you must live without him?”
“This is not about Tendo and me!”
“Is it, Solia? No one will blame you if seeing Lio and me together makes you miss the man you love. Goddess knows we’re trying to drag that stubborn vulture here to see you.”
Solia flattened her hands on the coffee table. “Of course this isn’t about that. You think I would let my own past get in the way of your happiness? I want you to have love. I want to be happy for you.”
“Then why aren’t you?” Cassia wanted that more than anything. And yet it had never felt farther out of reach.
Solia sprang to her feet as if she could not bear to sit still among Orthros’s luxuries an instant longer. “I want you to get to decide your own destiny. Not for it to hinge on every twitch of some Hesperine’s fangs! Your freedom is worth more than anyone with a cock!”
Cassia glared at her sister. “He isn’t just anyone, and he certainly isn’t a cock-brained man from Tenebra. He helped me gain my freedom.”
“How can you say that, when all your life decisions from now on must depend on him? Your destiny is no longer your own. You are not free to choose your legacy.”
“You’re still convinced Lio is the reason I abdicated? How can you think that of me—that I would give up all my own desires and goals for a male?”
“I know you would never do that…unless you had no choice. Unless you would die without him.”
Cassia shook her head. “You don’t understand. Lio nearly died to give me a choice.”
“I know he helped you defeat the Collector so the necromancer wouldn’t take you from Orthros. All that proves is that Lio wanted to keep you.”
“I’m not talking about the battle with the Collector.”
