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51
ILARION
I’m accustomed to always winning. I know what it feels like, even when I tell myself it’s necessary for survival. There’s pride attached to the feeling, and a deep-seated sense of satisfaction that few other things can rival.
I suppose, logically, I know that Taylor isn’t wrong. I do have the upper hand here—and we both know I’m going to win this argument.
So why doesn’t it feel that way?
All I can do is stand here, staring back at her with my face wiped clean of any real emotion and give her cold, robotic answers that do nothing but make her despise me more.
Normally, I wouldn’t give a damn. But today, there’s a gnawing in my gut that tells me Idocare. I care what this firestorm of a woman thinks of me.
And not just because she’s carrying my baby.
No matter how many times I throw that fact between us like a smokescreen.
I walk to the corner of the room and pour her a glass of water from the pitcher. She looks at me incredulously when I offer it to her.
“Drink,” I tell her. “It’s not poisoned. You watched me fill it.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Yes, you are.”
She hesitates for a moment and then she takes the glass of water. Her first sip is tentative. She finishes it with her second.
“Fine,” she mumbles as she wipes her wet lips with the back of her hand. “Maybe I was a little thirsty.”
“Battle does that to you.”
She glances at me through her long lashes. “You seem used to it.”
“This war with the Bellasios has been brewing for a long time.”
Her brow ripples with curiosity, but she refrains from asking anything else. Instead, she mutters, “I can’t believe Celine’s okay with all this.”
“Give her more credit. She’s tougher than you think.” But even as I say that, a whole new gnawing in my gut joins the first. I’ve now seen both sisters in the heat of battle, under intense stress and life-threatening situations…and one handles it far better than the other.
One is fit for this life.
One is barely clinging onto it.
“Being opposed to violence doesn’t make you weak,” she says. “It makes you moral.”
“And there’s no way an angel like Celine could possibly love a demon like me?”
“Your words. Not mine.”
I smile. “Do you want more water?”
“No,” she says, before tacking on a grudging “thank you” at the end.
I set the glass down on a nearby end table. “I can understand your concern for your sister. And you’re right: I don’t love her.” Her eyes grow wide, but she doesn’t interrupt me. “But the truth is, I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone.”
“It’s human nature to love,” she says, looking as though she’s surprised even herself with that statement.
“Maybe so, but it’s not in my nature.”
