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Still, I pulled my hand away from her.
Folding my right leg up farther onto the bed, I twisted more toward her. Sitting. Waiting.
Excruciating minutes passed.
That I couldn’t grab her, pull her into my body and shield her from what had happened to her was killing me—ripping my bones from my skin.
Then, the smallest sound.
“You knew.”
My fingers flicked toward her, but I stopped them before they made contact with her bare arm. My voice was just above a whisper. “What did I know?”
She didn’t turn toward me, only talked toward the far wall that was covered with a decorative wood installation, thousands of small blocks of woods in a variety of species, each in a different height jutting out from the wall. It made the wall look like it was a moving, living thing.
Her words were punctuated with deep breaths, like she had to heave each syllable out from deep in her chest just to create sound. “You knew what Cletus is—that what he is, I am. That we are the same.”
“Ada—”
“You knew.”
My hand hovered over her torso, my fingers curling into a fist I had to flex open. “I did. I knew but I didn’t—couldn’t—tell you.”
“Not tell me there was another one out there in the world like me?” In a sudden flurry, she twisted in the sheet and sat up, spinning toward me, her face tortured. “And that he was your fucking crazy-ass brother? Don’t give me that shit. You didn’t think all of that was something that I needed to know?”
My shoulders lifted, both of my hands up in the space between us, my fingers flexing back and forth, not knowing what to do as I fought hard against my guttural instinct to touch her. “I didn’t know about Cletus—about what Cletus was—until after the castle collapsed and I found him under the rubble. I was never told by my family and Cletus certainly never told me himself. You were already gone by the time I knew.”
“But then you found me. You found me and that should have been the first thing out of your mouth on Grenada. The first thing out of your mouth once you had me back at Netherstone.” Her glare skewered me. “It’s not hard.Cletus is your fucking fated mate, Ada. Is that so fucking hard?”
My lips pulled tight into a snarl. “That’s because he’s not your fucking mate. And he’s dead, just like he should be.”
“Yes. And you lied.”
“I was protecting you—I was trying to protect you.”
Her hands flew up at her sides. “From what? Because it was so much better to be strapped onto his fucking torture cross and have him tell me these things? Was that the right time to learn the truth?”
“I didn’t want to lose you, Ada.” I lost control, yelling back at her. “Not again.”
“How would you telling me about Cletus possibly lose me?”
My head dropped, from, of all things, shame.
I don’t think I’d ever felt shame in my life—I was raised to believe I had a right to the world and everything in it. Shame couldn’t exist for someone in my position.
But in this, I was shamed. I should have told her. And it was nothing more than good old-fashioned fear that had driven that cowardice.
My head shaking, I stared at the spot on the bed where the sheet crumpled up against her leg.
“I didn’t want to lose you—couldn’t bear the thought of you disappearing out into the world again where I couldn’t find you. If I had told you there was another, just the same as you, and that someone was Cletus of all people, what would you have done?” I lifted my gaze to her, my hands lifting helplessly by my sides. “Tell me you wouldn’t have run from that. Run from me. Disappeared again. You were already tortured by the thought that I was going to deliver you unto him. Even after you trusted me again, how unbreakable was that trust? Tell me you wouldn’t have run if I had told you.”
A shiver ran through the full of her body and she collapsed onto the bed, flat on her back. The butt of her palms dug into her eyes for several long seconds. Scrubbing away tears or frustration, I wasn’t sure.
Probably both.
She pulled her hands away from her face, her green eyes searching me, her voice weary. “Why do you not think you’re enough? Enough for me? Everything for me? How could you possibly not think that I would have fought to stay with you?”
My body stilled, the shiver that had just run through her echoed into my own bones.
