Chapter 28
Allie
“You have a strange habit of threatening me with sharp things,” he rumbled, the vibrations coursing from his throat, through the dagger, up my hand, and straight into my heart.
After an entire day of fretting, cursing, and trying to ignore that awful pressure building inside of me, just being in the same room as him stole the breath away from me.
Those few sips of wine hadn’t helped, either.
The room felt too hot, he was too infuriating, and I was too enraged.
I’d kept my emotions as fastened as I could, but they were threatening to spill out with every cold word I wanted to roar.
“I do. If only it made a difference.” I sighed dramatically. Anything to disguise the splinter in my chest. “But you keep hiding things from me.”
The dagger’s blade scraped his neck–not hard enough to pierce that precious skin of his, but slow enough to leave an angry red mark behind–reaching the tip of his chin.
There was no fear in his eyes, but his nostrils flared.
“Do you really want to kill me?” he asked, sounding resigned.
“Gods, no.” Despite my anger, even the idea of it made me recoil. I didn’t move the weapon, though. “We still need you to win the war.”
Hurt sparked in his eyes.
I told myself to be glad of it.
“It stings to only be viewed as a pawn, doesn’t it?” I bit out. “To not have control.”
“I have given you all the control I can,” he said, disappointed. So very human.
“I’m not talking about me,” I hissed. Though I didn’t feel in control, I still had enough sanity to recognize Silas was my true enemy.
But what good was an ally who kept such secrets?
“Evie had no clue what was waiting for her when she agreed to marry your Dragon. I didn’t, either. Because you didn’t say anything.”
The Dragon had broken Evie’s heart, but Ryker had been the one to break my trust.
He sighed, long and hard.
“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” he said, half-hopeful, half-dreading.
“Oh, I would have,” I said without a hint of doubt.
I’d wrestled with the thought since I’d closed the palaver. I could smell the political machinations from miles away and I hadn’t detected any lie when Ryker had told me it would protect Evie.
An ugly truth, but the truth all the same.
He shook his head. “Then…”
“Then what’s the problem, right?” I laughed grimly. “I didn’t do it. You did. It’s quite the pattern, Commander.”
I gripped the dagger tighter, staying my hand. I was furious, not insane.
“See, you keep hiding secrets and then just expect me to tolerate it. You get to do whatever you want and I get to accept it.”
His eyes sparked with fury. “That is not what I want–”
“It’s what you did. I’m holding the embodiment of it to your throat.” I angled the dagger, tipping his chin even further.
It curled my stomach to hold the dagger which had killed my father to his throat. I still did it anyway.
Perhaps because I knew I wouldn’t wound him.
Or maybe because I wanted him to feel even a shred of my fear and hurt.
“That was different,” he said.
“Yes. You hid this dagger before you said you’d always be there for me,” I said, the last words furious. I licked my lips. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of my emotions. I already felt like they poured out of me when I was around him.
Realization finally sparked in his gaze. “That’s why you’re hurt.”
“I’m furious. We were supposed to be on the same side.”
“We are,” he argued, voice rising.
“No. There’s your side, and there’s mine. You’ve made that very obvious,” I spit the words out, no matter how much they pained me. “But it’s good that we know now. Better the harsh truth than whispered lies. And here’s another truth and I hope you get it this time.”
I grabbed the back of his head.
He let me.
In fact, he let me orchestrate this entire display, though he could have frozen me where I stood with that menacing power of his.
I brought our faces together until I could feel his breath ghosting across my cheek.
“I am not some meager little thing who will always understand,” I said fiercely.
“I will not live my life at the outskirts of anyone else’s decisions.
I have honed myself into a being whose name is whispered in all corners of Malhaven.
We may be forced to marry, but I will not be relegated as a secondary character to your existence. ”
My words ricocheted off the stone walls.
I heard the hurt in them.
They almost sounded like a wail.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The apology didn’t waver. “That my actions and decisions have made you think you are not important–especially to me–and that you’ve been relegated to someone whose only role is to support and forgive.”
A flicker of warmth threatened to pass my shield of hurt. He’d struck right to the heart of the matter, didn’t he?
I wasn’t an endless pool of support and forgiveness, nor did I want to become one.
But an apology didn’t rewrite the past and it held no guarantees for the future.
“We both need someone strong by our side. Otherwise, I would have let the sorrow swallow you.” Shadows crowded his sparking eyes.
“I never have nor will I ever see you like that. You think I don’t know you.
I do. You’re more disappointed now than when I revealed the dagger because someone you care about got hurt. ”
My breathing turned shallow.
He was seeing me.
But too late–and not enough.
“And I kept that from you.” His tongue darted out to lick his lower lip, remorseful and hesitant, but not backing down. “I have betrayed your trust. But I need you to pay attention.”
He leaned forward, completely unbothered by the blade at his throat. My heart trembled in tune with my breaths.
“You’re my partner. My equal in every way. And I should have honored that, not made you think, even for a second, that you weren’t. I regret that I hurt you. I should have found a way–” He sucked in a breath, as if steadying himself. “But I had to keep the truth of the wedding a secret.”
The barest warmth which had begun to bloom inside of me froze once more.
“Blood oaths were involved. The kind that could ruin the Blood Brotherhood,” he said gently.
“Your heart is amazing and I’m glad this world hasn’t yet cleaved it out of you.
But if you would have known, you would have warned the Lost Daughter.
The same Lost Daughter who is in the Capital where Banu and Valuta reside in. She needed to be protected.”
“At the price of her heart?” And mine.
“Yes.”
“So she’s just the sacrificial lamb?”
He clenched his jaw. “No. She will be the Blood Brotherhood queen. She will rule.”
Hope fluttered in my chest. I squashed it down. Hope had a weird way of hitting me where it hurt worst.
I frowned. “What about Banu and Valuta’s daughter? She has the crown.”
“For now,” was all he said.
Alarm bells rang in my ears.
I pursed my lips to keep from yelling. “What does that mean?”
“I cannot reveal more,” he said and it seemed to physically pain him. I told myself to rejoice. I couldn’t. “This way, everyone, especially your cousin, will be safest, I promise you. Nobody can know. Especially not the Lost Daughter–”
“Her name is Evie.” I bared my teeth. “And you will respect her. Not because she is now your queen and could raze this whole crater to the ground if she wanted to, but because she’s my cousin.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” he said with absolute certainty.
“No. But don’t try one of the most powerful women in all of Malhaven. Do not mistake kindness for weakness.”
“Respect is earned,” he said.
“It can also be destroyed much easier.” I dragged the blade away from his throat, trying to ignore the red point I’d left on his skin, and rose above him. “And you have lost mine.”
I saw the hope shattering in the sparks erupting from his eyes. But I turned around, willing myself to be glad of it.
The game was over.
We’d both lost.
As I raised my leg to jump off the table, he rushed and caught me in his arms, twirling me around.
My lips parted in surprise as I looked up at him. All his carefully choreographed calm had splintered, leaving behind only the same wildness which beat through me. My soul instantly recognized his.
“We’re not doing this again,” he said, voice leaving no room for argument, even as I heard the break in it. “You want to fight, we fight. We don’t stomp away and pretend the problems don’t exist.”
I stared up at him, this big, fearsome warrior, the one they called the Shadow, because nobody really knew him.
Neither did I, not really.
He was steady when I stormed.
Controlled, when I wanted the world to shake in tune with my wounded soul.
But he was the one who wounded it.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to work,” he went on, just as unflinching, and, for once, I found myself not eager to talk back. “You tell me something’s bothering you, I try to do better. Hopefully you’ll do the same for me.”
“Your mother must have been an amazing lady,” I said before I could stop myself. Then, quieter, bitter, “It’s easy to ask for absolution when you’re in the wrong.”
“Since you told me you would have done the same thing, I guess we’re both in the wrong.” His eyes trailed over my face, as if wanting to memorize the perfect image of me to keep him steady and sane. “And this isn’t about absolution. It’s about us. I don’t want us to devolve into bitterness.”
“I don’t care about what you want.”
“The same thing as you,” he said with absolute conviction. His arms tightened around me. “We can’t expect the silence to magically fix everything. ”
I stared up at him, dumbfounded. “You’re the one who chose silence first.”
He worked his jaw for the longest time. I could almost feel the words bubbling on the tip of his tongue.
“Really?” he bit out, finally.
“Yes!”
“And the whole escaping-in-the-back-of-a-cart was just your way of keeping me on my toes?”
My chin tilted as high as it could go. “I didn’t know you then. You were just an asshole from an enemy Clan who brought me here. For all I knew, you’d kidnapped me and told me lies to keep me complacent.”
“I didn’t lie,” he said simply, unflinchingly, as our breaths intertwined, each of them feeling like a negotiation.
“No, you didn’t,” I admitted, hating the way my skin loved how his breath ghosted over my forehead. “But you were a stranger.”
Sadly, a stranger who’d had more compassion for me than my whole Clan.
“I’m not anymore,” he said.
“Exactly!” I pushed against his chest, my anger too big to be contained. He stepped back, letting me pace through the room I’d shattered. A pang of remorse pulled at my heart, but I ignored it. “I opened myself in front of you, as much as I could, and you shut me out!”
I couldn’t hide the sadness coating my shaky words anymore. I wondered if I had before, and he’d just done me the courtesy of pretending I was still as fierce as I wanted to be.
He kept one hand on the table I’d ruined, not moving, brow furrowed. Not in anger, but in concentration.
“What about Dax?” he asked at last.
It was my turn to frown. “What about him?”
“He knows too much and moves too well for someone who’s supposed to waste his existence at party after party. Have any idea why?”
Dax had been as obnoxious as possible in Ryker’s presence, but he’d still seen through the facade. Back in the armory, he’d let the question dissipate.
Not anymore.
As my stomach dropped, his gaze didn’t let me go.
“It’s not the same,” I argued.
“Do enlighten me why.”
“Because you not knowing Dax’s secrets won’t break anybody’s heart.” I hated how my voice broke. “It’s the same as me not knowing why Nadya is always scowling or why Geryll insists on torturing himself.”
“Nadya’s been through too much,” he said fiercely. Good. At least he protected them. “Geryll, too.”
“So has Dax,” I said softly.
He huffed a laugh. “You know what we’re doing here?”
“Bleeding our souls dry?”
“Arguing over how we protect other people’s secrets.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is insane.”
“No. We’re arguing because we don’t trust each other.”
His gaze slashed to and through me. “It’s your family I don’t trust.”
“Trust me enough to know right from wrong!” The roar was finally free. “Evie would have still married your damned prince. You know why? Because she promised to do it to keep us safe. Her family. Your goddamned plan would have still worked, but she wouldn’t have had her heart broken.”
And neither would have I. But I couldn’t say that.
“We couldn’t take the chance,” he said, now with less conviction.
“See?” I huffed a laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “You can’t have two we’s. One for them and one for me. Not like this.”
He shook his head. “It can’t be us versus them, Allie.”
“No,” I said sadly. “It’s come to you versus me. There’s no middle ground to be had here.”
“We make our middle ground,” he said fiercely.
“How?” I heard the plea in my own voice.
“You said you would have done the same,” he said with the desperation of a drowning man.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I didn’t have any more fight left in me. “Because my cousins and I, as opposed to your precious Brothers and Sisters, don’t go around betraying you.”
“That is unfair,” he argued. “That wedding had been planned before we’d ever met.”
I huffed a laugh that sounded like a bite. “Fair? You still won’t tell me the whole truth and ask me for empathy?”
“I ask for trust.” His desperation grew. “From one leader to another.”
“You won’t get it. Not from me.” My heart cracked. “Not anymore.”
I turned my back and didn’t stop moving until I slammed the door behind me, leaving him alone in the dining room once more.
Only this time, I wasn’t running away.
I was leaving–and this time, he didn’t stop me.