Chapter Twelve #2
Her hand stilled, and she glowered up at him.
“Let me make something abundantly clear,” she said.
“I didn’t need anyone to save me, least of all you.
I have been doing this for a very long time, and I am perfectly aware of my own limitations.
” It rang hollow in the face of the sharp pain in her lungs, her own blood dripping onto the ground, and he seemed to know it.
“Are you?” he asked. “Because it looked to me like you were a few seconds away from drowning, or freezing to death, or being disemboweled by a mermaid, all because you let yourself lose control. If I hadn’t been there—”
“You shouldn’t have been.” She pulled the thread taut, clenching her teeth at the pain its tugging caused. “I told you to stay here. That’s two orders you’ve disobeyed, after promising—”
“I heard the dock collapse, and when I got down there you were gone.” The muscles in his jaw worked, and when he spoke he sounded as pissed off as she was. “Did you really expect me to sit idly by when I thought you were in trouble?”
“I expect you to let me do my job,” she spat.
“Your job isn’t to kill a few inconsequential mermaids,” he said. “Your job is to kill the Beast.”
Her expression darkened. “A job you jeopardized by not doing what I asked you to. Besides, those mermaids tried to kill Brandy. That’s not inconsequential to me.”
“Well, they didn’t kill him,” Alderic snapped. “You’re welcome, by the way. I don’t remember hearing a ‘thank you’ before you went off to turn yourself into fish food.” The anger in his voice chafed, and her own rage rose to meet it.
“You’re saying I should have just forgiven—”
“I’m saying that you should have let it go!” he shouted at her. “There’s nothing to ‘forgive,’ Lyssa—they’re animals, killing out of instinct and hunger alone! You, on the other hand, have a rational human brain inside that thick skull of yours. Maybe you should use it once in a while.”
His words hit some nerve she hadn’t even known was there. “Why do you give a shit what I do?” she shouted back.
“Because I don’t want you to die, you fucking idiot!”
For some reason, the sound of the expletive on his lips was like a slap across the face.
She blinked at him, at the redness of his cheeks, the fury flashing in his eyes.
It confused her at first, but then it hit her: if she died, it wasn’t just her own chance for vengeance that died with her. It was his, too.
And as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She had pushed herself to the very brink, skirting the point of no return without recognizing how close she was to the line.
She tied off the thread and snipped it with her scissors. “I’m sorry I scared you,” she began. “I know you need my services, and—”
“It’s one thing, dying to protect a life,” he interrupted, his eyes still blazing, his tone still as sharp as one of her knives.
“To avenge a life, even. But this? This was pointless. You didn’t kill those mermaids for Brandy.
He was already safe, thanks to me. You didn’t even do it to get the canteen back.
You did it for yourself, and no one else.
Because you were upset, and desperate to feel something other than powerless. ”
“Don’t pretend like you understand me,” she snapped, shaken by how effortlessly he had dissected her. “You know nothing about me.”
“I don’t have to,” he snapped back. “Deliberately causing harm is always about power. About control. But it’s an illusion. Let your anger consume you, and it’s only a matter of time before you lose yourself to it completely.”
“I…” She started to argue that she knew what she was doing, that all it took to wield fury like a weapon was discipline and practice, but the excuses died in her throat.
She looked down at herself, at her hands slicked with her own blood, the gaping meat of her thigh puckered with ragged stitches.
How close had she come to losing herself tonight?
To losing everything?
Alderic’s expression softened. “I understand. Believe me, I do. But being able to control your emotions—having the foresight to understand the consequences of your actions and choosing a less destructive path—is one of the gifts of being human. Rejecting that in favor of mindless rage makes you no better than those mermaids. Or the Beast.”
Lyssa flinched, his words more painful than any of her wounds. Bite marks would heal. This would drive deeper and deeper into her heart, haunting her in the darkest hours of the night.
“How dare you!” she growled, ready to lash out at him, to cut him to the bone. But then Brandy whined, pushing his nose into her hand, and her anger dissipated.
Without Alderic, the bullmastiff would probably be at the bottom of the lake right now, his bones stripped clean by mermaid teeth.
And, maybe, so would she.
The realization filled her with shame. She had been furious with Eddie for dying to protect her instead of saving himself, but she had just done something worse—she had risked her life for no fucking reason, other than because she was angry and afraid, and had learned no other way to channel those feelings than punching someone or stabbing faeries.
Alderic didn’t deserve her ire, no matter how much his words had hurt her. He was the one who had kept his head when things went sideways. She had acted without thinking, and had come dangerously close to dying on the altar of her own anger.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes on the blood-crusted fawn of Brandy’s coat. “For saving him. I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.”
“You’re welcome, Carnifex,” he said lightly, as if he hadn’t somehow managed to crack her open and expose the fetid parts of her to the harsh light of the fire.
She forced herself to look at him, her ears burning. “You dove in after him without a second thought. Why?”
“He clearly means a lot to you,” he said, his voice almost gentler than she could bear.
“He’s all I have left,” she said without thinking, then cursed herself for it.
It was the liquor and pain, the fading vestiges of adrenaline, combining in her blood to make her say things she never would have, otherwise.
But maybe she owed him some piece of herself, in exchange for what he had done.
What he had risked for her. “My mother got him for me when I was a kid. He’s all I have left of her.
Of that life,” she said, unable to suppress a shiver that had nothing to do with the frigid night or the cold lake water drying on her skin.
She felt vulnerable—naked—saying that out loud.
“You don’t have to do that,” Alderic said softly. “If you don’t want to tell me—”
“I do,” she said, surprised to find that it was true.
“Want to, I mean.” What was it he had asked her in the Morningstar?
What kind of name is Brandy, for a dog? “His name was supposed to be Bluto, but every time my father shouted for his after-dinner brandy, the dog would show up. He won’t answer to anything else.
” Alderic chuckled, and Lyssa eyed him sidelong.
“I still can’t believe you dove into a lake full of mermaids to save him for me. ”
He shrugged, looking away. “This isn’t the first time I’ve tried sacrificing myself for the greater good. The ‘sacrifice’ part never seems to take, though.”
She looked again at the scar on his throat, wondering how he had gotten it.
Wondered, too, how she could have misjudged him so thoroughly.
She had thought him weak, and he had flipped her on her ass.
Had thought him just another selfish, airheaded rich man, but he had risked his own life to save her dog’s. Had risked it again, to save hers.
No one had ever tried to save her before, except for Eddie.
He was a confusing, complicated man, and Lyssa was startled—and somewhat annoyed—to discover that she liked him a great deal.
“Is the bite on my neck deep?” she asked, and he moved closer to get a better look.
“No, but your back definitely requires stitches.”
“How are you with a needle and thread?”
“Exceptional,” he said, and she could hear the half smile in his voice.
“The star of the sewing circle, I’m sure,” she said as he fetched the other camp stool and sat down behind her.
“You have no idea.” He dabbed the wound with alcohol, then took the needle from her, brushed her hair out of the way, and began stitching her up without warning—like he knew she would have been insulted if he had given her one.
“Enlighten me, then.” Her voice was soft, almost lost in the pop and crack of the fire. For some reason, saying those words spiked her adrenaline more than being swarmed by mermaids had.
Alderic’s hand slowed for a fraction of a second, as though she had surprised him, but he recovered so quickly she might have imagined it.
“After my older brother was born, my mother was desperate for a daughter. She was incredibly disappointed when she pushed me out instead. I spent the first six years of my life in dresses, being taught embroidery, before my father came home from the battlefield and tried to undo what she had done.”
Well, that explained a lot.
“The battlefield,” Lyssa said. “You weren’t born in Ibyrnika, then?” Their island hadn’t seen war in centuries.
His hand slipped, and she sucked in a breath at the needle’s sudden jab. “Sorry,” he said. “All this blood is making things difficult. To answer your question: I was born and raised here. My father fought for another king, though.”
“He was a mercenary?”
“He was an opportunist. And, as you can see, he didn’t quite beat my soft upbringing out of me.
I landed somewhere in the middle—a tourney knight but not a military commander, a courtier but not a politician, favored by the queen’s ladies but not by the king.
I fell just short of every hope he had for me.
And thus, I managed to disappoint both parents.
” He made a little sound like a laugh, and she could feel his breath on her bare skin.