Chapter 38 #2
A long silence followed in which Sean merely stared, trying desperately to understand. Eventually he sighed. “I’m not sure she was ever in a cage.”
“She was. She just didn’t know it.”
Sean pressed his lips together, and he was suddenly suspicious. “Your voice. Did you force her—”
“Of course I didn’t.” David’s frozen gaze shifted into a glare.
“Then is it about your bloodline? You think you don’t deserve—”
“No. That has nothing to do with this.”
But what else could it be? Hadn’t David always been obvious about his lack of self-worth? Why else would he fall in love with someone, then immediately push her away?
Treading carefully into dangerous waters, Sean said his next words with a lightness he didn’t feel. “Do you have Galadaine’s memory of killing Lhynion?”
David flinched. “I only remember the way it felt to stab a sword into someone. Nothing else.”
He nodded, his gaze on his hands.
“Why?” David asked. “Do you?”
“Yes. Galadaine was trying to kill Meléan because she’d betrayed them both. He called her infected.”
“Infected? Like—”
“A plague? Yeah. He said, You are infected! Diseased by madness. Who is this mistress who has beguiled you? She is ripping us all apart.”
“She?”
Sean nodded. “Whatever it is, whoever it is, it’s female.”
“Not Galadaine.” David failed to hide the hope in his voice.
“No.”
“But we’re assuming it’s the same person.”
“Assumptions are all we have at this point. And I assume it’s the same woman who attacked Anna’s mind.”
David stared straight ahead, face blank while his connection to Sean electrified. “This time, I will triumph. That’s what Anna said the creature told her.”
Sean nodded. “And do you want to hear the rest?”
David blinked one, two, three times. “I’m really not sure.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway, because it’s the most important part.
Lhynion didn’t step in front of the sword to save Meléan.
She jumped out of the way, and it stabbed him.
Galadaine was so furious that he compelled her to swear her life for Lhynion’s.
He’s the reason Isobel has to pay this blood debt. ”
What?
The word zapped through their connection, and Sean heard it the same as if David had spoken it aloud.
“He didn’t lock her up out of jealousy, David.
He imprisoned her because she was serving their enemy—this mistress—and because she was the reason his brother died.
He tried to do the right thing. I don’t know how he wound up on the wrong side of the war, but I think the story is far more complicated than what they’ve told us. ”
David went utterly motionless, not even breathing.
“So this idea that you have in your head that you’re somehow undeserving of happiness simply because of the blood that runs in your veins… It’s based on a lie.”
A deafening quiet fell, several seconds of lethal stillness.
Then Sean pushed out of his chair and stood straight. “Being with her isn’t putting her in a cage if that’s where she wants to be.”
A faint, brittle smile darkened David’s face. “Any cage can be tempting if it’s dressed up enough, but it doesn’t matter how pretty it is. It’s still a cage.”
That evening, Sean’s visit to Anna was earlier than normal. The pull toward her couldn’t be denied, and he wanted the respite, the break from all the stress and anxiety.
“You’re sitting straighter,” he said, noting her unbent back as she sat in her usual chair. She appeared to have gathered some strength. Even her eyes were clearer.
“I actually feel better today,” she said with a small smile. “Maddy helped me walk from one end of the suite to the other. I think I might be able to get down to my room without falling.”
His heart sank as he dropped into the chair beside her. “Are you sure?” He hadn’t realized how much he wanted her close until she threatened to take the privilege from him.
“I’m going to try at least. Maybe in the morning. Maddy said she’d come after training.”
“Will you wait for me? I could help you.”
Her smile turned wry. “How could you help me, Sean?”
His mouth opened, but nothing emerged. Any help he might give would involve touching her—now completely taboo—and this was the closest they had come to acknowledging the change between them.
“I guess…I can’t,” he said. “But I worry about you.”
Anna looked down at her fidgeting hands. “We’ll also have to stop training together.”
He laughed once but stopped at her serious expression. “What? No.”
Her head tilted, questioning.
“We could…I don’t know. Wear gloves. And scarves.”
“Suddenly start wearing gloves and scarves to training? You don’t think that would be suspicious?”
He expelled a breath, frustrated. “We’re just friends.”
“I know.” She sank into her chair, her posture finally crumpling. “I know that. But why—”
She cut herself off, and he didn’t fill the silence.
Because that was the question, right? Why? Why did Anna feel like electric paradise? When had her skin gathered the ability to light his on fire?
Curiosities had evolved that he couldn’t ignore.
The desire to slide his hand over her neck and taste the curve of her shoulder had woken and wouldn’t go back to sleep.
Something irrevocable had changed inside him.
Before Isobel, he’d never wanted someone like this, and he’d been told that was normal for pixies.
Sexual impulses only appeared after the heart was involved, and these impulses were clear as the blue in her eyes.
When the hell had this happened?
“We can’t do this,” she whispered, sparkling eyes lifting toward his.
His gaze fell to her mouth. “We’re not doing anything.”
This shouldn’t be happening. He had Isobel. Anna had a…thing with David. Sort of. These feelings were never supposed to happen. They only existed because of a magical bond somewhere in Sean’s soul.
Right?
“Hopefully I’ll be out of here tomorrow,” she said.
“Yeah. Of course.” He swallowed and tore his gaze from her. “I should go.”
He jerked from his seat and headed toward the door, but her voice stopped him.
“Sean?”
“Yeah?” he asked without looking at her.
“Thank you,” she said, voice small, “for everything.”