I glanced at the hearth, burning with a small flame licking a nearly incinerated log. The fire danced, stretching over the dead wood. For a while, it held my attention as I waited for Kole to direct the conversation. Did he wish to talk about it, or did he want me to leave things as they were? I began growing uneasy with the passing time while he sat there, getting angrier and angrier.
I turned to him. “I don’t expect you to talk to me about any of this, but I felt you should know what I have been told.” I spoke calmly, hoping that it would help to ease the growing tension in the room.
“What did he tell you?” Kole kept his attention fixed on me. His face was turning red with all that he was trying to keep bottled in. Though he was massive in size, I was pretty sure he had too much rage to keep trapped within that bulk. No amount of muscle or strength could contain such radiating painful fury for very long, and I was confident that my answering his question would only fuel the flame. It was going to spill out of him.
“He said that you and Eislyn were to be mated. That his sister was jealous of no longer having your attention, and so she kissed you, but Eislyn saw,” I said, deciding to give him the quickest version of the story I could come up with.
Kole snorted. “Yeah, she saw alright. And did he tell you what happened next?” His words grew bitter.
My heart rate increased.
“He said you found her in a bed with another,” I answered.
A cruel smile found its way to Kole’s lips, and he appeared genuinely terrifying. “Yes. She could not wait to destroy me.” His nostrils flared as if he couldn’t pull enough air into his lungs.
There was so much pain hidden within him.
I contemplated leaving Kole to himself. Even though he remained seated, his breathing pattern changed, becoming shallow. His eyes grew cruel, and his demeanor cold. Never had I felt such potent rage coming from him. His hands, which were balled into fists, were turning white. The small room buzzed with violent energy, and it felt as though the slightest thing could set it off into an explosion. Under normal circumstances, I did not think Kole would ever have harmed me but seeing him that way was uncomfortably precarious.
I should have left. Instead, I found myself asking, “Why do you think she wanted to destroy you?”
“How should I know? To show a force of power. To hurt me for disrespecting her.” His words were a growl on his lips.
“Did you disrespect her?” I asked, keeping my voice low and calm, hoping it would somehow keep him from losing control of that rage even though I was diving deeper into his pain.
“No,” he said angrily. “At least that was not the intent.”
I nodded, allowing for silence to fall over us.
Several heartbeats later, he elaborated, as if needing to fill the silence. “I had always been infatuated by Iona. It was a childish emotion. But when I opened my heart to Eislyn, I believed I had truly met my person. She became my world, and I loved her. Then Iona did a stupid thing. That kiss was everything I had wanted for so long, yet at that moment, it was the last thing I wished for. Should I have pushed her away sooner? Probably. But I was shocked by the entire thing. And she is a freaking royal and a friend. So, what is the proper way to respond in that situation?”
“Did you explain these thoughts and feelings to Eislyn?” I was digging deeper, and though Kole was visibly upset, he let me.Despite the rage and hurt he felt by reliving these vulnerable moments, some part of him must have craved to share them.
“I was giving her time to calm down. She was so angry, lost her mind. And then I walked in on her . . .” He did not have to finish, for I knew how that ended. Both of them felt the same way, too blinded by bitter anger to see the love and pain that fueled their actions.
“And you believe that Eislyn did that to hurt you and take back power?” I repeated what he had told me her reason was for doing what she did.
“Don’t you?” he asked defensively.
“I do not know her reasons for her actions, for she did not share them with me. But I would like to propose a possible alternative.” I waited for him to either accept or refuse the choice.
“What?”
“If I had found the person who I believed was my other half in life, if there was one person who I felt truly safe within this wild cruel world above anyone else, then I would love and cherish that bond above all else. If I then caught them doing something that went against everything I believed we were—even if it wasn’t intended as a betrayal—well, in a fury of pain, I may have seen it as such. Suddenly, the safest thing about my world becomes the most dangerous and painful. That would be incredibly frightening. And if that person then withdrew from me, turned their back on me when I felt most vulnerable and did not wish to try and explain, I would be left heartbroken. I may even then ensure that I would never feel such pain again by doing something that would force all ties to be cut with that person who is now far too dangerous to be in my life.”
His brows furrowed, gaze falling to the ground in thought. “You think she did what she did . . . to protect herself?” Suddenly some of that anger that had no end lost its force, and a trace of sadness moved through him.
“I have no idea why she reacted the way she had. That is something only she can answer for you, just as only you can answer for her the questions she must also carry as to why you did not try and come to her sooner.”
“But she hates me.” Though it was said as a statement, there was clear doubt there.
“Do you hate her?” I asked.
He was silent.
“Or do you hate that she hurt you?”
Kole’s head began to shake as if he could not bring himself to believe what I was saying.
