“You aren’t?”
“I want to. But I won’t.”
He met my gaze and I could see the question in them even though he wasn’t asking it. I answered anyway.
“Because I’m better than you,” I said.
He nodded.
“You always were,” he replied.
Something about that got to me. I stepped toward him, almost shaking with rage, eyes narrowing as I pressed a finger against his chest.
“No,” I ground out, my voice wavering more than I'd hoped. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to say that like you ever believed it, like everything is fine now because you’ve changed and we aren’t the same people we were. You tried to destroy me, Dante. And in a way that you’ll never possibly understand, you succeeded.”
With that, I turned on my heel and left him in that tent, chained and burdened. He wasn’t my problem. Not anymore.
I stormed back toward my own tent, fists clenched, dodging the people of the encampment as they tried to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives after the unprovoked attack theGeisthad delivered last night. I hadn’t slept, having spent all night helping any way I could and scheming withZyaaboutthe best way to turn our fury about the ambush into a way to convincePrimato attack Sanctuary in turn. I’d told myself I wasn’t avoiding my tent. I was just busy helping clean up after the attack. But that wasn’t true and, as I reached the edge of camp to see those three familiar tents nestled just far enough away from everyone else to give us some semblance of privacy, my steps faltered and I found myself quite unable to breathe.
“Did you kill him?” a familiar voice drawled, low and smooth. Velvet.
I didn’t have to turn to know it wasGryfonemerging from the shadows between tents nearby.
“No,” I answered, staring at the tents before me and the silhouettes moving within the middle one.
“You probably should have.”
“I know.”
He fell silent as he settled in beside me.
“Why aren’t you withPrimaplanning the battle?” I asked.
“She’ll be alright without me. She’s got to talk to the humans anyway. Besides, seemed like you needed me more this time.”
At that, I pulled my gaze away from the tents and peered up at him. His piercing blue eyes met mine and my lips parted. They were intense, like ice, and beautiful. It was hard to look away from them.
“You backed me up,” I said then, my voice barely above a whisper. “Back there withPrima. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you would call our plan foolish, brazen, and reckless.”
“It is foolish, brazen, and reckless,” he answered. “But we haven’t gotten anywhere in the last two thousand years with safe and wise.”
I just watched him for a moment, considering.
“You’re a shit general,” I said.
His snort of surprise turned to a dark chuckle that made me smile.
“Probably,” he replied with a shrug.
“And if you think I’ve forgiven you for flinging that knife atZya—”
“Zyawas never in any real danger.”
“It would have struck her right in the chest if I hadn’t stopped it.”
“But you did.”
My brow furrowed in confusion.
