I stared at him, unable to believe he was really there, that he’d found me, and he hadn’t punched me in the face yet.
He stared back, his eyes solemn.
Perhaps she hadn’t told him to spare me.
I didn’t deserve to be spared.
“Doing okay?” he finally asked, dressed casually but still having the aura of a king. Other people in the bar seemed to know exactly who he was because they all stared at the back of his head.
“No. Is she?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “She’s been spending a lot of time with her mother.”
I nodded, glad she had someone.
I didn’t have anyone, not a single person. Everyone I’d ever known and loved had been dead for hundreds of years. I still felt like a ghost on the mortal plane, existing when I shouldn’t exist at all. Without Lily, I felt out of place. “Did she tell you?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
I studied his gaze and didn’t detect a hint of hostility. “And you don’t want me dead?”
“The way I feel about you is…complicated.”
“You should want me dead.”
“I should,” he said with a nod. “But you didn’t have to tell Lily the truth, and you did anyway. You knew the destruction it would cause and the endangerment to your relationship with Lily, but you did it anyway.” He cocked his head slightly. “I respect you for that, Callum.”
My parents had died shortly after I’d reached adulthood, and I’d been on my own ever since. I’d always had my brother, but he was more of a friend than the replacement parent. This was the first time I’d felt that feeling, like I was sitting in front of the fire with my father. Talon was my age, maybe a year or two older or younger, but he had the presence of a father as well as a king.
“I always felt like there was something missing with you, and now I feel better, knowing I have that piece.”
“I would have told her sooner, but if she knew my part in everything, she never would have trusted me to help her. The Barbarians were strong, even without my resources, and I was afraid…afraid of all the things they would do to her if she lost.” I wouldn’t tell Talon that Kennt wanted her as his bride, wanted to force her to carry his children. None of that had come to pass, but it was still scarring. “I’m sure Lily would have found a way, but my way was easier.”
He nodded like he understood.
“I meet my soul mate…and the deck is stacked against me.” I looked into my tankard, already having had one too many.
Talon said nothing to that.
“Do you think I have a chance?” My eyes lifted to look at his.
They still looked worn and empty with loss. “I don’t know, Callum. She’s taken it really hard. I’ve known her all her life, and she always picks herself right back up after she falls down. But this is different. This is the first time I’ve seen her irrevocably broken. It’s like she’s the one who’s been stabbed with a cursed blade.”
A wave of nauseating guilt hit me in the face. Most of my senses had been dulled as a servant of the underworld, but now I felt the full complexity of being human. Felt sick and weak and empty. Defeated.
I pulled the tankard closer to me but didn’t take a drink, a dull ache descending all over my body. “I wish I hadn’t told her.”
“You did the right thing.”
I gave a slight shake of my head. “It doesn’t feel like the right thing.”
Talon sat with me in silence, minutes trickling by.
“She’s the only reason I wanted a second chance at life. The only reason I wanted to live. The only reason I wanted more children. So if that’s not an option, I’m ready to pass on. My life before was brief, but my sons and their sons and their sons…are all gone. I have nothing left in this world. I could never love another woman besides Lily, so there is no reason for me to stay.”
“You haven’t returned to the villa to speak with her?”
I shook my head.
