I shifted uncomfortably on my heels as Leo ran his fingers through his dark hair, causing a strand to fall and curl against his forehead. “Rose, I—” He let out a sigh. “Can we start over?”
I stared at him, lips parting in surprise.
He rose from his seat. “I don’t know what I did to make you dislike me so much?—”
My eyes widened in disbelief as I let out a soft snort.
“Alright, fine, I said some things I shouldn’t have. Things I didn’t mean. Rissa is always telling me…” Shaking his head, he took a step forward. “I’m sorry. It’s easy for me to get caught up in what’s at stake and what I could lose. My entire life has been focused on protecting those close to me, and it’s made me…” He trailed off, his eyes roving the air as if searching for a word.
“Obstinate?” I offered dryly.
“Determined. I know we didn’t get off on the right foot.”
I crossed my arms. “Are you referring to when you tried to choke me, or when you called me a joke?”
“You’re not so innocent in all of this, either.” He took a step closer. “Might I remind you how you cast a compulsion spell on me, then tried to attack me, then outed me to my sister for sneaking around the palace?”
My lips twitched, the cold strain from the room beginning to soften. “That last one might have been too far.”
“Not everything has been bad,” he said, quieter this time as he stopped right before me. “Ididsave your life in the forest. And healed your injury.” His eyes fell to my side, his stare burning a hole through my thin robe.
“I suppose that’s true,” I murmured back.
“I want us to work together. Not only out of necessity, but because wewantto. I may have been bitterat first about Lark and my sister giving this task to you, but that’s only because it’s something I’ve been working toward for so long. Bringing Gayl down…it’s personal to me. After everything he did to my father, everything he took from us, this isn’t just another mission.
“But I know now that it’s personal for you, too. Your uncle is under the curse. I see how resolved you are, and I think Lark chose well.” His voice was intent, focused, as he gazed down at me. He was always sointense. So powerful. It pulled me to him, like I was caught in his orbit. “Forget what you heard me say before. I was an idiot. You’re the furthest thing from a joke, Rose Wolff, and you’ll never catch me saying it again.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it, pressing my lips together. This man kept surprising me. “I’m sorry, too,” I finally said. “I haven’t made it easy for you, attacking you every time you tried to talk to me. Defensiveness is second nature to me at this point.”
“Because of the people back home?” he asked, that crease at his forehead deepening. “And the things they say about you?”
He remembered. I’d forgotten about that part of the conversation on his horse. Nodding, my eyes fell from his and onto a spot on the wall behind him.
“I’m not like them, Rose.”
I gave him a half-hearted smile. “I used to think you were. But maybe I was wrong, too.”
“So what do you say?” he asked, so close his breath warmed my cheeks. “Can we start over? Be friends?”
I met his penetrating stare, remembering all too well the sense of anger and retribution I’d had toward him after discovering Branock Aris was his father. The frustration at his enormous ego, at the way he seemed to have so little faith in me, at those backhanded comments that masked his own pride. It’s not like I didn’t have pride of my own. To an unhealthy degree. I knew he hadn’t meant those words, just as I knew the man before me wasnothis father.
This grudge I’d held, this vengeance for a man who was longdead, was a bitter excuse to keep Rissa and Leo at arm’s length. To do what I always did and drive people away. To protect myself from givingtoo muchto someone, only to lose them in the end. My mother, my father, Beth, Ragnar, even Aven—perhaps nothimpersonally, but every boy who’d seen me through the eyes of our town. A wicked little secret, a social outcast they could hide in their bed and discard when better options came along. When they found someone they could build a life with, once they had their fun with me.
I didn’t havethis. I didn’t have…friends, outside of my family and Beth, whom I only saw several times a year. The fact that Leo wanted that with me sent an unfamiliar light through my chest, stretching my walls.
Searching those deep pools before me, I tried to let that misplaced, molten well of revenge against him go.
He wanted to start over. I did, too. If I could only turn that part of me off and release this vendetta.
But I couldn’t tell him everything. I couldn’t tell him his life was the key to ending the Somnivae curse. I couldn’t tell him I was related to Theodore Gayl. What if he no longer trusted me? What if he thought I was onGayl’sside the whole time and was going to betray them?
And I couldn’t tell him that maybe, just maybe, I’d started to believe Gayl wasn’t who we thought he was.
What was one more secret? One more lie?
We see dark, hidden secrets, a deceitful tongue.For in the wake of the wicked, your poison will come.
Let it come. I’d deal with that later—right now, I wanted to take something for myself.
