“I thought I was going to lose him,” he said, his voice muffled by my hair. “I thought —”
Ryker trembled, and I rubbed my hands up and down his arms, offering what little comfort I could.
“I thought I was going to watch my baby brother die.”
The silence that followed wasn’t suffocating; it was contemplative. It hung between us like a fragile thread, weighed down with all the words we weren’t yet ready to say.
When Ryker lifted his head to meet my gaze, I knew this was it: the answer to the question that had haunted me for decades.
Why her? Why my mother?
“There was a single, fleeting second when your father removed his hands from my brother to clap at a joke one of his comrades had made at my expense.”
Ryker’s jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t hesitate. I sent my shadows racing, wiping out every Wraith Borne in my vicinity. That’s when I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The blood-curdling scream coming from the woman standing behind my brother. I hadn’t even seen her, too focused on taking down the men torturing Riordan.”
My eyes slid shut as fresh tears streamed down my cheeks.
Ryker’s voice turned hollow. “The knife in her hand caught the light as she angled it toward Riordan’s throat.”
He exhaled slowly, his shoulders sinking with the weight of remembrance.
“I didn’t falter as I drove my shadows forward, coiling around her skull like a vise. One twist. That’s all it took.”
I couldn’t help it, I flinched.
“She would have killed him, Temptress, and while I understand you may not forgive me, I will never regret choosing my brother.”
My thoughts turned to Callum. To that hollow, gut-wrenching moment when fear had clawed its way up my throat as I felt him slipping from my grasp. I could still feel the slick warmth of his blood on my hands, the crushing doubt that had consumed me when I believed I wasn’t enough… that I couldn’t save him.
I knew what it was to stand helpless, forced to watch as the world tried to tear the one you loved the most away from you, and to feel utterly powerless to stop it.
In that instant, I finally understood Ryker. Given the same choice, my hands would be just as bloody.
I took a minute to collect myself, letting the ache in my chest settle before finding my voice.
Then my gaze returned to Ryker’s.
“I forgive you.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Ryker
Her words reverberated in my head, yet I couldn’t bring myself to believe them.
She forgave me?
My lips parted, but I didn’t know what to say. My thoughts spun, wild and uncertain.
I killed her mother. Shattered her life. Forced her into a bond she’d never wanted.
Despite all the pain I’d caused her, she just… forgave me.
My jaw worked as I searched her face, looking for any hint of a lie. But her gaze held steady.
