“There are no easy choices in war.”
The nerve. Choices. There had never been an easy choice in my Ancestors-damned life.
“This is no choice at all,” I spat. “I will protect Annwyn. Not sentence its subjects to death.”
Arran’s eyes were burning now, but not with desire. With challenge.
Trust me.
Two words, so soft, so secret, I could pretend I had not heard them at all.No.
My mate hardened before my eyes. Inside of me, there was no warmth, no brush of his beast. Only the howling void as he stared me down with those fathomless black eyes and said, “You do not understand.”
Something broke inside of me. It felt a whole lot like my heart.
“Ido not understand?”
81
VEYKA
We were alone. Suddenly. Finally.
A few measly feet separated us, and yet I could have sworn we stood on opposite sides of the void. Arran had played nice. So had I. But it was always going to come to this.
“You are afraid,” he said. No accusation. A truth given, by the male who could see into my soul as easily as his own.
Given and received.
“Of course, I am.” My voice did not shake. The last hour had been a tempest, and now I stood in the eye of the storm. “Every day, every minute in your presence is a reminder of what I stand to lose.”
Tell me I have not lost you. Tell me that you love me.
But my mind was silent. A howling void.
Arran, my Arran, looked at me as if he were trying to figure me out. As if he did not know or understand me at all.
He shook his head slowly, dark locks nearly freed from the que at the back of his head. “You are queen. You cannot be selfish—”
“Do not dare. Not you. Not after all of this.” My restraint was slipping. My sanity. The void was calling and soon I would go.“Everything I have done has been for Annwyn. Even at the cost of you.”
A low growl. “I do not understand.”
My heart was already broken. What did it matter if I smashed it into a few more pieces?
“What if I had not left?” I whispered. “What if the first thing you’d seen upon waking in Avalon had been my face?” I had asked myself those questions again and again. Sleeping, waking, with every inhale and exhale, I asked the Ancestors and the void, “Would you have remembered?”
He stared at me, assessing. A battle to be fought, a foe to be unraveled. Not his mate or his love.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
Neither did I. But I supposed it did not matter. I reached for the dagger on the table, angled my leg so the scabbard strapped to my leg was visible and slid it home. My fingers grazed over the jeweled scabbard, so intricate. One of the sacred trinity. Important. But useless to this moment, and to my true fate.
I could not bring myself to meet Arran’s eyes as I said, “It is my fault.”
“You could not have known. Not with the scabbards.”
It was an easy mistake to make. I was touching one, after all. “Not that. Yes, that, actually.”
