When Reynner said nothing, Aethan nodded and stepped back. His jaw tight, he strode back to his mate. “Echo, I’ll wait for you in the car.”
The pain on his friend’s face was exactly like the one he’d seen eons ago when Ariana lay bleeding on the fields. It cracked through Reynner’s walls.
“You did nothing!” The words tore free. Rage, guilt, and self-loathing ate at Reynner like acid.
Eve stepped closer. But he couldn’t look at her. She’d seen enough of his hideous past, now she’d know more. Yet he couldn’t stop. “Did you not think if I hadn’t taunted you into a damn useless fight, that tragedy wouldn’t have occurred?”
Aethan dismissed his verbal deluge with a shake of his head. “How could you have known that I’d had an argument with my sire when I met you on the training fields? I needed an outlet, it’s why I accepted the challenge.”
Urias, his friend was still so fucking honorable and godsdamn blind. “I started that fight,Ishould have been the one banished.”
“Why? Ariana died by my sword—”
“Because of me—me!” Reynner swallowed hard. Unable to look at Eve and see the condemnation in her eyes for being responsible for the death of a child, he said in a voice gone numb, “Eve, call me when you’re ready to leave.”
Then he stalked past his friend and left the studio.
***
Eve had no idea what had happened. It was obvious Reynner and Echo’s husband knew each other. But the pain from both men, their emotions, overwhelmed her.
She had to go find Reynner, see if he was all right. How much more could one person take? Being captured by a vicious demoness and tortured. Then meeting a friend after so many millennia, who, by all she’d seen, mattered very much to Reynner. And she’d seen, too, the gut-churning anguish beneath the guilt. He’d looked as if his heart were being ripped apart.
“I’m so sorry,” she told Echo. “Can we do this another day?”
The younger woman nodded, her bicolored eyes clouded with anxiety. “I think it’s best. Aethan, let’s go.”
When he didn’t respond, she stroked his arm and said softly, “He’ll come around. He just needs time after seeing you again.”
The tall man pulled his gaze from the empty doorway through which Reynner had vanished. He reached out, brushed a hand in a tender gesture over Echo’s hair. “He blames himself,” he said. “I didn’t expect that. I know better than anyone what self-hatred can do to one’s soul.”
Echo stroked his chest as if easing old pains then she hugged him.
A pang of envy struck Eve, a longing for what the couple had. She pushed her yearning aside and walked out into the stifling heat. Stopping on the sidewalk near the sleek, black Lamborghini parked there, she searched for Reynner. Up the street, few people were about. She glanced down, and there in the shadows of a narrow thoroughfare she saw him standing, head lowered.
She sprinted across. “Reynner?”
His looked up, his hunted expression shutting off. “Not now, Eve. Go back inside.”
As if she’d let that stop her. She was coming to understand this complicated man. He was hurting, he could hide it all he wanted, but she knew. He needed her.
“No. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“You shouldn’t worry about me. I’m not worth it.”
She didn't agree. He’d walled up his emotions—retreated again, showing the world the cold, hard man she’d first met.
Well, she refused to stand by and watch him further destroy himself.
“You may be all big and strong, terrify demoniis and Darkreans, but you need someone right now. Let me be there for you.”
Reynner shut his eyes at her words, then with unerring accuracy, he reached out and hauled her to him and held on tight, as if afraid she’d disappear. He buried his face in her hair. “You know what I am—what I’m responsible for. Why aren’t you running?”
“How could I when you’re hurting?” she whispered. “Besides, from what I’ve heard, it was an accident.” Eve pressed her face into his neck and hugged him back, breathing in his intoxicating scent and soaking in the sheer wonder of being in his arms.
After a short blissful moment, she asked, “Who is he?”
His hands stroked her back. “Can you not see the similarity?”
