Grateful to be awayfrom the castle, though her insides remained in a tight knot, Leya selected a lavender-hued cookie.
The apparition had left her shaken.
It wasn’t so much reliving her mother dying but seeing Aerén’s torture.God!She rubbed her temples, hoping it was her exhausted mind playing tricks on her and nothing more, but considering the dangerous life he lived, her stomach heaved.
Her gaze traced his frowning features as he selected a nut-brown cookie, popped it into his mouth, then ate another.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
He glanced up, a tiny V forming between his eyebrows. “For what?”
“You just came back. It must’ve been days since you’ve eaten or slept. I didn’t mean for you to leave your home.”
“Home?” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder what that is. I always thought it was Nehendem, the principal seat of my family, and where I grew up. But too much has happened there. Since I took up residence in Cidéra eons ago, I’ve spent more time out with my enforcers, hunting rebels, or living and training at the barracks with the army, and recently, searching for my parents—”
“Wait, your folks are missing?”
His expression darkened, a flicker of pain flashing in his light eyes. “Aye. They went riding one morning, two years ago, on the last pair of destriers left, and never returned.” A nerve pulsed on his unshaven jaw. “Maybe they had enough of being unable to save our dying world, saw no hope of ever finding the missing artifact, and it was the final nail in this mess!”
He stalked to the sink, filled a glass with water, chugged half of it down then set the glass on the counter.
His anger resonated in the silence.
She didn’t think his parents would have simply upped and left. Why would the reigning monarchs of a beautiful world like this do that?
Frowning, Leya bit the fragrant cookie with a spicy-sweet flavor and chewed.
“Want to tell me what happened back at the castle?” he asked.
Her mind rushed back to those horrid images of him in a cage, merging with those of her comatose mother as the machines were turned off. Her entire being shuddered. One hurt like hell, and the other terrified her.
Trying to find her calm center, she inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “He, the apparition, showed me my mother’s final moments…” The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow. “It’s not something I ever want to relive. Her passing was hard enough on us. The worst part was I-I didn’t mourn her at the time. I couldn’t…”
“Because you had to be strong for your father and sister.”
“There was no one else to be their pillar.”
“I know. When you ran out of the room and crashed into me, I experienced your agony for a brief moment, as if it were mine.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be.” His gaze drifted over her face, his expression tender.
Leya had to lower her eyes just to breathe again.
“If you want, I can remove your pain so it won’t hurt any longer.”
Her gaze shot to his. “What? Why would you want to shoulder someone else’s torment?”
“It’s an ability I have. And you aren’t just anybody, Leya. You stayed with me when I was hurt. You distracted the rebel with your perfect-pitch snowball hit. Hell, you made sure I took a healing potion from my enemy, something no one else would dare.”
Her face heated. Then her eyes widened when she realized what he’d just revealed. “Wait, you have empathetic abilities?”
“I wish I could say no, but there it is,” he said, tone self-deprecating as he sipped more water. “I can soothe, sense, read, and absorb emotions, among other things.”
What she’d read about empaths revealed they could sense and, at times, absorb another’s energy. But Aerén was different, an angel. It might be more acute for him.
No wonder he’d left the castle and brought her here, with all the emotions undoubtedly flaying him…butshewas the worst one to be with since it happened to her.
