“He assumed I’m a non-shifter. I can conceal my signature essence.” He sank onto the bench, his silver hair pewter in the misty moonlight. “Ash?—”
“Let’s stay focused on our survival,” she blurted, staring at the crackling red embers.
He reached out, caught her hand, and pulled her over. His gaze held hers. “Avoiding it isn’t going to change what’s between us. Ask me what you want.”
Her heart thundered in her ears.What is Vaesarra to you?
It was obvious he had unfinished business there.
She pulled free and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Why is Skaldr so angry with you?” she chickened out, not ready tohear about Vaesarra. “He said all those things, accusing you of abandoning them, why?”
He braced his arms on his thighs, his head lowered. Silence stretched, growing tauter around them. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, harsh. “Because he has no idea of the truth.”
Ash frowned. “Then why did you leave?”
The muscle in his jaw jumped. He reached behind him, slammed the window shut, and shot to his feet, prowling the room like a barely leashed storm. His eyes darkened, shadows pooling in their burgundy depths.
“Race?” she whispered, her stomach hollowing under the weight of his silence.
“I didn’tleave…” The words seemed dragged from him, his skin pulled taut over the bones of his face. “I was captured during the coup, thrown into Tartarus, and shackled there for over five centuries.”
Chapter
Eighteen
Ash stood there,frozen, all the air punched from her lungs.
Tartarus?
Even the name tasted vile on her tongue.
“I read about that place,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on his taut, waxen features. “I always thought it was a myth.”
Race stopped his restless pacing and scrubbed his face with one hand. “It isn’t.”
She wanted to reach out and hug him, take away the bleakness from his eyes, but didn’t know how. “I’m here if you want to…talk.”
His chest rose and fell. He stared at her, his throat working as if his sky-high walls might crack. Then his expression shuttered again. “Why the fuck would I ever dredge up that horror—especially to you?”
She flinched, as if he’d slapped her. “I see?—”
“No, you don’t.” His voice roughened. “I don’t want you picturing the horror, the degradation…” Agony bled through every word, slicing her to her core. “I want you to see who I amnow, not what Tartarus wrought or how helpless I was.”
“Nothing you say could change how I see you,” she whispered, realizing he wasn’t shutting her out at all. But the torment on his face gutted her.
And she knew too well how it hurt to be judged for things beyond your control—to have others decide who you were before they even knew you.
“You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. If what you say is as bad as it sounds, you could’ve turned cruel, but you didn’t. You saved me from being burned alive, and then many times after that, remember?”
“You didn’t deserve that persecution. Besides…” A ghost of a smile flickered, like the rays of the sun pushing through the storm. “I liked you from the moment I saw you.”
“There you go. You didn’t have to do any of that.” She drew in another breath, then huffed as his other words sank in.Liked her?Her own defenses wavered. “See? Youchoseto help. That tells me everything.”
He exhaled, his shoulders loosening a fraction. Then he shook his head. “No one knows about that part of my life, not even the other Guardians who were also imprisoned.”
“You were imprisonedtogether?” she asked, her brow creasing.
“Nothing so merciful. I didn’t know them back then, but I assumed we were all kept isolated in cells barely big enough to stand.” His fingers dragged along the hard line of his jaw, betraying his tension. He started pacing the small room again.
