His words played themselves over in her head.I don’t want this. I wish we’d never found you.
Her throat closed over any response she might have made, and she watched in stunned silence as he turned away, never looking back. He walked out the hut and closed the door quietly, leaving her alone.
He wanted her, but not enough to be with her. Kissed her, made her ache for him, and then dropped her brutally back to earth.
Without even once asking what she wanted, he had broken through her defenses and then dismissed her like it meant nothing.
And then walked away, without a single glance back.
If she had thought those teenage tears had hurt, she had known nothing. Those had been tears of unfulfilled childish hope. This was complete and utter rejection.
She stood, frozen, as she heard him calling for his horse and commanding the men to guard her. Then the clatter of hooves on hard ground as he fled as fast as he could away from her.
She’d thought she had lost everything before, but it was only now, as he rode away, that she realized there had been more to lose.
Only when she knew he was gone did she sink to the ground and let the tears come.
Chapter Ten
The moon was high,a bright crescent against the flowing silver clouds, by the time that Tristan made his way back to camp.
He let Altair pick his way carefully in the darkness and gave him an apologetic pat for keeping him out so late. He had ridden hard, hoping to burn off the swirling maelstrom of emotions burning through him, and he knew it wasn’t fair on the loyal stallion after he’d already done a full day’s work.
He was about five minutes from the hut when the first sentry stopped him. Jos. With a look on his face that could sharpen knives. “What the fuck, Tristan?”
Tristan slid off Altair and walked up to the snarling guard, only too happy to get in his face, half hoping for a fight. “That’s ‘What the fuck, Sergeant,’ to you, soldier.”
But Jos didn’t back down, just opened his wings wide and intimidating and sneered, “You know, we put up with a lot of your crap,SergeantTristan, but when you start making innocent women cry, I think you’ll find the squad takes exception.”
“What do you mean?” All the air was sucked out of Tristan, along with a fair portion of his self-righteous rage.
Jos didn’t bother to explain. Instead, he reached out a hand and pushed Tristan in the chest as he demanded, “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing!” Tristan growled, tempted to grab that hand and start ripping off fingers.
Nothing except lose his mind in the best kiss of his entire life. Nothing except force himself to walk away while his soul screamed and his inner beast rebelled, scales flickering all the way to his throat. Nothing other than try to do the right thing before he forgot himself completely.
Jos shook his head. “Bullshit. Nothing doesn’t make a woman sob for ten minutes by herself. Nothing doesn’t make her push her food around without eating it and then take herself off to a freezing cold hut, where she fucking cried again. We could all hear her.”
Tristan took a step back and scrubbed his hand tiredly down his face. The rest of his rage drained away, leaving only hollow guilt. Fuck. He hadn’t planned to make her cry. Hadn’t even imagined that she would. He’d told her that he wanted her. That she was beautiful. Explained that he would protect her and help her with Val.
Hadn’t he?
He thought back over the exact words he’d used, the words he’d done his best to forget as he pushed himself and Altair to their limit.
He remembered the stunned look on her face, the hurt, and had to recognize that he’d been lying to himself the entire time he was with her. And every moment since.
He’d pushed her away brutally. Somehow hoping that if he was callous enough, it would make her stay away from him. He didn’t want to see her. Look into those big eyes. If he did, he would have stayed.
Instead, he’d hurt her enough that she would be the one to keep them apart.
He couldn’t blame Jos. He was only doing what Tristan would have done had the situation been reversed. They had a code. Sister to one was sister to all. Even Val’s sister. It helped that she was brave and kind and pretty and all of them liked her.
He had no good answer to give his friend, so he didn’t bother to try, simply walked on, past Jos and up to the fire. A few men were sleeping. The rest looked at him with the same disgust as Jos had.
Rafael flicked his eyes over him with the sternest judgment of all. And his indignation flickered back to life.
“I was following your fucking advice!” he hissed, not wanting to wake Nim.
