Luka grunted, then took the glass and downed it. The water was fresh and cool and somehow helped clear his head.
Shane sank into the armchair opposite him. “She’ll forgive you,” he said softly.
“You don’t know what I did.”
“I know she loves you. I know you love her.” Shane leaned forward. “You can fix this.”
“Like you have?” Luka couldn’t keep the derision from his voice. “Forgive me if I don’t take advice fromyou.”
“I know I fucked everything up.” Shane stood and walked to the window, staring through it as if he wished he could simply leap up on the sill and fly away. Eventually he turned and leaned against the casement, looking as exhausted as Luka felt. “But it’s different for me.”
Luka pushed himself up with a snarl. “Because you don’t love Cori?”
“No!” Shane growled back. “Because my beast and I are in complete agreement. We both know she’s better off where she is.”
“You’re a fucking hypocrite.” Luka took a step toward his friend, his fist already bunching. “How can you say that? You know I’ve tried to keep Izzy safe all this time. I’ve tried to do what’s right for her!”
Shane stepped forward, meeting him with equal rage. “That is not what you’ve been doing. You have pushed her away to keepyourselfsafe. Not her!”
True.
Luka ignored his beast and turned his agony on Shane. “Oh, please. Do you think Cori is so delighted to watch you fuck half the court? How would you feel watching her seduce anyone with a pulse in a half-mile radius?”
Shane opened his mouth and roared. A feral, ferocious sound of utter torment. “She had to go! She had to! She hated the politics, hated the backstabbing, hated everything about this life!” Ruby scales covered Shane’s dark skin in a glittering armored wave. “What would it have done to her to send her troops, her own men and women, to die so that she could sit on a throne she didn’t even want?”
Luka blinked. “She said that? She refused the throne?” That didn’t sound like the Cori Luka knew.
“I didn’t offer it to her,” Shane admitted raggedly. “We separated a few weeks before Rayan died. It happened so quickly. Then we were all grieving. Cori found out about the investigation, and she was so angry with me. She said I didn’t have the right to play with people’s lives, and maybe I don’t, but this is the responsibility I was born to.”
“So you turned your back on her instead,” Luka sneered. “Instead of finding a different way, instead of working with her to find a way. Now you get to watch her ride to war instead.”
“I didn’t want that! I tried….” Shane spun away, as if he didn’t want to hear his own words.
Oh, gods. “What did you try?”
Shane shook his head.
“What did you do, Shane?”
“After Rayan died, I didn’t want to risk her, so I fired her from the castle guards.” Shane swallowed. “I gave her a diplomatic role—Ambassador to Gunab. She could have been happy there. She would have loved the rainforest, the history, the food.” He paused for a long, tortured moment. “Even then, even after everything, she asked me to come with her. She wanted me to walk away from it all. She wanted me to turn my back on my duty, on my family.”
“She asked you to do whatyouexpected ofher.” Luka looked at his friend, at the misery on his face, and he knew what Shane’s response had been. “But you said no, and then you tried to make her go by breaking her heart, but instead….”
He didn’t need to say the rest. Instead, Cori transferred into the crown legions and threw herself into any danger she could find. Now she was the knight captain of the border forces—the most dangerous commission of all.
Thank the gods of fire Izzy only ran to the market.
“We are both idiots,” Luka said quietly.
“I’m so sorry for everything I did,” Shane said, “but it’s not too late for you. Don’t make the same mistakes I made. Izzy is strong and capable, and she loves your ugly face.”
Luka let the words settle in his heart. Shane had fucked his—and Cori’s—life up. But Luka could still fix this. He could fall to his knees and beg for another chance. He could tell Izabel that he had loved her all these years, that he would doanythingif it meant he could stand at her side.
And suddenly, everything became clear. All this time, he couldn’t see how she could live in the city and he could live inthe castle. He’d known she would go back. She’d leave him. But it didn’t have to be that way.
You should’ve spoken to her. Asked her what she wanted.
His beast was right. He should’ve told her his fears and asked her what she wanted, but he hadn’t. He’d broken her heart instead. So now it was up to him to show that there was a chance for them. It didn’t matter that she had no claws. He would love her, show her that she could trust him, and maybe they would come in time.
