It’s all my fault.
All these centuries, she’d blamed him for something she’d done to herself.
The truth slapped Mara hard and furiously. Duel wouldn’t have gone after her sisters. He hadn’t been burning the women. It’d been the men he’d attacked. They alone had been the ones he’d wanted to slaughter. Because they had been the ones who’d attacked his Elf.
He’d been in so much pain. And no one had reached out to help him through it. So he’d lashed out, needing relief, and had sought it through the only means he knew. Violence and vengeance.
Why didn’t I see that before? Why hadn’t she seen him before this?
Because she’d been angry and afraid.
Her heart pounding, she sat down on the bunk beside him and returned the ring to his finger. The last thing she’d ever do was separate him from this most precious piece of his sister. It was all he had left to treasure.
No sooner had she settled it back in place than he took a deep breath and groaned. When he started to thrash about, she placed her hands against his chest. “Easy, Duel. You’re injured. Do you remember what happened?”
With a fierce grimace, he glared at her. “You smacked me in the head with the mast and knocked me to the sprites.”
Leave it to him to remember that part.
“I also saved you from them.”
“You hit me first.” He rubbed his hand across his stomach and winced. “Are you here to finish me off?”
“Nay. I’ve been tending you.”
He scoffed rudely. “Really, why are you here?”
She’d be more offended and outraged by his doubt had she not earned his suspicion. “Answer me one thing first. Had I not bound our lives together, what would you have done with me that day we met in my nemeton?”
Devyl looked away, but she caught his cheek in a gentle grip that seared him all the way to his soul. How cruel it was that the only thing he’d ever craved was a tender touch from her.
And it was the last thing she’d ever give the likes of him.
Against his will, she turned his head until he was forced to meet her gaze. “I want the truth.”
“I wanted to kill you. Truth. When I first saw you, my only thought was that you’d be the perfect revenge for what they’d done. What they’d taken. To give back to them exactly what they’d done to my sister, in full brutal measure. But when I looked into your eyes and saw your fear, I knew I couldn’t do that to you. For I saw no enemy that day. Only a frightened girl who was brave enough to stand when she knew she had no way to defend herself. And it infuriated me that your own had left you there alone to face me while they ran to save their own arses, like the very cowardly dogs they all were. That was the renewed fury you saw inside me. First, they’d violated and desecrated my blood, then they’d cast you out for what they thought to be the same fate. I wanted them all for that. None of them deserved your loyalty. Or your noble sacrifice.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “And my sister? Why did you choose her for wife?”
Devyl ground his teeth at a question that burned even deeper. He didn’t want to open himself up for her rejection. She’d cut him enough and he was done with it. He was too old to play these games.
So he started to rise.
Mara held him fast. “Truth, Dón-Dueli … please? I want to know why you married Vine.”
That simple, innocuous question wrung the most excruciating wave of pain from deep inside his soul. He’d had mortal sword wounds to his gut that hurt less. He had no intention of ever speaking about such anguish. To anyone. Not for any reason whatsoever.
And yet the truth spilled out of his treacherous lips before he could stop it. “I wanted you and you wouldn’t have me. So I let her seduce me with words I knew were false. I felt her coldness every time she touched me.”
“Then why marry her?”
“She told me she was pregnant. I’ve never wanted anything more than the babe I thought she carried.”
Mara winced as she realized the lie. “She was never pregnant.”
“Something I suspected, but couldn’t prove. She played her hand well and then told me that she lost the child not long after we married. Then promised me that there would be others. A home filled with them. Even at the time, I doubted her words, but you loved her and so I let her stay.”
She laid her hand against his cheek as she stared into the torment that haunted those dark eyes. All he’d ever wanted was for someone to love him. To have the very thing that others took for granted. And her people and family had robbed him completely. “I’m so sorry, Du. Sorry for the lies my sister told. And sorry for what my people did to yours. For what they took from you, personally.”
