Before he’d screwed up so badly.
Just change out the names and insults and it might as well be one of their old infamous arguments.
No one will ever love me like that again.
That was the hardest part about coming to terms with his current situation. And it wasn’t melancholy or moroseness. He’d never trust himself to love anyone else the way he’d loved her.
Never be that open with anyone else ever again.
That innocent, trusting part of him had gone to the graves with his family. What was left now was more animal than man. Yeah, he could pass as a sentient creature. Use the right utensil at meals. But in his heart, he knew the truth.
Bastien Cabarro was dead.
He was only a wraith of the man who’d once believed in the goodness of others. The man who’d believed in justice and honesty.
Universe wasn’t like that. It was harsh and unfair.
It sucked and didn’t care for anyone. And he was done with it all.
Dancer shook his head at her. “You are so bossy. I’d eat anyone else who talked to me like this.”
“Promises, promises. Now move!”
Yeah, that’s exactly what Ember would have said.
Blinking back the sudden moisture in his eyes as he tried not to think about her, Bastien cleared his throat.
Hauk obeyed Sumi’s orders, with a slow petulance that said he was only agreeing to make her happy. Bastien had been there, too. A woman had no idea how much control she had over a man when he loved her. There was nothing they wouldn’t do to make their woman happy.
To see her smile…
It was what they lived for.
Growling low in his throat, Dancer slung his leg over the airbee and allowed her to lead him to a softer area near the water.
Lying down, Dancer stared up at the side of the mountain with a dark expression Bastien couldn’t fathom. But it was obvious some demon was tormenting him.
Sumi sat down next to him and opened his shirt. She gasped at the sight of the wound across his ribs. “Dancer!”
He didn’t speak as she cleaned it and continued fussing at him over it. And that too gutted Bastien.
How sick was it that he missed listening to his mother, sister, and Ember yell at him over his reckless disregard for his life? It’d been way too long since he was in the full-time care of someone who loved him.
She sat back and frowned at how many wounds lined his torso and arms. “You really need an MT, Dancer.”
He squeezed her hand comfortingly. “I’ll be all right.”
She shook her head. “You’re not invincible.”
“Damn near.”
She rolled her eyes at his arrogance. “Didn’t at least one of them miss when they shot at you?”
He laughed then grimaced. “Yeah, I always wanted to be that hero in a movie where no one can shoot straight except me. Never happens. I seem to always walk into the school of award-winning sharpshooters.”
Bastien knew that dream, as he had the same luck Dancer did. Never failed that he walked or landed right in the middle of the top graduates of some sick sniper academy.
In fact, that was what had caused his wingman before Ember to bug out of his company. One too many close encounters with death.
