“Not in the last half hour.”
She smiled. “Then I’ve been remiss.”
A hungry, dark look entered his eyes. One that was familiar and foreign at the same time. He toyed with the feathers on her headdress. “Me colors and style look good on you.”
“Glad you think so.”
Bane shook his head at them as he gave orders to weigh anchor and head out.
“Nibo!”
He growled as Masaka popped in behind him with her frantic call. Couldn’t he have five minutes without his family interfering?
Well, at least it isn’t Qeenan. …
Even so it annoyed him. He smirked at her. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”
She was having none of it. “Legba needs you.”
Nibo gave her a droll stare at the inconvenient timing. “Now?”
Masaka gave them each a peeved glare. “He didn’t say to wait, and you know how Papa is.”
Nibo stiffened as he caught the note in her voice. Aye, he knew how they all were. Spiteful. Intolerant.
Selfish.
And he was tired of them snapping their fingers and expecting him to come running without question. He wasn’t their lapdog, and he’d been doing that since the day he died and they’d taken him in to help others like him cross over and reach their final resting place, or to be reborn.
At first, he’d loved it. Especially guiding others who’d died violently, as he had. To help them understand the myriad of emotions that came with such a horrible passing. Such as betrayal and rage.
But after that came the hurt, the emptiness. That dark place of knowing how little you meant to the world and to the one who’d killed you. Of accepting the fact that others just didn’t care and of how little you mattered.
That was what he enjoyed helping them with. Allowing them to find their self-worth again, after it was all over. To get past the betrayal that stayed so long it became its own form of haunting and torture.
So, he’d learned to ignore the others and to play along with them. To focus on what needed to be done and ignore the downside. To let the good outweigh the bad until he’d lost himself to their world. Lost himself to the rum.
That had been easy, because he hadn’t cared. As a twin, he’d never really had his own identity anyway. Not really. Not the way other people did. They only saw him as part of something else. Part of a matching set.
He’d never concerned himself with developing his own identity or thinking of his needs above someone else’s.
Be a good son. A good twin.
Don’t talk back.
And it’d worked, until he’d been clubbed in the back of his head.
Instead of knocking him senseless, it’d knocked sense into him.
He’d spent so much time getting along and going along that he hadn’t thought much about anything else.
Everything had been fine until he’d met Valynda. Her rebellious spirit and love for life were infectious. Because of her, he’d wanted more than to be dutiful.
He’d wanted to become the man she saw him as. The hero she needed him to be.
And today, he intended to step up.
Nibo held his hand out to her. “Want to come with?”
