Her silver eyes searched his, scanning between them. Answering those questions he’d been too cowardly to ask her after their kiss.
His jaw ached, and he hissed as he brushed the tender spot. “Did you… Did you punch me in the face?”
She rolled her eyes, chasing away whatever had just passed between them. “Trust me, you deserved it. And I was trying to wake you up. I thought you were… I was so…” She shook her head, chasing away a confession.
She pushed out of his lap, and his wolf let out a frustrated whine. She adjusted the waistband of her silk pants—to Ronin’s utter delight, the same she’d been wearing that night at the theater when they’d teased Otto—and pulled her collar up. It fell back down, exposing her shoulder.
And even though his lips had just left her skin, he wanted to put them back there. Immediately.
She settled into the chair across from him and tucked her legs up, the fire’s golden glow dancing in her coppery hair. “What happened to you tonight?” Concern twisted her features.
Had anyone, other than Selene, ever looked at him with such concern?
A deep ache gripped his heart, so intense he felt like he was dying.
“Otto said you woke up about ten minutes into the seance and fled the room. Said that Layla had to accompany you backhere.” There was an edge in her voice when she said the other female’s name that he thought it wise not to comment on.
Ronin spread his legs, sinking deeper into the cushions with a long exhale. All the Delirium in the world wouldn’t dull the terror he’d felt as soon as he’d crossed into the Halfway.
And had seen who was waiting for him.
Once he’d awoken, gasping and sweating on the glass floor, he’d fled the ballroom. Layla had chased him back to the suite, then called down to the servants for a case of Delirium. She’d drank one with him, then left him to his own uncontrollable devices. She hadn’t hit on him—not any more than she had at the party beforehand—and now, with a clearer head, he wondered if this had been her plan all along. To disorient and distract him. To put him out of commission or weaken him somehow. Get him to abandon his task of protecting Mireille and leave her vulnerable to Otto’s machinations.
Luckily, Mireille seemed unharmed. Other than the two faded pink marks that he himself had placed on her neck.
“The seance…” he started, unsure of how to convey what he’d seen. No, not unsure.Ashamed. A writhing, oily, poisonous shame.
Compassion softened her gaze, as if she could sense his churning emotions. “Who visited you, Ronin?”
He crumpled forward, his forearms crashing to his knees. He scanned the room for another bottle of Delirium. High fucking Gods, he wanted another one so badly. Even the embarrassment of feeding from his partner couldn’t quell the craving.
Thishurt.
It hurt so fucking bad, all the guilt, and his heart was going to pound through his chest, and he couldn’t breathe, and?—
Gentle fingers brushed across his scalp, and when he looked up, Mireille stood before him, his eyes level with the sliver of creamy skin between her waistband and her shirt.
“Let it out.” Her voice was so soothing he could hardly bear it. A garbled sob clawed up his throat as she knelt at his feet, clasping gentle fingers around his hand. Grounding him. “Tell me. Unburden yourself. That’s what friends are for, right?”
She looked exhausted. Letha only knew what kind of message the souls had offeredher. But despite all the shit she was carrying herself, she still wanted to help carry his.
Something cracked open in his chest. Something vast and boundless and eternal.
So, Ronin opened his mouth.
And revealed his tortured soul to his friend.
“There were human soldiers,”Ronin whispered, his voice breaking. “Thousands of them.”
Mireille rested her cheek on his thigh, still grasping his hand. Just those two small points of contact. Any more than that, and she didn’t know what she might let him do.
Seeing him so vulnerable, so undone by his guilt, had shattered her last lingering perceptions of him.
She’d thought he was arrogant, narcissistic, lazy. Coasting through life thanks to his reputation.
But that hadn’t been true at all. Underneath those layers was a male haunted by the things he’d done.
Haunted by a pain so ingrained that he had to numb it with the very substance that had been the catalyst of his downfall.
