He shakes his head. “And here I thought the two of us were getting along so well.”
My cheeks heat and embarrassment and guilt make me feel a little off balance. I feel the shadows building again and fight them back. My emotions are all over the place tonight. And the worst part is, it’s not just Caiden or Ludis. It’s me.
I might hate myself more than I hate any of them.
I need a drink. A lot of drinks.
Forty-Eight
Sabina
“Maybe that’s enough,” Anya says as she takes my cup. I reach for it, but she pulls it away. “No. I watched you do this last time, I’m not letting you get there again.”
“Last time?” Caiden asks.
I grab his cup and take a long pull before anyone can stop me, then set it back on the table. “Like you care. You’re not any better than me.”
He takes his cup back. “You’re right. But I think you should listen to your friend.”
“The friend I almost lost because of you,” I blurt. “The friend you forced me to marry.”
“I forced?—?”
“You married me. I didn’t want that,” I interrupt.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be with you.”
“I know that too, you tell me often enough,” he says.
“Here, Tay—Sabina,” Anya holds out a basket full of chunks of bread, “eat. You wanted bread, remember?”
I grab one and take a bite, then chew slowly. Part of me won’t let me shove it all away. Mostly, the weight of failure is what simmers at the surface, taunting me as if Ludis himself was sitting right next to me whispering to me.
Who needs him to remind me how far I’ve fallen when I have myself? I glance around the tavern. My vision’s a little blurry, but I am certain I can see well enough. “Where is he? Where is Ludis?”
The other two scan the room, then both of them look at me with expressions that tell me they have no answers.
“He must have gone to his room,” Caiden says.
“Brevan isn’t here, either, I see,” I say it without thinking. Because of course I’m still thinking of him even when I try not to.
I’m failing in every possible way lately.
“He stayed behind with the others at the camp,” Caiden says. “Should we—are you ready to go to your room?”
“I amnotsleeping with you,” I say.
“I didn’t ask you to,” he bites out. He turns to Anya. “What is wrong with her”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her like this since?—”
I slam the table and Anya jumps. “Don’t say it. Do not say it. Not in front of him. He’s part of why they’re dead. Why they’re all dead.”
I drop the rest of the bread into the basket, but it hits the table instead. Apparently, I am more drunk than I realized. “I do want to go to my room.”
“You need to eat more,” Anya insists.
