‘Just.’He swallows bile.‘Sharks.’
‘Something similar happened on the island?’
‘I saw it.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Death.’
‘What did it look like?’
‘How God must look to men,’ he croaks, dizzy.‘Terrible and fair.’
‘God is fair?’
‘Deathis fair and God is water, isn’t that right?’
‘You’re not well.You need to sleep.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Lachlan—’
‘I don’t want to keep seeing them.’
‘Sharks signify hidden danger and betrayal,’ she tells him, smoothing his hair back where it escapes the tie.‘Betrayal is a shadow underwater that we can’t see coming.It frightens us beyond reason.The monsters lurking unseen.’
‘It took the other and left me.’
‘Lachlan, listen—’
‘If I got eaten, Danya would have come and savedeveryone.Fenwick wouldn’t have burned the island.Sorrenko wouldn’t have had the chance to do what he did.Roman would still be alive.’
‘And those children we love,’ she whispers, lifting his face, ‘would never have a chance to be free.’
‘I let him die.’
‘You’re not God, darling.You’re not water.You’re just a man.’
‘It wasn’t good enough.’
‘It was the best you could do.’
‘Sorrenko told me that… that love puts us on the losing side,’ he utters.‘Do you think that’s true?’
Blaire’s green eyes roam across his face.‘Do you?’
‘You’re right.I can’t detach from them.I love them too much and if love puts us on the losing side—’
‘Love puts us on thedecentside.The human side.’
Lachlan looks at her.Really looks.
She’s the one constant Lachlan has never doubted.
Blaire Montbelliard is the person he trusts the most.
‘You know I love you, right?’
