“Nadya’s been through too much,” he said fiercely. Good. At least he protected them. “Geryll, too.”
“So has Dax,” I said softly.
He huffed a laugh. “You know what we’re doing here?”
“Bleeding our souls dry?”
“Arguing over how we protect other people’s secrets.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is insane.”
“No. We’re arguing because we don’t trust each other.”
His gaze slashed to and through me. “It’s your family I don’t trust.”
“Trust me enough to know right from wrong!” The roar was finally free. “Evie would have still married your damned prince. You know why? Because she promised to do it to keep us safe. Her family. Your goddamned plan would have still worked, but she wouldn’t have had her heart broken.”
And neither would have I. But I couldn’t say that.
“We couldn’t take the chance,” he said, now with less conviction.
“See?” I huffed a laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “You can’t have twowe’s. One for them and one for me. Not like this.”
He shook his head. “It can’t be us versus them, Allie.”
“No,” I said sadly. “It’s come to you versus me. There’s no middle ground to be had here.”
“We make our middle ground,” he said fiercely.
“How?” I heard the plea in my own voice.
“You said you would have done the same,” he said with the desperation of a drowning man.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I didn’t have any more fight left in me. “Because my cousins and I, as opposed to your precious Brothers and Sisters, don’t go around betraying you.”
“That is unfair,” he argued. “That wedding had been planned before we’d ever met.”
I huffed a laugh that sounded like a bite. “Fair? You still won’t tell me the whole truth and ask me for empathy?”
“I ask for trust.” His desperation grew. “From one leader to another.”
“You won’t get it. Not from me.” My heart cracked. “Not anymore.”
I turned my back and didn’t stop moving until I slammed the door behind me, leaving him alone in the dining room once more.
Only this time, I wasn’t running away.
I was leaving–and this time, he didn’t stop me.
Chapter 29
Allie
Only he did.
Before I slammed the massive doors shut hard enough to make them vibrate off their hinges, Ryker’s arm snapped out and I was suddenly pulled back inside. In a blink, I found myself pressed between the door and his chest, exit gone.
I jutted my chin up at him, the fire in my eyes blazing harder than the one crackling in the fireplace.
But he was control incarnate, bracing his hands on either side of my face, completely nonplussed by my glare.
