She ignored him. “Why do you hate Sean?”
David pressed his lips together, glaring. He had no idea where the hate came from, but the logical answer was the one he least wanted to give. He hated Sean because of Galadaine, just as Anna had suspected.
It didn’t extend much beyond that though. He felt nothing for this woman in front of him even though Galadaine had truly loved Meléan.
She nodded. “That’s what I thought.” Closing in, she dropped his arm to grab his neck?—
And kissed him.
Magic burned through his injuries and healed them one by one.At the same time, a vault cracked open in his mind. Memories spilled forth, a flood of muddy water over rocky terrain.
He’d thought he remembered her, but he hadno idea. Hundreds of years of memories hid in his head, not only of her but all of them. At some point the four of them had been closer than friends or siblings, the relationship between them complex and intimate.
A single memory separated from the rest. Galadaine was angry with her, betrayed and incredulous.
“You cannot love him like you love me.”
Meléan touched his face. “I cannot. But I trust it better.”
“Trust it? What could you ever trust more than I? I have given you everything, done everything you’ve asked. ”
“We are a blaze, Galadaine. Uncontrollable. I crave a simple flame.”
“But…how can you settle this way?”
“Perhaps there is less heat, but so too is there less pain.”
“You feast on pain, Meléan.”
And it was in that singular moment that David realized one crucial bit of information. Something Isobel surely knew but had never bothered to tell anyone. Something that might change the perception of Galadaine Manae for the entire realm but would tear Meléan’s reputation to bits of bloody confetti.
Galadaine had never coerced Meléan.
It was in the cadence, the innate texture of the memory—a known truth beneath the relationship between Meléan and Galadaine. They’d loved each other beyond reason, a love that had been unhealthy and toxic, yes, but also equal.
And hadn’t David already known that? In none of his memories did he detect shades of the sugary voice or attempts to sway Meléan to his whims. He remembered fights and domination and rough sex that dove straight into sadomasochism, but Meléan had wanted everything Galadaine had done to her.
Isobel pulled away, and the memory dissolved. Pretty green eyes turned calculating, distrustful.
Horror washed over him. “Youknew?—”
She played at innocence. “Knew what?”
“You let people believe he magicked her into abuse, but she—shewantedit.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, then lowered her voice. “And even if it was true, no one would believe you.” Pushing away, she headed toward Sean. She used her lips to heal his injuries, too, then again with Autumn.
David considered forcing her to admit it, but she was right. Not a single soul would believe him.
Well, Autumn might.
Maybe Anna, the woman who’d randomly decided to take a chance on him. The woman whose emotions made his magic ache like a limb waking from sleep.
Did it matter anyway? He might not have been a rapist, but Galadaine still touted mortal enslavement as a viable route of redemption. In the grand scheme of his crimes, what he’d been rumored to do to Meléan was insignificant.
Ugh.
One kiss from Isobel’s cursed lips and David’s entire world had turned upside down. Again.
