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She looked at him. “Breakfast isn’t bad, though.”

Something in his chest clenched as she held his stare. He felt like she could see into his soul and wondered if some part of her knew he had thought a great deal about what she should eat this morning.

The girl made another choking sound from beneath the table. Teorin reached down and held her head there. He did like the choking noises, though he suspected Asharin did not.

She cleared her throat. “At any rate, I am a Rathmor. And a princess in my own right. This is inappropriate, Teorin. I deserve better."

She did deserve better, she was certainly correct about that.

I do not know how to do that, he wanted to say. I am a thren. And a feeder. I am a monster. I do not know decorum or how to show affection, he thought to himself.

Which is exactly why you do not deserve her, a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him.

He did not, this was true. But she had never died under his care, at least. So he was certainly a better alternative to Colsar, he reminded himself.

And Sevrin had starved her. So in truth, Teorin should have a small chance.

The room was mostly silent except for the sound of Asharin calmly chewing her meat and the woman beneath the table gagging.

"You are so calm," he said. He could not help himself.

She reached for the jelly again and put it on her biscuit.

He looked at the butter knife. He was certain she would lick it.

"You getting pleasure at the breakfast table is nothing compared to the other things I have to reconcile in my head and heart these days," she said simply.

Head and heart. He felt a pang. She was referencing her feelings for him. And here he was, being everything his brothers expected of him. Cold. An animal.

The girl put her hands at the base of him and began to stroke.

Asharin lifted the butter knife and began to lick off the jelly.

"Would you⁠—"

Without wanting to he let out a small grunt and slammed his hand on the table again before holding the girl's head in place as he released down her throat. His fingers trembled as he tried to calm himself. The whole thing had been more intense than he had anticipated and he had lost control. The girl's skilled mouth combined with the memory of Asharin last night and her coldness this morning and the way she licked her fingers and cutlery and his hand last night⁠—

It had all been too much. In truth, every bit of it had turned him on.

He raised his eyes across the table, preparing to apologize.

She was gone.

CHAPTER 24

The Final Line

Teorin Rathmor had crossed his final line this morning. I had decided that already.

He had saved my life at his own expense. That was true and I did not erase it. But he had also crossed lines on multiple occasions and Axar had said he was unwell and even that no longer mattered.

It did not excuse his behavior enough to make it forgivable.

I was not the Asharin who would stand at a breakfast table with tears in her eyes asking what she had done wrong. I was not the Asharin who absorbed things in silence and carried them alone for days. That version of me had been ground down slowly by people who mistook patience for permission and I was done being patient in that way.

But I was also done letting people see when they had lost me. There was no power in that. The power was in staying calm. In being kind. In continuing to appear exactly as I had the day before, warm enough to be read as present, giving nothing away.

He had spent his blood and his marrow keeping me alive when everyone else had given up. That was a debt I would honor, but not a reason to hand him anything more.