Page 44 of Guarded By the Vodnik

I nodded. There was a place we could go and be safe, and even though I hadn’t been there in years, and the very thought of visiting again made my skin crawl with disgust, I would go. For her.

After that, it took me another hour to finally blast off one side of the rock covering the cavern’s mouth. The crevice I made was narrow, but I made it bigger with a few more blasts, until the rock finally cracked, a large part rolling away.

“Stay here,” I instructed Zoe, carefully swimming out to check the area.

I stayed close to the cavern’s mouth, turning slowly to check for lamia guards. When I couldn’t see anyone, I closed my eyes and let the lake in, focusing on her breath, her rhythm, her soft touch against my scales.

And even though I felt keenly enough to finally be certain no lamias were nearby, something was different. That touch of the waters washing over me was still soothing and familiar, but not nearly enough.

Something was wrong with me.

“All clear,” I said, pulling Zoe into my arms. “Maybe they got bored. Or maybe they all went to fetch whoever wants to buy you to make sure they’d get their cuts. Lamias aren’t exactly team players.”

“Better for us,” she said, wrapping her legs around my waist.

She squirmed, settling in, and when her arms came around my neck, warm and trusting, my heart died a little. She was perfect. It was perfect. And all I could think about was that it would end horribly, either because I failed to protect her or fucked up in some other way.

Because I would. I wasn’t made for this… this warmth, connection, friendship, or whatever it was.

“Will you forgive me?” I asked, pushing away from the bottom and making the course for Isle Royale.

“For what?” she asked, nuzzling in. She pressed her forehead into my neck to protect it from the cold.

“For when I disappoint you,” I said, wincing. It sounded like I intended to fail her, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Zoe surprised me by laughing softly, neither hurt nor offended in the least. “Yeah,” she said. “I forgive you. A thousand times over.”

I shuddered, her easy, accepting words touching a hurting place deep within me. That pain bloomed to life, piercing and fresh, even though I’d carried it for decades.

Normally, I had a very good handle on my past. It flared up only sometimes, increasingly rarely as I grew older, yet more often lately. Zoe seemed to have a way of squirming under my defenses and dragging the pain to the surface. I couldn’t blame her, though. She didn’t do it on purpose. It was me that was broken.

It was ridiculous and exhausting, but even though my grandfather had been dead for almost thirty years, his words still lived in my head, crawling out whenever I was vulnerable.

You can’t do anything right. Always such a failure.

All you do is disappoint me.

You know whom you failed the most? Your mother. She’d be alive if not for you.

You’re good for nothing. Weak, unworthy of my blood.

Everyone would be better off without you.

When Zoe grunted, I realized I clutched her to me with too much force, as if trying to squeeze all her warmth into me to feed the cold abyss inside. With a shuddering breath, I loosened my grip, and she stroked my nape as if she knew what I was going through.

“I forgive you,” she said, running soothing circles over my scales. “You did nothing wrong, and I forgive you anyway. You’re perfect. You’re so good. Such a good, beautiful, perfect man. I trust you with my life, you know? I trust you, and I know we’ll be fine.”

I sped up, trying to direct the gut-wrenching feelings she tore out of me into movement. It helped enough that I could still control myself and stay alert, but just barely. My insides roiled with hot and cold currents, past truths and present truths clashing until one came out on top.

I was afraid to believe her, and at the same time, I couldn’t help myself.

In the end, she was right. We would be fine, and that was because I’d never allow her to get hurt. I spent my whole life proving to myself how strong, efficient, and lethal I was. I’d honed my body and mind into sharp, deadly weapons, and I had a record and an entire population of scarred lamias to prove it.

That was not what I was worried about.

I was so much less certain about the future of our friendship or whatever this was, but one thing was painfully clear.

I would protect her, and failure wasn’t an option.

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