Page 14 of Cruel Crown

As I drank my water, the man got to work on whatever was left of my infection.

“Tell me what happened,” I demanded.

“Let’s see.” Bas started to think it over. “If your ass is sore, that’s probably because Daphne fucked you over.”

Rage coursed through my body as he laughed at his stupid fucking joke.

“I’m going to kill her. Warn her, I don’t give a fuck; she’s dead to me.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo.” He rolled his eyes. “You played with fire and got burned.”

The only thing I could do was glare at him.

“I’m not saying you asked for this but—”

“Is there a point to this conversation?” I barked, making Grandpa next to me jump.

“That is no way to talk to the person who dragged your ass out of the line of fire. You’re not easy cargo, and you think I enjoyed basically waterboarding you so you could drink water to get your fever down?”

Well, that explained why my throat wasn’t like sandpaper had rubbed it raw. Although his smug face said he enjoyed every second of it.

“Gee, thanks for raping my throat,” I mumbled. “So, you saved me from Robinson? Did she send you?” I held my breath and got angry at myself for hoping he’d answer yes. He was right. I had practically asked for this.

Bas’s face became serious. Dropping all traces of a smile, he leaned forward, his eyes staring straight at me. “No, she didn’t send me. She would never ask that of me, of anyone.”

Well, there was my fucking answer. She’d said the words. She might as well be the one to stab my face, ’cause right then I felt an invisible knife lodged between my fifth and sixth rib.

“She wouldn’t ask that of anyone because doing so would expose a weakness,” Bas said gravely. I looked at him once more now that the bile had spread down my throat. “Daphne can’t have a weakness; none of us can.”

“What does that mean?”

“Twice, I saved your life. I was outside the camp, waiting to attack. I saw Daphne come out of your tent, so I knew when Robinson went in there with another of his men, you were in trouble. It was chaos, but I managed to shoot his guy right before the grenade went off, and the whole thing went tumbling down.”

The man who had been working on my eye left us, after patting something over my eye and patching it so I could only see from one side.

“When Daph left with the Estacado girl, I went back to camp. I had to kill the sergeant from the enemy paramilitary group so nothing could be traced back to—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I said as I shook my head. “You had this whole thing planned to a T, didn’t you?”

He ignored me and kept talking. “While I took care of business, I lost you, and I could have left… Look, I get it, you’re mad.”

I let out a dry chuckle.

“It’s not easy living as we do. As I said, we can’t have weaknesses, not when we have eyes on us.”

I glared at him, wanting to know more, but like hell if I’d ask.

“Is there a point to this?”

“With my night goggles, it was easy to find you. I was a little late since Robinson had already done some damage to your eye, but I killed him before he could do more damage to your throat.”

Bas got up and looked around the trees and then at the sky. “You’ve been out for five days.” Fuck. Me. That was a long time. I owed him, and the bastard knew it. “I had a choice to make, leave or save you, and I saved your ass. Now you owe me a life debt.”

“At the first chance I get, I’ll take a bullet for you; don’t you worry, I don’t want you hanging over my head.”

“I don’t need you to be my knight in shining armor. Thanks for the offer though.” He smirked at me. “All I ask is that you don’t kill her.”

I scoffed. “You’re fucking crazy.”

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