Page 130 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“Then why are you determined to be cruel to Amira? Riordan would hang you up right next to that assassin if he knew you made her cry earlier. I should have told him. He will hang me next to you if he finds out that I did not,” she chastised, but I only vaguely heard the rest of what she said after she revealed the witch cried after I left.

I made Amira cry.

There were times it felt like the self-loathing that raged so out of control inside me could eat me alive and flay the skin off the bones of anyone near me. It had taken me decades to learn some semblance of control so that I could manage friendships, but when it came to Riordan, it was like all that discipline evaporated. It had been like that from the moment I first ran into him in Ergastiri, and he recognized me from our brief encounter in the Rookery. When I’d punched him in the face, knocking the young prince to the ground, and then told him never to bring it up to me again. Which he had not done.

Since leaving the witch in the apartment, I had been trying to reassure myself that my impulsive words had not impacted her. There had been a shininess in her eyes that hinted at tears but none had fallen, so I was able to make myself believe she was unaffected by my putrid venom. But after what she told me about her mother, I supposed the only reason she seemed so resilient was because my words were nothing she hadn’t heard before.

She had been subjected to so much open disdain since coming to the Vale, but aside from occasionally retaliating against me, she had not appeared to react to much of it. She had only ever conducted herself with such kindness and empathy that I neverwould have guessed she carried such similar wounds to the ones that made me lash out. She must have found a way to overcome them because despite me spewing all this ugly rage at her, she still had not allowed herself to succumb to my level of vile spite. Instead, she had offered me compassion and hope.

The same as Riordan had done after I punched him.

I could still remember the stunned horror in the field after the prince fell into the mud, his nose gushing blood. And then I was tackled by one of the guards his mother had sent him with in the early days. The bite of a blade nicked the back of my neck, and I remembered thinking that they were going to kill me right there…

His voice nasally from pinching his nose, my futureskiáhad commanded them to wait, and then he got back up to his feet. I’d thought maybe he wanted to take some revenge upon me before they dispatched me, and I braced for the blows that would surely come.

But he merely held out a bloody hand toward me.

I could not seem to stop myself from hurting everyone around me, but especially people who deserved it least.

“So then why did you not tell him?” I demanded of Helena roughly, wishing that she had informed Riordan. I’d welcome my flesh being flayed and my bones being broken if it distracted me from this internal hell.

“Because I know you hurt. I know… it is complicated for you,” she added, her eyes dipping to the leather cuffs on my forearms that I never removed in front of others. Even her drawing attention to them made my heart spike in a panicked staccato, and my fists curled as I resisted the childish urge to put my arms behind me.

Helena was the only one who knew the truth of where I’d come from, and it was only because she was the one who found me at the gates of Ergastiri. Barely more than a child so badlybeaten by a patron that I might have died if she had not been on duty that night. She had urged me to ask Riordan to remove the marks on my arms that had been magically branded into my skin, but I never could tell him where I came from. What I was before my life had been forever saved and changed in Ergastiri.

What I technicallystill wasthanks to the brand that could not be removed from me without magic. I could not stomach the thought of him discovering the asinine truth.

The King of the Vale was bound to a fucking whore.

“It is no excuse to make that sweet girl cry, but I know that Riordan’s punishment is not what you need either,” Helena replied gently. “Much as you might crave it.”

“Much as I deserve it, I think you mean,” I retorted. “Helena—”

“I have watched you become your own worst enemy over and over forfartoo long, Orion. Amira is… kind. Patient and compassionate. She is what youneed.”

“And yet, I have no desire for her.”

“Do not lie. It is insulting to both of us that you could think I would not see the way you notice her in the room,” Helena chastised. “And,” she added louder, cutting me off before I could refute her claim, “she notices you too.”

I hesitated, blinking at her in shock when her words had an unexpected effect on me.

“You are mistaken.”

“I amnot,” she insisted, looking offended again as her wings ruffled behind her.

“Even if you are not mistaken, even if you are right about her… being good for me, it still does not change the fact that I am not good for her or for anyone else!”

“Then you remain determined to be in your own way,” she muttered, shaking her head in disappointment.

“They deservemore, Helena! Both of them deserve more than a sullied… More thanme,” I spat in frustration, shoving past her before she could say anything more.

Chapter thirty-six

THE WILD HUNT FLIES TO AES MIRR

Sage

We had gone to bed unconscionably late, so the last thing I wanted to do at dawn was leave my perfectly warm bed. And Summer did not help matters considering she had somehow managed to wrap herself around me, and it felt so unbelievably good waking up with her like that.

---