Page 104 of Heir of Illusion

He leans forward, his blue eyes intent on me. “Tell me why you think that? Where does all this guilt stem from?”

I lower my gaze, not wanting to see the expression of disgust on his face when I admit the next part. “There was a time when I believed that I loved Baylor. When I let myself forget everything he’d done. I wasn’t like your mother.” My voice breaks. “I was a willing captive.”

“Look at me,” he demands.

I shake my head. I hear him rise from the rock and stomp through the sand until he’s right in front of me, but still I refuse to do as he asked.

“Look at me, Angel,” he says again, softer this time.

Taking a deep breath, I force myself to lift my chin and meet his gaze. What I find shocks me. Not a single ounce of judgment or disgust clouds his features. There’s no revulsion. Instead, his eyes are full of understanding.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he says, cupping my face in his hands. “We all do what we must in order to survive. No one understands that more than me.”

“I should have been stronger,” I argue.

He shakes his head, using his thumbs to wipe the wayward tears from my cheeks. “You were a child. That kind of strength should never have been required of you.”

His words penetrate some dark corner of my mind. Would I feel the same way if this had happened to someone else? Would I blame any of the women I’ve helped Della rescue? Call them weak because they succumbed to manipulation or abuse? Would I feel the same disgust for Lynal Skinner’s daughter that I do for myself?

Logically, I know I wouldn’t. I’d tell them it wasn’t their fault. But for some reason, it’s so much harder to offer that same grace to myself. There’s too much residual shame built up inside of me. Every time I try to wash it away, I find more hidden deep within the crevices of my mind. To truly cleanse myself of this guilt, I’d have to open up the vault and face every single monster I locked away inside my mental prison.

And I’m honestly not sure I’d survive that.

“What did the queen think?” Thorne’s voice pulls me from my worries.

“Leona?” My eyes widen. “She was… disapproving.” The word feel painfully inadequate. “Baylor convinced me it was jealousy. That she saw me as a threat. She kept insisting that I was too young for him, and I took that as an insult. I spent all of my time with adults and I’d had too many experiences that no kid should ever have to face. So, when she called me a child, it made me even more desperate to prove to her that I wasn’t, that I could handle a relationship with a grown man.”

I go quiet for a moment, searching for the strength to speak my next words. “That’s the thing I’m most ashamed of. That in the last years of her life, we were so at odds. And it was all my fault.”

“What about Remard?” Thorne asks. “Why didn’t he intervene?”

I stiffen. “Remy was different. He never really commented on it.”

His eyes darken as he balls his fists. “Coward.”

I shake my head, hating that anyone would associate that word with Remy. “No, I think he saw how I pushed Leona away and choose to keep his concerns to himself so I’d still have one person in my life I could trust. One person who genuinely wanted the best for me. It’s only now that I’m older that I’ve begun to realize how difficult that must have been for him.”

Feeling tired, I sit back down by the water and let the waves wash over my legs again.

“When did things change?” Thorne asks as he comes to sit beside me. “When did you realize the truth about Baylor?”

“When he asked me to kill Leona,” I confess. His eyes widen, but I don’t stop. “By that point, he’d already begun using the collar to force me to kill people.”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean ‘force?’”

I swallow, not wanting to admit this part.

“When he places his hand on the collar, any order he gives must be obeyed,” I whisper. “It’s as if he takes control of my body, making it impossible for me to disobey.”

He goes still at my words, but I keep speaking.

“I hated killing those people,” I insist, my eyes bulging as I plead with him to understand. “But I believed him when he told me they’d plotted treason against him. He’d done so much for me, and I told myself I was being ungrateful for not wanting to protect him. Then one night, he said he had an important assignment for me.”

Would you do anything for me?

Of course.

I shudder at the memory. “He said there was someone who was standing in the way of us being together, that this person was trying to separate us. He told me the only option was for me to kill them. I didn’t even think about it. I just immediately agreed.”

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