Page 135 of Dark Shadow of Guilt

Dom shook his head. “No, but I’ll take it.”

The OC looked at him askance. “Are you thinking you can quit your job because you are pissed at me? I will not allow that. Be as angry as you want, but you will remain an assassin.”

“Nope. Not gonna quit. And I’m not really pissed. I expected to be caught and punished. So the not-guilty verdict is an appreciated reprieve. I’m down with it.”

“Then what the fuck is it? Do not keep me waiting. I have courtiers to entertain.” His eyes flicked to the side, dark circles under them making him look tired. “I also have female Immortals who make it their life’s pleasure to entertain me.”

“A request,” said Dom.

“Spill.” The OC pointed at the I-giveth-I-taketh-away reminder written above his throne as if any of the Feard could forget it.

“Once, I asked for a permanent reminder of my extincting Gareth. You let me keep my wound, and I thank you. I needed it. Now I realize the best of him is in here.” Dom tapped a finger to his temple. “The early Immortal. I’ll not forget who he became, but I’ll remember a legendary warrior and assassin, too. My friend. But it’s time for me to heal so that my memory of him is of the whole male not just the damaged Flesh Eater.”

Dom fixed his gaze on the OC. “First, I have a question. Why did you sendmeafter Gareth? You must have understood its impact. In part, you played a role in my guilt.”

“Not sure you’ll understand.”

“Try me. I’ve grown wiser.”

“You’re a great warrior, Dominion, with a strong sense of right and wrong. An ethical right and wrong. Not a legal one. And you are stubborn.”

Dom rubbed his bad eye. “I can see that.”

“I did not seek to give you guilt. I sought to show you truth. You needed to experience the complex being Gareth had become, his strengths and weaknesses. Without that picture, you would never have believed he was unable to survive a malady. I sent you after the truth. You found it, but in your stubbornness, you did not accept it—until now.”

“It was a hard lesson.”

“Harder than I had foreseen, but worthwhile truths often are.”

“I have carried the shadow of Gareth inside me. He was guilt, a darkness that ate away at me. Madeline shone a light on that darkness. She helped drive it away. Do you ever question your choices?” asked Dom.

The OneCreator smiled, shifting a bit in his throne.

“No answer?”

“To question my judgment would mean I do not see the future. To question my decisions would mean I do not see their impact on my Immortals.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“Yes, it is. It just isn’t the one you want. The answers to our questions are not always clear. So back to your request. Do you no longer need a reminder of your betrayal?”

“I no longer believe I betrayed him. You cannot help someone who does not want to help himself.”

“A wise perspective on the matter.”

“A good person told me this.”

“Approach, Dominion, my onyx-winged assassin.”

When he did, the OC barely waved his fingers. Dom’s patch fell away. “May you be as free of the past as you wish. May you remember my troubled copper-winged assassin as he truly was. As I remember him. The good and the bad at odds. Yet, strangely, they made him whole.”

The light was brighter. Dom hadn’t realized that in seeing from only one eye his surroundings had dimmed.

The OC shooed him out.

Dom pushed through the door, his path clearer, his future shinier, and Maddy waiting for him on the steps of Sanctuary Keep.

She slapped a hand to her mouth but was unable to smother her gasp. “Dom,” she cried out, her eyes watery. “You didn’t do that for me, did you? I loved you as you were.” She paused to smile. “I also love you as you are. I guess I just love you.”

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