Page 123 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

But I didn’t.

I stood, and I scrutinized because I couldn’t walk away from this long-awaited reunion. This moment I’d hoped and even prayed for. I needed to go, but first I needed toknow.

“Did you mourn me?”

The question felt out of place, plucked from where it had lived in my brain for decades.

I’d wondered so many things after I died. Lamented all I’d left behind. I was lamenting now, mourning a fresh loss, and maybe that was why it mattered. Maybe that was why I wondered if he felt the same way I did. If he hurt like this when he lost me.

Jonathan frowned. “What?”

“Did you mourn me?” I repeated.

His fingers curled to grip the metal bars as he asked, “When you left?”

Bodies around us shifted and moaned. Grates rattled. I’d unsettled this place, and if it was as much a prison as it appeared, guards might soon arrive.

Jonathan’s cerulean eyes flicked over me, assessing without the anticipated fondness. When he made a scoffing sound in the back of his throat, I flinched.

“Why would I mourn you?” he asked. “I didn’t even know you were dead. You vanished. Left no trace. No trail to follow.”

That put me on my heels. Of course, I hadn’t explained my departure. There had been no opportunity.

“But did you try?” I asked. “Did you look for me?” My voice came out hoarse as I rambled on. “Because I would have turned over the world for you. I would’ve forged a path. I would have found a way?—”

“You left me on my deathbed,” Jonathan snapped. “In my greatest moment of need.”

My jaw hung slack. Was that what he thought of me? After all this time? I lacked the presence of mind to protest before he continued.

“You saw the end of what I could provide for you, so you left. Found yourself another benefactor, I imagine. Became another man’s whore.”

I hissed a breath. “Don’t call me that?—”

“I asked one thing of you, Lorenzo.” The grit in his voice chafed me. “My final wish was to see my family cared for. I entrusted that task to you, but you refused it. And then you abandoned us all.”

I remembered the sanatorium ward bustling with nurses, the arrival of his wife and daughters, and the way I’d been dismissed as an unwelcome interloper. A shameful thing. I would never have been enough for them. Jonathan would have left a void I couldn’t fill. I knew that now as well as I had then.

But I thought I’d done better. I had sacrificed myself for him. For all of them.

It took a moment for my mouth to work, for my tongue to do more than lay limp between my teeth. Finally, I stammered, “I didn’t abandon… She took me away, I… I sold my soul for you.”

Jonathan gave a huff, then shook the bars between us. “A lot of good it did,” he said. “You see where I am. You didn’t spare me this.”

He was right, and it made me feel as foolish as I had when Moira made plain that my efforts had been in vain.

“But you’re walking free.” Jonathan’s voice drew my attention. “Perhaps you can do some good yet. Free me from this place and consider all forgiven.”

I barely managed to squeak out, “Forgiven?”

Whitney had been silent till now, observing the way he had the day he watched the demoness barter for my soul. Now though, he cleared his voice and spoke.

“Loren, we need to go.”

Looking at Jonathan, I found his expression fixed, unyielding as I knew he could be. Cruel as he’d been in life. For years, I’d survived on the scraps of his kindness. I had lived in his shadow, convinced it was preferable to my darkness. But I’d had better since then. I’d been loved.

“No.” I shook my head. “I deserve more than your forgiveness. Ialwaysdeserved more.”

“There you are.” Jonathan flicked his eyes skyward. “Ever the ingrate. But this isn’t the time for another self-indulgent tirade?—”

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