Page 150 of A Reign of Roses
Guilt, remorse, weakness—
“Son,” my father said quietly.
“Father.”
“I’m told you come with an offer?”
“Your numbers outweigh ours too significantly.” A notched blade through my gut, each word. “I don’t wish to see my men slaughtered.”
“Again,” he added.
And I deserved the blow. “Again,” I conceded.
He stood. Patient. Cold. Waiting.
“We have the only thing that you truly care about…” I opened my mouth to say it. To finish what we’d come here to do. But the words—
I couldn’t bring myself to utter them.
Weak. I was fuckingweak.
Before I could falter too visibly, Arwen took a tentative step forward. “Take me back with you. End this before it begins, and I’ll bear the heirs you seek.”
For a moment, my father said nothing. Paced once in thought as I forced my mind to empty.
“You are effectively surrendering.” It was not a question.
“Yes,” I bit out.
His clear silence rent the room.
Ash. Ash on my fucking tongue. “We surrender.”
“Is this the leadership that convinced all those rebels to die for you?” Lazarus clucked his pointed tongue. “Personally, I don’t see it.”
Fire ran through my veins. If it was cold in the tent, I couldn’t feel it.
“And the girl?” He didn’t look at Arwen as he continued. Only me. And for whatever reason, that fueled my rage more than any other word I’d spoken since entering. Here she was, offering herself to him,herchoice,herbody, and he didn’t care. He only wanted to hear it from me. Whether that was because he knew how it gutted me to give her up or because he didn’t respect her authority, I didn’t much care.
“You heard her.”
“Speak the words.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Arwen’s gaze cut sidelong to me. Urging me. Soothing me. I couldn’t fucking look at her. “She’s yours.”
Griffin shifted beside me but said nothing. Briar stood preternaturally still as she always did. I couldn’t even see Eardley. Couldn’t see past the venomous sheen coating my vision. The throbbing artery in my father’s neck.
“That won’t do you any good,” he muttered.
“What won’t?” Arwen asked.
“Your soon-to-be late husband is thinking about tearing into my carotid artery. Futile, childish…He’ll never change, will he?”
“End this, Lazarus,” Briar said, so low I’d hardly heard her. “End this and let’s be done with it.”
“And what of my new realm? Surely you can’t think I’ll be satisfied to stay in the wasteland that is Lumera?”
This, we’d considered. “We split the continent. Amber and Garnet have already agreed to give you their lands. Peridot, too. I believe Rose could be convinced. That’s four of nine, and we both know you’d never successfully lay siege to Citrine. You can send all the mortals from your new lands here, to Onyx.”
