Page 191 of Of Blood and Banes
“Good!” he grits out. “It’s better for the both of us if you remember that. I’m not some cuddly man head-over-heels in love with you, dying for your hand in marriage, and begging at your fucking feet to simply look my way. I don’t want to be with you. I don’t fuckingwantyou. Do you understand? So, before you start fantasizing about all of that and who you think I am, let me set you straight. I have used you. For just about everything. From fucking you back in Arterias to try and get the Blood Ring. From getting out of that dungeon back in Midkeep. To avoiding being beaten by Sethan and his henchmen and drinking myselfsilly with those bottles of liquor at night. You’re nothing but a tool to me. You’re a shoddy fuck, and since I didn’t have better options, I settled for what’s between your legs so I might have a meager ounce of pleasure every once in a while?—”
I fucking slap him.
As soon as my hand connects with his stubbled cheek, my skin heats almost unbearably, triggered by the mix of anger, hurt, and shock. As soon as I realize what I’ve done, I take a step back, blinking the tears at bay as my entire body trembles with the anger it struggles to contain.
He drags his face back to me. His eyes round with shock before being drowned out by anger. We stare at each other, the godsawful silence filled with our heavy, exaggerated breaths.
He leans forward and spits at my feet. “Good.”
And then he’s out the door. When he slams it shut, the walls around me quiver from the sheer force.
CHAPTER 60
CONDOLENCES AND A CLEAN CONSCIOUS
After being given directions by Gavin, I knock on the door where Melaina is staying. When it swings open, I smile at the man on the other side.
“Hey…” Archie clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. The bruises still mottle his face, and he grins through his swollen lip.
Melaina strolls up behind him and when she sees me, she glances at Archie. “Do you mind if we have a few moments alone?”
“Absolutely,” he answers as he dips his head and slips past me, squeezing my shoulder before walking down the cobblestone street and disappearing behind a row of shops.
“He’s a good man…” Melaina whispers, her attention still fixed on the distant spot where he disappeared, with a bittersweet smile on her lips.
“He is.” I swing my gaze to her. “And you had him imprisoned just last night.”
She jerks her head back to the room. “Can you come in?”
Working through my consideration by grinding my teeth, I finally nod and sweep into the room.
Once she closes the door, she releases a heavy breath, her hand still on the handle. “I’m…really, really sorry, Kat.”
As I open my mouth to fire off all my anger, she flicks her brown doe eyes to me. And Gods, are they so much different than they were yesterday. Tears line them, her lip quivering. “I was…out of hand. I didn’t know how to cope. How to handle it all again. And I lashed out…and…I said someawfulfucking things to you.”
My anger dies down a bit, each of her sincere words washing it back. “You were right though, about there being a traitor. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“It doesn’t even matter if I was right or not. How I treated you, how I treated everyone, was terrible. Despicable. It’s been haunting me. And I thought finding the traitor and killing them would make me feel better. But if anything…”
“It made you feel worse,” I finish in a whisper.
She bites her lip to still it, tears racing down her cheeks as she drops to her knees before me. “Please, forgive me. I know it means nothing, but I never intended to torture anyone. I used it as a threat. I was keen on finding the person who hurt me, but instead I hurt you. I hurt Archie. I hurt everyone.”
She covers her face with her hands as she cries. Each passing second breaking me down further and further until it shakes off my fury. The time I discovered Daeja’s egg is an example of how familiar I am with being emotionally overwhelmed. With reacting in the wrong way. Lucky for me, I got a dragon out of it. And while my father might have died once…she experienced Sethan dyingtwice.
I drop down and rub her arms. “Shhh. Grief can bring out the…less than ideal sides of a person. Someone once told me, ‘hurt things bite.’”
“Marge,” she sniffles in her hands. “Yes. She used to say that all the time.”
Her name alone is like a punch to the gut. But I smile wistfully. “Yes. Marge…”
Melaina lifts her wet face out of her hands. “But you handle it all so well. How? How can you possibly maintain such grace with all that’s happened to you?”
I can’t help but laugh at such an absurd statement. “Me? Handling it well? While I’m flattered you think so…it’s far from the truth. If anything, I’ve come to learn loss and grief aren’t a linear path. It’s cyclical. It doesn’t disappear over time, you just learn how to move with it. Each loss is like carrying an unsheathed dagger, and eventually you learn how to stride without cutting yourself back open. You just have to be mindful. To take it slow, until you can run. But it will always stay with you.”
I twist the metal bracelet she gave me off my wrist and hold it out to her.
A silent truce.
