Page 37 of Queen of Darkness
“To think,” I said, trying to restrain the heat in my tone. “I’m still pretty angry that you took the decision away from my people. That you hid it for centuries from people who might want to know. How many hundreds, or thousands, has she stolen away to keep as her personal buffet? Or does she even steal them? People might notice that. Oh, god. Does shebreedthem?”
Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Jo. You have to believe me on that.”
“I want to,” I said and turned away, leaving the hall behind.
It was true. I desperately wanted to believe that he was ignorant of how Elenia acquired her blood slaves.
But did I?
Chapter Nineteen
Without realizing it, my feet carried me down the same hallway Drakul had shown me earlier. It was taking me toward the destroyed room. A room I knew now had been Aaron’s. It was the room in which he’d tried to stop Elenia.
I followed the footsteps marking the dusty floor, letting them take me right to the room. Again, I stood in the doorway, surveying the damage. Now I could picture it. The way she’d thrown him through the table. And slammed him down into the bed, crushing the frame under the strength of her blow.
Aaron had tried. He’d tried to fight back. That had to count for something, didn’t it? So why couldn’t I look past that?
“Maybe I should have told you.”
I stiffened as he spoke from behind me, but I didn’t jump. Nor did I turn around.
Fingers gripped my arm, and Aaron turned me around. I started to protest until I saw the anger in his eyes.
“Maybe that was a mistake,” he continued. “I don’t see it that way, but you do, and perhaps we’ll never see eye to eye on it. But that doesn’t make me a terrible person, Jo. I didn’t hold back information that could have changed your life or prevented everything that’s happened to you from happening.”
I didn’t respond.
“I’mnot the one keeping the blood slaves, Jo. I didn’t help her get them or keep them. I fought against the ruling elite in Madrigal to have them outlawed. To stop everyone from drawing on them, human or not. I did that!”
His shout echoed down the hallway. I stared at him in silence, watching his face, seeing the emotions cross it as he relived his past. As he tried to get through to me.
“When I found out about her psychotic anti-female program? I fought against that, too. I tried to stop her. I nearly died, and she tortured me until I broke. Every day, she would tear me down a little further without building me back up. Then, she flung me out among humans when I was nothing more than a blood-starved beast. Leaving me to become a murderer of epic proportions.”
What was I supposed to say to that?
“I have to live with that every day of my life, Jo,” he whispered. “Every day. Tens of thousands of people dead by my hand alone.”
“It must have been horrible.”
“When I finally started to recover my mind, thanks to Drakul and some others, the true extent of what I’d done began to sink in. But did I give up and die? No, I didn’t!”
“You didn’t go after her again either,” I pointed out, suddenly realizing thatthat’swhat bothered me so much. Aaron had tried once, and when he’d lost, he’d never tried again.
He jerked backward at my accusation, spine stiffening, while the sapphire orbs burned even hotter. “No, I didn’t. I spent the next sixhundredyears helping people out,” he snarled at me defensively. “Protecting people. Trying to dogoodby them and show them that my word was worth something.”
“What do you mean?”
“My contracts,” he said, some of his anger fading, deflating him slightly as he talked. “That’s why they’re so important to me, Jo. Why I value them so heavily, regardless of the pay. Those contracts are my word. They show that I am not like Elenia. That I am not likethem. It is my proof that I am sane.”
“What good is sane if she’s still on the throne?”
“I did what I could,” he protested. “I made friends and connections. I worked as actively against her as I could, without crossing the line into forcing her to come after me.”
“And you never went after her either,” I said. “You tried once, and when that failed, you said, ‘nope, no good, I’m done, I tried.’ You left them to suffer.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t go after them. Not because I didn’t want to, Jo. Trust me, I did. I’ve thought about it for centuries, wishing I’d struck with a knife to her throat instead of a fist. How I could have ended this then. I’ve lived with the regret of knowing that I was the one who made it possible for her to do this. And do you know why I didn’t go after her again, despite all that?”
“Why is that?”
