Page 55 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
“I owe you an apology.”
I already know I’m going to need a lot more liquor for this conversation. I take another long sip before I turn away and top up my glass. “Only as much as I owe one to you.”
Davina’s head tilts and she looks genuinely confused. “Why? What for?”
I sigh. Might as well just go for it. Balls to the wall, or something. “Because I had sex with Ashen in Cairo before I killed him. To be fair, I wasn’t really in my right mind. Not that it’s an excuse. I shouldn’t have fucked with your man.”
Davina looks down, her confusion deepening, though I see the spray of crimson blush beneath her faint freckles. Her heart rate is climbing and an undercurrent of overripe cherries filters into her scent. “He is notmy man. You have every right.”
“That’s not how it looked in the Shadow Realm,” I say, pinning her in place with a steady stare, though she doesn’t balk.
“I do not believe much about the Shadow Realm looks the way it is. It is full of tricks and illusions,” Davina replies as she shifts her attention to the metal straw and stirs her cocktail. I guess I can’t disagree with her there. The place is a little fucked up. “Ashen was shocked to see me again, and when I was brought back, he was the first thing I recognized that was real. For so long I was a specter trapped in nightmares. I ran to embrace the first safety I saw. But Lu, even though he showed me kindness in that moment, he will never forgive me for what I did. And had I known what was going on, that you were together, I would not have run to him like that.”
I have many questions about that forgiveness part, but I bank them for later as I let out a puff of a laugh and look away. “Well, we aren’t together. He made a choice and he didn’t choose me.”
“That’s not true-“
“He watched as I was dragged away to be tortured down there. He knew what would happen to me, Davina. I appreciate your apology, but it’s unnecessary. You weren’t at fault for anything.”
My drink disappears down my throat in a few solid gulps and I set the glass down with a thunk. I’ve gotta get the fuck out of here. Otherwise, memories will stack up on one another in a tower that will only smother me when it falls.
“Did you know he wept?” Davina asks just as I’m about to leave the room. I stop with my back turned to her. “I have seen him angry and enraged. But never distraught. He held himself together until we got to his room in House Urbigu. And then he transformed, like a beast in a cage. He was frantic, pacing. Destroyed his chambers, tore everything apart until he fell to his knees with his head in his hands, crying.”
“Guilt does funny things to people, Davina.”
“Not Ashen,” she says. Her voice is so sure and absolute that I look over my shoulder at her. Her face is just as serious and unwavering as her words. “He has centuries of experience with guilt. Rage and regret are as integral to Ashen’s being as bones and blood.”
I try to quell the jealous thoughts that climb up my body to pull me under water. The way she knows him, this hidden history they share. Even the admission that she was there in his room, as though she wasmeantto be there. She was the one to watch him fall apart.
I push all that jealousy down. I know it only means I feel like I’m owed something that doesn’t belong to me.
All that’s left behind is a weary, bitter kind of hurt.
A sardonic smile creeps through my lips as I take a step toward Davina. “What, you’re going to say it’slovethat broke him? That’s horseshit. If he loved me, he would have fought for me.”
For the first time, I see a flash of flame in Davina, a dark amber spark buried deep in her pupils. “He did, in the only way he knew he could win.”
My smile slips away. I sweep my gaze across her face, cataloging the details of her pulse, her smell, the flush in her skin. I wait for any of it to change as I take another step closer. “And what do you have to gain from saying all this?”
A flicker of confusion brightens the light in her eyes. “Gain?”
“As far as I can discern, every Reaper in the Shadow Realm is driven by what they can get out of a situation. They’ll fuck overanyoneto get what they want. And you’re one of them now. So what’s in it for you?”
Davina and I look at one another for a long moment. I can almost feel her stitched into this tapestry that binds us all. If I could just peer beneath her skin, I might be able to see every knot and intersection. But where it all ends, I don’t know.
I give up waiting for an answer, and I don’t want to ask again. I just want to slake my thirst and sit somewhere alone with my thoughts. Perhaps wallow a little, but I think it’s deserved. So I back up a step and turn away.
“I owe him,” Davina says. I give her a suspicious look over my shoulder and her features soften into something that looks a bit too much like pity. “Not a favor or a debt he seeks to claim, but for the harm I caused. I want him to be happy. And I owe it to you.”
“You didn’t do anything to me. You owe me nothing.”
“You’re wrong.” Davina says it with such conviction that I tilt my head. I can feel my brows pull together. I hear her pulse stutter as adrenaline kicks into her veins.
“What do you mean-”
“Hey, LuLu, Davina,” Eryx chimes as he enters the kitchen, his feathers clinking as he folds his wings tight across his back. He nods toward Davina’s drink before opening the fridge. “Looks nice.”
Davina sets her mostly full glass on the counter and steps away. “Please finish mine, if you like. I should go.”
