Page 106 of A Scar in the Bone
“I know only one thing,” I said. “I will kill Stig … and if I ever see my brother again … I will kill him, too.”
The color bled from her face. “No,” she breathed. “He is all that is left to you. Your only family.”
“You”—I took her face in both my hands and growled—“are my family.”
Moisture welled up in her eyes. “I don’t want you to kill your own brother because of me. I can’t have that.”
I brushed my thumbs over her cheeks soothingly. “Even if he hadn’t let Stig hurt you, what he did to me is enough. He handed me over to the skelm on a silver platter—and he seemed glad to do it. Glad to get rid of me.” I could still see his cold, frosty gaze. Not a flicker of guilt or remorse.
Her eyes flared wide. “He lied …” Shaking her head as though she could not quite fathom it, she pulled herself up out of the pool. Standing, she started pacing back and forth on the ledge in short, agitated strides, hot color flooding her face. “He lied to me,” she repeated in a hushed voice, almost to herself. “What a fool I was.”
She continued pacing, indifferent to her nudity, her movements hard and abrupt. “I lived among them. With him. I—I respected him. I let him—” She stopped, her eyes suddenly shining with an emotion I could not name. She looked at me and then glanced away sharply … guiltily.
She let him …what?
“Tamsyn?” I queried softly, even as nothing inside me felt soft. Far from it. “What did you let him do?”
After a long moment, she inhaled and faced me, shoulders squared as she looked down at me in the water. “He had almost convinced me to move on … to put you in the past.”
Almost.
“Of course he did,” I said, an ugly emotion coiling through me like a serpent. Not jealousy. This was darker. Becausethisjealousy filled me with fantasies of Vetr’s blood on my talons. “And how exactly did he recommend you do that?”
She paused a beat, gave a long blink. “By forming a new bond.” She was avoiding my gaze, staring down at her hands as though they were the most fascinating things she had ever seen. “Forming bonds, taking mates, bringing the dragon population back up. This is important for the survival of the pride.”
I felt my lip curl in a sneer. “That’s what he told you?”
“Yes.”
That bastard. He wanted her and he had pursued her … after getting rid of me.
“And let me guess,” I continued. “Was it his suggestion that you bond with him?” The words felt like rocks lodged in my throat. My hands curled into fists at my sides, wanting to break something—break Vetr.
Her gaze held mine, and she nodded slowly in response.
Of course he would have put such a proposition to her. Tamsyn was mine. She was a fire-breather. She was beautiful. Three reasons that would prompt him to want her for himself.
I glided closer to the edge of the pool and looked up at her. “So what does my brother convincing you to move on and form a bond with him look like?”
“Oh, um.” She blinked and squared her shoulders. “Just … a lot of talk—of talking.”
She was stammering again.
“A lot of talking?” I echoed.
She sucked in an audible breath, her eyes fever bright. “What do you want me to tell you, Fell? That he kissed me? Touched me?”
“You don’t need to tell me anything. I knew that the first time I touched you.” I shrugged. “After we stopped trying to kill each other. I could smell him on you.”
She pulled back with a sharp inhale.
I angled my head, lifting an eyebrow. “That comes as a surprise? We are connected. Bonded.”
It did surprise her. I could see it clearly in the eyes that flickered like firelight. I, however, wasn’t surprised. I had not known the exact details … not whom she was with, but I had detected it, sensed another had touched her, held her, kissed her. Another craved her as I did.
Now I knew that someone else was Vetr. My own brother.Fucker.
She was horrified, shaking her head fiercely, the wet strands of her red hair pelting the wall behind her as the words tumbled from her in a fevered rush. “I’m going to be sick.”
