Page 74 of Born into Darkness

“Something out there?” I asked.

“I’m watching the moon.” His feet pattered as he crossed the cave to sit on the opposite side of the fire. The silver in his hair reflected in the stoked flames. “The embodiment of the goddess helps clear my head.”

Clear his head? What did he have to clear? It sure didn’t scrub away his attitude, which, by the way, could have done with some fine-tuning.

“Aren’t you tired after today?” I replied, enjoying the warmth of the growing fire.

“I don’t sleep much,” he replied gruffly as he tossed more fuel into the flames. “Not since my wife died.”

The pain in his words cut me deeply. The death of someone you loved never got easier with time. Sure, you might think about them less, but every day, you missed them more, and the pain just grew worse.

“I’m sorry about your wife,” I replied. “Was she ill?”

“Murdered,” Flare said, taking a stick and jabbing it at the logs to turn them over, making the fire hiss. “Along with my child. Killed by your stepmother two sun cycles ago during a clearing operation in the jungle to make way for afuckingbanana farm.”

My heart pinched for his loss. I guessed Flare and I had more in common than I cared to admit. A darkness within our hearts . Mutual pain to dwell on.

His admission left me wondering how far and wide that witch’s influence stretched. How many others had suffered at her hands? How much land had she stolen from her unsuspecting victims?

“I haven’t slept well since my father was murdered,” I mumbled, trying to show him he wasn’t alone in that department, but his face remained hard and unreadable, as if he concealed his hurt from me. “What about the rest of your family? Where are they? Not in the slave camps, I hope?”

“Orphaned. Runt of the litter.”

“No friends you could turn to?”

“Haven’t you noticed, sweetheart?” he said, tossing another few logs on the fire. “I don’t play well with others. My wife and child were all I had.”

Sweet Sea God!Could his story get any more tragic? The old Snow wanted to go to his side, cradle his head to her shoulder, and hold him. Me, I kept my distance, wary of the magic in his collar. The power I had not diffused.

“That’s not true. You’re starting to like Phantom,” I reminded him.

His rueful smile told me all I needed to know. “I’ve been alone too long. I need to make some decent friends.”

I knew that feeling all too well. Ten moon cycles in a dark, damp cell, with only rats and a madman for companionship. It was high time I made some new and trustworthy friends, too. Perhaps I’d start with Flare.

“How do you know Shadow?” I asked, curious about the connection between the two panthers.

“Years before my little girl was born, I built two of his processing sheds,” Flare said. “I met my wife there. Got married. Saved enough to build a place in the jungle.”

Living in the middle of the forest sounded like heaven. My father’s manor bordered a forest. It was the most tranquil spot in all of Haven. Whenever we visited towns to deliver apples or negotiate new trades, I cringed at all the noise—the horses and carts dragging past, people hollering at each other in the streets, the blacksmith pelting and shaping his metal, all the music drifting from the taverns…

Flare obviously didn’t like the direction our conversation had taken because he changed the subject. “You like roses?”

I rubbed my hands together. “What?”

“The tattoo on your arm.” Flare gestured to the top of his arm.

Oh. That was right. My tattoo below my shoulder. A mistake when I’d been drunk one night and reminiscing. To this day, I blamed it on Nyssa. She was a bad influence, always encouraging me to sneak out with her at night during her visits, to head to the local tavern, to admire all the handsome patrons. One night we’d gotten so hammered, she’d convinced me to get a tattoo.

“I hate them,” I said, referring to the flowers, not the artwork on my skin. “They remind me of death.” Specifically, of my parents’ deaths. My mother had died during childbirth. But I didn’t want to get into that. Sorrow stained the air between us, and I didn’t want to add to that.

“Why’d you get a permanent reminder?” Amusement weaved through his words.

Sea God.Why didn’t he shut up? Flare was the last person I wanted to confide in. Yet somehow, he had the ability to bleed information from me.

“My mother loved them,” I replied, snapping a branch and tossing it into the flames. “She wanted a child as beautiful as a rose.”

Flare smirked, his gaze panning the length of me, lingering on my face for longer than I appreciated. “Your mother got her wish.”

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