With unfeeling lips, I began to talk.
I told him about the nightly tortures and the constant beatings, the harsh tutors, and even harsher guards.
The air was suddenly too thin, and it was hard to breathe.
Between shaky gasps, I told him the things Mother used to say to me. The things she’d done.
The many nights I lay sprawled across the floor on fire, screaming while I prayed someone would save me.
How no one had.
The days I was barely able to endure because I’d been so terrified about what was to come later. Anticipation eating at my stomach until I was physically sick.
When I was done speaking, Lothaire’s tanned skin was a sickly shade of pale.
He stared at me like he’d never seen me.
Then his face crumpled, and he staggered backward with a wail. His back hit the wall, and he cradled his head in his hands as he let loose an unholy sound. Sparks of power popped in the air around him.
He was a broken man.
Shattered.
Thank the sun god I didn’t tell him about the slur on my back.
“But it’s over now,” I said, my voice hoarse as I inhaled smoke like it could save me.
He dropped his hands and stared at me, an unfamiliar expression on his face. “How can you say that to me? How are you standing here?” He inhaled shakily. “How are you functioning—I’ve failed you.”
I tried to smile sheepishly, but my face muscles weren’t working.
I shrugged.
“Describe functioning?” I asked with a weak chuckle, then sucked in enchanted smoke until my lungs burned.
The joke fell flat.
Awkward.
He stood up straight abruptly and searched through his desk until he pulled out an RJE device.
I waited for him to explain, but he said nothing.
Instead, he walked forward until we stood about an arm’s distance apart. “Can I—hug you?” he asked softly.
I grimaced. “Sure?”
The towering vampyre enveloped me in a tight hug. Tentatively, I brought my arm up and patted his freakishly muscled back.
“It means nothing,” he whispered, “but I’m so sorry. I thought because of my agreement with the High Court that you’d be protected—I thought you’d be safe.”
He squeezed me tighter.
“Well, I’m alive,” I whispered. “I’m fine now.” The lie tasted sour on my tongue.
“After the war—we’ll talk more,” Lothaire said. “For now, you need to concentrate.”
The war.
