“I’ve naught to offer her.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Cael snorted, shoving away from the tree to face Thaddeus. “You’re heranam cara, Thad. You haveeverythingto offer her. Everything no other man will ever be able to offer. You’re the one who will complete her.”
Thaddeus scowled. “I willbreakher.” Slowly, he straightened on his feet and prowled close to his brother. “I willdestroyher. ’TisallI have to offer.”
Cael’s lighthearted air melted into something heavy and tense. The easygoing glow of his eyes turned stormy with flashes of silver. “Then why do you bother hanging around? You’re not going to kill me. You’re not going to killanyonehere. It’s all a bunch of smack talk. Why do you stay if not for her?”
“Grison and his men are not to be trifled with. My presence around you buys you time to make a decision regarding Cassy and a chance to leave this area and lay low for a time.”
“Avoiding lies through omission.” Cael leaned intoThaddeus. “Tell me you don’t stay for Rori. Tell me to my face your decision to linger is not for her.”
Bloody Cael, trying to trap him with his words.
A small, cold grin pulled at the corner of Thaddeus’s mouth. “I have forged a path of my own conscious decisions that will forever prevent me from offering anything to another aside from disappointment and heartache. I am perceived to have aligned myself with a treasonous movement. I partook in a battle against Fae alongside a woman who turned traitor to her own father. I am a walking target should the right men discover I survived the battle on Talaenian ground. The only essence by my side is that of the Goddess’s death hound, awaiting the time to take me from these worlds. Do tell, Cael. How does a dead Fae offer anything to the living? There is no reincarnation for us. Death is permanent.”
A spark of uncertainty touched Cael’s eyes. The hardened lines of his face smoothed, if only slightly. “Stop exaggerating. That’s nonsense. You’ve committed crimes, sure, but none that would mark you with an instant death sentence.”
“Mm. Do my words sound played?”
“Yes. You didn’t answer my question.”
“A question was never asked of me.” Thaddeus chuckled, straightening up and folding his arms over his chest once more. “Cael, you best understand the brother you once knew is no longer alive in this body. He ceased the moment I chose to follow Daeanna. The man before you is ruthless and calculating, with little conscience. I am the Fae whose name is not spoken of out of fear of retribution. I had been Daeanna’s weapon. Her best-kept secret. Do not fool yourself into believing I will ever be the brother you once knew.”
Thaddeus brushed past Cael, the briny breeze filling his stagnant lungs and tangling his hair around his waist.
“Thad, if you have no good intentions, then leave her alone. Don’t fuck with her head.”
“Be mindful, ’twas you who told her we were soul mates. Any hope she possesses is because of you.” Thaddeus paused to cast Cael a sharp glance over his shoulder. “I gave her no reason to hold even a sliver of hope.”
With a flick of his hand, he sifted from the beach, Cael, and the serenity that had turned sour.
13
“Those exams were brutal.” Brandon slung his bookbag over his shoulder and gathered Rori’s bag as she packed away pens in her purse. “Glad I’m planning to stay far away from psych. This class is my kryptonite.”
Rori snickered and shook her head, fixing the strap of her purse on her shoulder. She gathered her hair into a loose ponytail and tied it in place. “Why?”
“Too gray. The mind can be a frightening place.”
Her slight smile dropped as she lowered her head, taking her bag from Brandon. The mindwasfrightening. It made certain people unpredictable and dangerous. She compared psych to walking into a foggy room with little definition, not knowing what lurked in the corners of a room she couldn’t make out. All she knew was danger might reside around one corner while pain and suffering hovered in another. Nothing was safe.
“Well, it comes with the field. Even if you don’t go into psych, you’ll have patients with underlying psychologicalproblems that we have to understand in order to treat them as a whole.”
“Coming from the straight-A student.”
Brandon held the door open for her as they left the classroom, the last two out. In the hallway, he kept close to her side, his presence inciting a mixture of emotions within herself. Part of her wanted to lean into him, seek familiarity and comfort in his frame. Part wanted to excuse herself from his company. This ongoing turmoil she found herself battling since Thaddeus’s appearance in her life left her walking broken paths.
“Helps when you have a little personal experience with a psychologically disturbed man.”Times two.One was a straight-up psychopathic narcissist while the other was probably teetering on the brink of being sociopathic with a hefty dash of God complex. “You already decided to go into critical care anyhow.”
“You’ll be with me.”
Rori laughed and nodded. “We’ll see where the last semester takes us with preceptorship.”
Brandon draped an arm around her shoulders as they crossed from the air-conditioned hallway to the humid afternoon outdoors. Rori’s fist tightened around her purse strap to keep herself from pushing him away. The volatile desire to put as much distance between them as possible struck her hard, leaving her stunned. The contact wasn’t something new with them. Brandon often had an arm around her shoulders when they left together, yet today, his casual gesture struck an awkward chord in her chest. It made her scan her surroundings, searching for something or someone as the root cause of the discomfort.
“Any news of an arrest?”
“Not yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he suspected I’d file areport and his freedom would be on the line. If he’s not behind bars, he’s lying low until he comes up with some plan to evade capture. Restraining orders are only as good as the person who follows them. Otherwise, they become a means of contention with the ability to spark more violence.”
