“Think about your family, Honoria. If you were my sister—”
“But I’m not.”
“But if you were, I’d be worried beyond belief at finding you gone.Iwould kill any man who dared remove you from the safety of your home.”
Lash watched as she smoothed her hands over her skirts, her eyes not quite meeting his. He lifted his hand to graze her cheek but paused midway, thinking better of it. Even if she did not care about her future, he cared about her life.
“If something happened to you,monisha, I would never forgive myself.”
She lifted her lashes to look at him then, her eyes filled with disheartenment and unshed tears. “What if I absolve you from any culpability?”
“It’s still too dangerous. Danior—”
“Will be much easier to defeat with my brain on your side.”
“You cannot ask me to risk your life.”
“It’smylife. Mine. To do with asIplease.”
“You are impossible to reason with,” he muttered with the shake of his head. “Place yourself in your family’s shoes. How will they feel when they discover you and your sister have run off with a man you barely know—a man who has already been targeted once?”
“We would not be running off with you, you’d be escorting us.”
“Your brothers will fail to see the difference, as do I. And that does not answer the question.”
He steeled himself against the flash of hurt that entered her eyes, but could not stop himself from reaching for her, wanting to comfort her. She recoiled from his advance.
Lash flinched.
“I thought you were different.” Sadness edged in her gaze. “But for all your talk about blood and kind, you are merely a man and every bit as stubborn and mulish as any other man in the world.”
“Do you think Iwantto deny you this?”
“Then why not grant my request?”
“It’s complicated.”
She laughed, humorless. “I shall be sure to engraveit’s complicatedon your gravestone someday, as that seems to be your chosen mantra.”
Pain and regret settled into his bones. But her anger was for the best. He was saving her like she had saved him, even if it was in a different way. She’d given him back his life; he was sparing her a lifetime of misery.
Even without Danior attempting to end his life, even without Syeira needing to be found, Lash couldn’t give her the life she deserved. The sneers and disdain that forever followed him prevented that. The very notion squeezed his heart.
“You are wrong,” she whispered, her voice faltering. “I am not the sun and you are not the night. We are just stars. We are all seeking a place in the sky where we can shine.”
Then she left. And there was nothing but darkness in her wake.
