Page 200 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
A huff of air escaped me.
“Well, no,” I said dryly, wondering if she had missed my own disposal of Samu. “But you’ve watched me execute, brand, and on one notable occasion, mildly torture someone, so if you’re that concerned about it, we should probably find someone less biased to ask.”
Rowan let out a surprised laugh. We both knew the list of things that made me a monster was far more extensive than that, but there was no sense in bringing that up now.
“Areyou concerned about it?” I asked in a more serious tone.
She shook her head, not so much a denial as a confirmation. “I’ve killed before, but I’ve neverwantedto kill someone...wanted to hurt someone, as badly as I did that day.” She let out a slow breath, continuing.
“It wasn’t defense,” she said. “It wasn’t even an execution. It was revenge, pure and simple. I made her beg, Evander. I made her scream. And then I killed her anyway.”
A whoosh of air escaped my lungs. “Do you think she sat up at night racked with regret for the people she hurt?”
She thought that over for a moment, but her brow was still furrowed.
“I think the worst part is that I don’t regret it... Not really. I just feel like I should. But every time I picture…” She trailed off, but I knew what she was going to say.
In some ways, I think Ava having Samu whip me that last time haunted Rowan far more than it did me.
“When I picture her hurting you,” she picked up, “I just wish I could bring her back and kill her all over again.”
I thought about my father’s death, about the strange mix of satisfaction and grief that coursed through me every time I pictured his lifeless features.
“Death is complicated when it happens to a terrible person,” I finally said. “My father was…” The sentence trailed off because there were no real words to describe him or the complex relationship we had.
“I hated him most days,” I filled in. “I spent the better part of the last decade wishing he would die so I could take care of our people without him standing in my way or outright hurting them. And then he finally did.”
She reached out her small hand and tucked it in mine, still not looking anywhere but toward the ceiling. It was easier this way, I realized, for both of us to talk. Here, in the dark, without the weight of each other’s scrutinizing gaze.
I ran my thumb along the top of her hand, feeling the same connection I always did with her.
“And now you don’t know how to feel,” she said, an observation more than a question.
“Now, I feel like I’m glad he’s dead. But what kind of person does that make me?”
“A decent one,” she said. “One who cares more about your people than anything else in the world.”
I looked at my wife, then, and at the features I had come to know as well as my own. I didn’t want to fight with her, not tonight, so I didn’t make the response out loud.
But in my head, I knew she was wrong to think I cared more about Bear than anything else in the world. And in my head, I told her the truth.
Notanything.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
By the time my cousin returned from his visit with Lynx, he was bearing more news than I expected—news that would have been positive, in any other circumstances.
After escorting him and his wife back to their suites, Rowan stayed with Mila while Taras and I headed to my study.
As soon as we closed the door behind us, Taras marched directly toward the liquor cart. He took a long swig directly from the bottle before taking it over to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace.
I blinked slowly, grabbing the two glasses he’d chosen to leave behind before taking the chair opposite him.
“Do you—” He cut me off with a shake of his head before I could finish asking him if he wanted to talk.
Which was just as well, since I didn’t know what I would say—or what to say, for that matter.
In a different world, where we weren’t facing down a war that threatened to destroy everyone we cared about, I would be happy for him. Taras would be an excellent father. And I was determined to do whatever I could to give him that chance.