Page 232 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“You know what kills me, Evander?” she said quietly, her eyes meeting mine again, shining with the tears she refused to shed. “That you knew—youknewthat losing you was my worst fear. I told you I didn’t want to live in a world where you weren’t. And still, somehow you see no problem with the fact that you resigned me to that life without a second thought.”
Is that what she believed? That I had left her in that inn because it was the first merry plan I had come up with? Did she truly not understand what that morning had cost me?
“It wasn’t without a second thought.” My tone was low, but every bit of my conviction bled through. I leaned forward in my chair, speaking more forcefully as I said, “It was theonlyway. I couldn’t have handled it if something happened to you.”
That was clearly not the answer she had been looking for, based on the way her nostrils flared with indignation.
“Do you even hear how selfish that sounds?” She bit out each word. “What about whatIcould handle? Do you honestly think there is any part of me that would want to go on living if you were gone?”
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the contradictory combination of frustration and remorse that flooded my veins.
Yes, I knew it was selfish. The difference was that if something happened to me, she would have reasons to keep living. She had her entire family to support and adore her, and she would move forward one day, even if it didn’t feel that way to her now.
Whereas I was liable to turn into my father without her, a fate I fervently believed was worse than death.
Opening my eyes, I gave her the only apology I could.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”It destroys everything inside me to see you in pain, lemmikki, to know thatIcaused it. “And Iamsorry for that.”
She let out a slow sigh. “I don’t want an apology, Evander. I want you to say that you’ll never do it again.”
Of course she did. How very like her to ask for the single thing I was willing to deny her.
I was tempted—so tempted—to give her the words she wanted to hear. To let us both live in the lie and hope that we never had the circumstances to put it to the test.
But that was not our lives. We had not yet escaped this war, and I could not pretend that if I had the same set of circumstances, the same threats to my wife, the same impossible chance at keeping her safe from them, that I would not make the same decision every time.
Whether her life was pitted against my clan or my life or my soul, my choice was, and always would be, the same.
Always her.
“Lemmikki, I would do anything for you.Giveanything for you.”My clan, my life. And this time, my soul.“But you cannot ask me to sit back and watch you die when there is something I can do to stop it. I am not capable of that.”
“Even if that’s my choice?” The words were desperate, dripping with the last vestige of hope that we would walk away from this without adding to the scars we were still carving into one another’s flesh.
Like she was holding her breath before the battle horn sounded and begging me to make my retreat before we were engaged in an all-out war.
But I knew my answer now, just as I had known it then.
Her choice or her life?Her life still won, every time.
I let my truth slice through the air like a dagger, shattering the fragile possibility of a truce. “Even then.”
Shaking her head, she stood. I wasn’t surprised when she walked away, even as my mind refused to process what it might mean for the future I was supposed to have with her. Would she really leave because I couldn’t convince myself to hand her over on a platter to Iiro’s cruel whims?
If the idea of her living out her life in Lochlann had been unthinkable before we were married, it was unbearable now. Could I live with her choice if it was the price of keeping her safe?
And would any of it even matter when we were forced to return to the reality of war?
I didn’t have any answers, but the questions plagued me for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
Icalled another meeting in the war room the following morning, wanting to regroup now that I had more accurate numbers of our troops from the reports I had gone over the night before, since it wasn’t as if sleep had been an option.
I also needed to know what we could expect from theBesklanovvy. It was a topic the lords had been avoiding like the plague itself, but if I dangled our shortage of soldiers in front of them, someone was sure to address it today. I could have brought it up myself, but there would be significantly more pushback from the other lords, not to mention the reaction of my wife.
So, I had made the purpose of this meeting clear when I sent out the word and opened the floor the moment we sat down.