Page 68 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

Perhaps she always latched on to the nearest source of Socairan man-comfort she could find.

“I thought what?” Her voice was simmering with a quiet rage, her hand waving sarcastically. “Go ahead, please, and tell me all of my feelings and how very unreasonable they were.”

“I don’t know what you thought,” I admitted, my voice calmer. “But I know that it would have been a mistake for you to stay, so if you’re expecting me to apologize for that, you’re going to be waiting a long time.”

Even now, I could picture it, the way she would have grown to resent me once the pass opened and she was free to come back here to live her easy, happy life rather than being stuck with my nightmare of a father and an entire clan of people who hated her.

She shook her head bitterly. “Don’t kid yourself, Evander. I would never expect you to apologize for anything, because then you might have to pull your head out of your arsehole and admit that you were wrong about it to begin with.”

Der’mo, this woman. She might have been the only person in the entire world who wasn’t afraid to talk to me that way, and I craved it like a dying plant craved the sun, even if it was infuriating.

I wasn’t wrong, though, and I wasn’t going to stand here and pretend that I had been so she could justify the choices she’d made. Like so many of our interactions lately, this argument was going nowhere. All at once I found myself ready to be done with whatever game she was playing.

“Was that what you needed to know, then, so you could finally make your decision after a week of stringing us both along?”

Was Korhonan already dancing in victory, prepared to embark upon their everlasting companionship borne of optimism and mutual obliviousness?

Of course not. He was too noble for that.

“I’m surprised it took you so long, when you’re so very honest with yourself and the people around you.”

Something flashed across her features too fast for me to read it. A strange sort of resignation, and something I was far less accustomed to seeing. Condescension. Like I was missing something obvious.

It was gone as quickly as it had come, though, replaced with her familiar glare as she got to her feet with surprising ease.

At least I had what I needed to know, also. She was safe. Healing. Feeling well enough to walk away.

“I had already made my decision when you came in. I just wanted to know where we stood, and now I do.”

She left before I could respond to that, which was just as well, because for a change, I had nothing at all to say to her.

It was probably better this way, anyway. Perhaps in a different life, where I had been granted the privilege of being soft and easy the way that Korhonan was, where my mother was alive and my father was sane, where Rowan and I had met under literally any other circumstances…perhaps then, we could have had something more than a room piled ceiling high with the things we couldn’t say to one another.

But this was not that life, and I was not that man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Insomnia was nothing new for me, but it took on a whole new meaning that night.

Over and over, my conversation with Rowan had echoed in my head. No amount of push-ups or whiskey could suppress the image of her pale-green eyes boring into mine, lips pursed in resignation.

I just wanted to know where we stood,and now I do.

I doubt that very much, Lemmikki.

Not that I knew, either. Things were never as simple with us as standing on solid, definable ground.

And now…

I had already made my decision when you came in.

The clock in the hall chimed, the signal that it was time to head to the Council Room. At least we had mercifully been spared a family breakfast this morning, considering the events of yesterday.

The entirety of my kingdom would have died at the idea of wasting food, but I wasn’t sure I could stomach a single bite when I pictured Korhonan’s smug face in the Council Room this morning, let alone for the entire week I would need to stay for negotiations.

If she chose him.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to ease the ache that had settled into my skull.