Entwined Realms Volume One(137)

“If they’re that sick, it might be they want to watch the Tour and let albino boy tear through the fighters.”

The odds of that were pretty low, but Nalah went slack-faced at his words. “What do you mean? As in killing them? Beylor wouldn’t allow that. They’d be disqualified.”

Esh had kept her from the worst parts of the fighting world, but she couldn’t be that naïve to not realize that was a possibility. “You’re kidding. Half the people here are for the bloodshed.”

“No, I thought…it’s about prestige, the best of the best fighting. I was never told…” Her eyes were wide and horrified. She collapsed into the chair, wiping her hand over her mouth, her brow furrowed as she absorbed the words. “I would never have asked you to come if I’d realized.”

“Like I have anything to fear.” But Nalah didn’t move, the vague horror of her expression not changing. “Seriously didn’t know?”

“Of course I didn’t.” Vague horror turned to indignation. “I don’t lie.”

“No, you run.”

Fuck if he meant to say those words, but now they were out and he was glad, meant or not.

She shot him a filthy glare, jerking up from the seat. “I don’t want to talk about that. We have other things going on now.”

“Convenient. I thought you were all about the closure.” The words were tumbling forth, unstoppable. “It’s only closure when you get to tell me how fucked up I did, right? Not going to hear my side?”

Nalah smiled, her mouth sharp-edged and ready to tear through him. “What is it you’re going to tell me? You’re upset he died? I fucking know that. He was your best friend. Didn’t stop you from turning him away when he needed help.”

“You got no clue what I went through, because I kept everything away from you so you wouldn’t worry or see what an ass he was.” Memories bombarded, the love and hate for Jac that were so mixed up in him, those last few months, when his soul brother kept fucking up and he kept trying to stop it. “Do you know how many hours I worked with him to make him better? How many times I stepped in when he couldn’t work a fight? How many fucking times I begged him to never get involved with those assholes?”

“Then why didn’t you do it one last time?”

She just never fucking gave up. “Because if I stepped in it would have put you in danger, and as much as I loved him, there’s nothing in this world that would ever make me sacrifice you.”

“Me in danger?” Her lip rose, nose wrinkling as if the statement was so dumbass, she had no idea how to process it.

More than anything, it was that look that pissed him off. That look that said she had no clue his actions were from anything except pure selfishness. “Fuck yeah, you in danger! What do you think would have happened if I’d bailed Jac out? They would have known it wasn’t because of Jac – I’d already said I wasn’t covering any more of his losses. They would have looked to his pretty little sister and wondered why I’m suddenly helping Jac out of a fucking mess and why I’m never with any other woman but her, and they would have pieced it together. And if they’d pieced it together, known I’d helped him to protect you? Your life would have been forfeit. You wouldn’t know peace again.”

They were both breathing hard. He turned to look out the window, watching the evening sun shining over the tops of the trees. “And then you were gone. Nothing. No one knew shit. You left me without a whisper, and all I had was a dead best friend and my woman missing. Do you know how scared I was? Do you have any fucking clue how scared-” and for the first time his voice broke, choked up, and he gritted his teeth hard, pushed air down through the constricted muscles of his chest and back so he could take a deep breath, because fuck if this was going to control him.

“It wasn’t on purpose.” Her voice was soft, tentative, all edges gone and pure sorrow throughout. “It wasn’t to hurt you. I wasn’t myself, and I couldn’t think or consider anything, not even what you might be going through.”

He swallowed the rough emotion, the swell behind his eyes. “Letting me know you weren’t dead? That would’ve been too much?”

“At the time? Yes.”

A short snap of humorless laughter escaped him. “And yet I’m the asshole.”

“When I came to myself later, I was going to tell you.” An unsteady hand brushed his shoulder, the touch unsure of its welcome, while the voice that accompanied it pleaded to be heard. “I really was. I would never have left you like that. But when I said I wanted to contact you, Laire told me she’d taken care of it and let you know I was alive and taken care of. Maybe it was the coward’s way, but I didn’t press after that.”