“I killed an innocent.”
The bald statement blindsided her. He didn’t glance over to take in her reaction, but his fingers flexed over his black pants.
“The Dimios cannot mate or have a family—it’s one of our laws. Imagine going into war and placing your loved ones in the front line of the cavalry to be slaughtered first. That’s what having a family would be for us. Easy targets for the enemy. So if we find our mate, we have the choice to abdicate. When I met Pria, that’s what I did. I didn’t regret the decision. Not that it mattered.”
Bitterness, raw and ugly, dripped from his last sentence and Tamar braced herself for what she might hear next.
“I should have known. I should have realized a simple title switch wouldn’t be enough. But I was selfish and pride blinded me. No harm would come to my family as long as I was there to protect them. Pria paid the price for my arrogance.”
His voice took on that precise, clipped pitch again as if he were recounting someone else’s story from a text book and not his own personal history.
“Months after I stepped down, another rogue went on a rampage. He cut such a bloody path through Eastern Europe my father had to contact the crones and pay them to create a mass hallucination that spelled people into believing a terrible plague had killed off nearly half their population. A Dimios hadn’t been selected to replace me yet so I volunteered to help Lukas hunt him. When Pria’s screams first reached me, I was in what is today’s Mongolia. I abandoned the hunt and flew back to Greece, but I was too late. Unknown to me or Lukas, the rogue had backtracked.”
Tamar didn’t need to hear any more. She knew where this was headed.
“Nicolai—”
“He’d ripped her to pieces. Left what remained of her under the sun in the wheat fields near our home.” Steel entered his voice. “See, the last rogue I had executed had been his son. He’d left a message in blood—if he couldn’t get to me, he would destroy those I loved.”
“Jesus.” His description of his wife’s death had been factual, but Tamar’s imagination filled in the blanks. Resa and her horrifying brutal murder at Evander’s hands flashed in her mind. If Pria’s death had been anything similar to Resa’s… She shivered. And Nicolai had been the one to find her? How did he bear it?
“So you went back,” she said.
“Yes. I resumed my role as Dimios.”
“Did you find the one who did it?”
The smile that curved his lips was cruel, blood-stained. “Yes.”
That simple word summed it all up. That and the smile.
“Good.” Brutal satisfaction filled her. His wife had been innocent, unable to fight back. Only a coward would have targeted her. “But why do you believe her blood is on your hands?”
“I made the decision—”
“Bullshit.”
Yet again he stared at her as if she’d sprouted a second head. Which she found ironic considering he was the one who could shift into a half-eagle, half-horse beast. Ri-i-ight. She was the weird one.
“What did you say?” he asked, deliberately enunciating each word.
“Bull. Shit,” she reiterated just as carefully. “Pria knew what you were and what you did when she married you. Even though you’d resigned, she went into the relationship with her eyes open and accepted the risk just like you did. And neither of you are to blame for what happened. That’s squarely on the shoulders of the spineless piece of shit that preyed on a defenseless woman.”
A heartbeat of silence passed.
Then another.
He continued to study her. And though it unnerved her, she refused to fidget under his unblinking inspection. Okay, so she could have stated her opinion with more tact. Damn. She was going to have to apologize…
“You do have a way with words,” he finally drawled. Amusement, not anger, colored his voice, softened the severe cut of his mouth. “Now it’s my turn to thank you.”
Tamar ducked her head and scrubbed her palms over her thighs. Shyness was not in her genetic make-up and its appearance disconcerted the hell out of her.
“Do you think…” she blurted.
“Do I think what?” he pressed.
After a moment where she called herself everything from needy to sappy, she forced the question out. “Do you think if I didn’t resemble Pria there would be this attraction between us?” She winced. “What I mean… Is your guilt the reason why you’re determined to protect me from Evander?”
His touch, featherlight and tender, brushed her jaw, caressed the length of her throat before sweeping back up to trace her mouth. Her lashes fluttered then closed. She melted, dissolved into a puddle of butter right at his feet.