Page 87 of Cursed Shadows 5

“Why?” I aim my stony look at him, a mask I keep tugged over the doubt aching to break through, the thickening of my throat that itches to choke my words at the sight of him.

As put together as he always is, there’s something off about him. Somehow, the distressed grey sweater he wears is no longer effortlessly refined and wealthy; the kohl shadows that border his brilliant blue eyes, they seem more like dark circles now; and the sag of his muscular shoulders wears too much defeat for a male who won all he set out to achieve.

He stands before me as a male who has lost everything and wanders the shadier parts of dim taverns and grim brothels.

That is what I see on him.

Ruin.

He steps closer, one determined step but cautious, too, like he’s afraid to spook me. “You asked me a long time ago—who are you?”

I blink, confused. “What?”

“I walked you home from the High Court, and you asked me,who are you.”

My frown is glued in place. “Ok?”

“I think about that sometimes. I should have been the one to ask you that,” he says, and his voice is smoothed into a pained whisper to match the hollow look in his eyes. “I should have seen that you didn’t know yourself better than you knew your next step in a mapped-out life.”

I look down at Hedda.

She is on her back now, chewing on the laces of his boot.

“I have made many mistakes. Many errors.” He lures my gaze back to him. “All in pursuit of what I thought I knew, what I thought was best. But what I did was bring about my own curse. Of all the errors I committed, my first and perhaps gravest one, was to assume you knew yourself. That you had power over your own life and path. In thinking that of you, I held you responsible for too much. I put my pride before you.”

“I can’t do this right now. I am starving, I am drained, and I am so fucking tired of this…” I flurry my hand between us. I have no snark, no hate to give. I am simply exhausted. “As much as I appreciate this bottled speech, I hear nothing.”

Daxeel moves for me in swift steps.

Hedda snarls at the sudden loss of her chew-toy, his boot laces, then chases after him.

Daxeel steals the bag strap from the ground, lures it into his fist, then scoops Hedda into his other arm.

He rises to tower over me, but his eyes, like his voice, are soft. “Let me help.”

I rinse him over with an unkind look. “Can you even cook?”

His smile is small and quick to fade. “I am a trained warrior…”

I arch a brow, a look dripping with ‘so what?’

“Yes, I can cook.”

Without a word, I turn my back on him—and let him carry the load as he follows me home.

The embrace of the armchair is plush around me. I sink into it, the heat of the lit hearth scorching one side of my body.

I tuck my knees to my chest and watch Hedda gnaw on the bone we picked up at the butchers. She is sprawled over the dusty rug, and no one can accuse her of quiet eating, not with the grunts and gurgles and snorts that come from her every other second.

The clink of a pan draws in my hooded gaze.

With only the middle bench between us, I watch as Daxeel sets out the pan on the countertop, then tosses into it the washed and chopped onion, tomato, spinach, and nuts. He throws in a dollop of whipped butter before passing off the pan to the stove.

“Cooking me a meal does nothing, you know,” I tell him. “It changes nothing.”

Daxeel stiffens. Hands hovering over the strips of ox meat, he lifts his gaze to me. A hue of red surrounds the gloss of his cobalt eyes.

“There is nothing in this life I can do to repair the damage I caused,” he says, soft. “There is nothing I can offer you that you need, because you need for nothing and no one. I am proud of you, Nari. If you tell me to leave, I will.” He forces a hard swallow. “Tell me to abandon my unit, and I will. Tell me to kneel at your feet every phase—and I will. And I will do it knowing it is not enough.”

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