Page 166 of Scorched Earth
“Insult her, and I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to you.” Marcus was out of the bath as well, though he’d gone for his knife first and undergarments second.
He stalked toward Bait, seething with fury. She shoved her way between them, hands braced on their chests. “Enough. Bait, pleasedon’t jump to conclusions. There is so much you don’t know, and this is not how I wanted you to find out that I was—”
“Sleeping with your best friend’s murderer?”
Teriana went still, not entirely certain she’d heard Bait correctly but very certain she’d felt Marcus stiffen. “What?”
“Oh, he didn’t tell you that while he was spreading your legs?” Bait leaned into her hand. “Hepersonallyheld Lydia under the water in Cassius’s fancy baths, then shoved her down the outtake drain. That’s who you’re sleeping with.”
The world spun, her knees threatening to collapse beneath her as she slowly turned her head to meet Marcus’s eyes. “Tell me this isn’t true.”
His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes were dull with misery.
“Marcus,” she whispered, sick with desperation to hear a denial. “Tell me—”
“It’s true.”
She sucked in a breath, her whole body shaking, because it couldn’t be true. “Why? Why would you do that to her? Why would you agree to it?” Her mind filled with Lydia’s spectacled face, memories of them giggling and laughing in the Valerius library while their respective parents discussed business below. A lifetime of friendship that bound them closer than blood. “Lydia was just a girl. She… she…”
Marcus’s lips parted, then he hesitated. Teriana clung to that hesitation, praying he’d give her an answer that would make sense. An answer that would make it not his fault. Then he said, “Because Cassius ordered me to do so.”
Her body reacted even before the words registered, her palm cracking against his cheek and her nails raking across his skin. “She is a sister to me! I love her!”
Marcus didn’t so much as flinch, only exhaled a long breath. “I know. Cordelia told me. That’s why…” He shook his head.
Thiswas what had changed everything back in Celendrial. This was the secret he’d wanted to tell her. This was the crime she’d unwittingly absolved him of.
“I’m sorry, Teriana.”
“You’re sorry?” She stared at him, waiting for an explanation. Waiting for him to give something, anything, to explain why he’d agreed to murder an innocent girl. To murder Lydia, who’d never hurt anyone in her entire life.
But Marcus said nothing.
“You lied to me.” Tears dripped down her cheeks. “I asked youwhat had happened to her and you lied to my face. And have lied every day since. Allowed me to absolve you knowing full well that I’d never have done so if I’d known about this!”
He didn’t answer.
“Say something!” she shouted. “You owe me that much!”
Marcus only shook his head. “There is nothing to say.”
Which meant there was no reason that he could give. No justification. Nothing that would make this tenable or understandable. Nothing that would allow her to live with herself for having betrayed Lydia’s memory in this way. It had been an order. Nothing more.
“As always, you’re right,” she said softly. “I have come to hate you.”
And she needed to be away from this situation. Needed to escape.
Twisting away from both men, she snatched up the letter and bolted for the door. Quintus grinned at her as she jerked it open. “TheQuincenseis in the harbor,” he said, then saw her expression. “Teriana? What’s wrong?”
But she was already running.
61MARCUS
“She’ll never forgive you,” Bait spat. “Though I don’t suppose a Cel dog like you cares. You were just using her anyway.”
Marcus barely heard him. His eyes were fixed on the door Teriana had slammed shut behind her, a dull whining noise filling his ears.
She was gone.
