Page 134 of The King's Man
He could have freed her!
But in his world, she would only have been taken again…
He had to play by the rules of the society in which he lived, and he’d made the choice he thought was best.
But it was wrong!
But the alternative would have been worse… wouldn’t it?
It was impossible to know, because wecouldn’tknow, because this was the path he’d chosen.
He’d say, he’d been forced to it. He’d seen no other choice.
Just like me.
I rolled my head on my neck trying to loosen the tension there, because suddenly my mind conjured all the waysmysociety placed expectations and restrictions, and the ways I’d had to learn to work within those strictures, despite the conflict with my own beliefs.
I wanted to argue that it wasn’t the same. That I had broken the rules because I knew it was important to change!
Of course, I had also been the recipient of the kindness and strength of men like him, helping me. Using their power to help me make changes…
But he’d made it seem like he embraced the role his society expected! That wasn’t change!
And yet… he’d used his power to make life better for someone else.Ifhe was telling the truth.
The thought came, then fled in the wake of myownrush of indignation and offense.
My mate was not a liar.
Oh God…
My mate was not a liar.
But he’d withheld information and…
And there were many things aboutmylife that he didn’t know yet, either.
Around and around and around my mind went. The arguments endless and swaying back and forth like a pendulum, carrying my heart with them.
All the things he’d never told me fighting all the ways he’d protected me, wrestling with all my fears, which battled all the ways he’d attempted to help.
All the ways our worlds were different.
All the ways he quietly accepted my differences without telling me they were wrong—and all the ways he had lived in defiance of the wrongs perpetuated in his society. Unlike many of the men I’d grown up with.
Was my own society really so different, when women—with few exceptions—were expected to move from their father’s household, to their husband’s, to remain demure and offer their bodies, to breed and…
I swallowed hard. The Nephilim were brutal in ways my people were not. But my people were not flawless, and the men I had allowed to get close had brutalized my heart, if not my body.
First and foremost among those, Walt who had fed me compliments like sweets, then laced them with poison.
What if Jann had found me first? Or if he’d found me when Walt still had me deceived… how might my life have changed? How might I be different if I’d had his protection from those young years?
How might Jann have saved me from that ultimate humiliation?
I blinked.
I wanted to push that thought away. Why?
