Page 28 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
I do as Bree asks numbly, sinking my fingers in the long silky fur, then immediately pull back because, “I’ve got blood on him.”
Bree hesitates, his hand squeezing mine. “You could be filthy beyond anything the realm has ever seen, and we’d still want your touch.”
And that’s it. That kindness, and those impossible words from the male who, realistically speaking, should never want to touch anyone ever again, shatter my hold on myself.
I’m surprised they don’t hear my heart crumple.
The huge sob that breaks free shakes my entire body but is mercifully silent. I bite my lip, trying to force my grief to stay hidden, but Bree jerks in response.
“Rose?” he asks tentatively.
I shake my head, unable to answer past the huge lump of emotion constricting my airway.
Bram died yesterday. My brother, who’d only just escaped the Deep Caves and begun to reclaim his life, is gone. I’ll never get to see him reunited with the rest of our siblings. I’ll never see his silver and black fox dart around a corner or listen to him waxing poetic about rocks and the history of Faerie.
For so many years, I didn’t even know he was there, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never lived in a world without him until now.
And my Guard—the males I should be able to lean on at times like this—are broken and suffering.
“Dragonfly,” Bree tries again.
“You promised.” The two words are strangled, quiet and raw.
“I never promised to let you be miserable without doing something about it,” he counters, shifting us so that I’m secured sideways in his arms, sheltered by his jacket and able to press my face against his bare chest beneath. “Mourn. Grieve. Rage if you need to. Blame us. Blameme. I was so obsessed with finding my father that I abandoned my duties as your Guard, and I’ll never forgive myself. But I’m here now, and I’m not leaving you.”
I’m still shaking my head, but his free hand tangles in my hair, cradling me against his body in an embrace he shouldn’t have to give. After what he went through with Máel, he probably hates touching me—or anyone—more than usual. But he’s doing it. For me.
And that, more than anything else, breaks my final wall.
Bree shouldn’t have to face his demons to let me purge mine. Jaro shouldn’t have faced down those nightmares in the Spring Court, and Kitarni shouldn’t still be stuck in the Temple fighting to regain her Goddess-given position. Bram shouldn’t have died when I could’ve taken that blow and reincarnated.
“I should be dead,” I whisper. “It should’ve been me, and not him.”
Bree says nothing.
“Why would he do it?”
His hand in my hair tenses, then soothes the strands out. “Because he loved you, and he wanted you to live. I think he knew that, if you died, you would’ve chosen true death to spare him and us from torture.” He hesitates. “And because I think… he cared about Caed, and he knew if you died…”
Caed would’ve died too.
My breath comes in shallow little pants as I struggle to calm myself. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t…”
It takes a long while and several attempts, but eventually my tears dry. The lump in my throat turns to a raw ache that throbs in time with the hollowness in my chest. I’m all cried out, but he doesn’t stop holding me, stroking my hair and comforting me. Leaning on him like this feels so selfish after what he’s been through, but I helplessly soak up his affection as the rest of us ride hard, away from Siabetha.
Unfortunately, no amount of distance or tenderness can silence my thoughts.
By the time the sun sets, my fae healing has fixed the rawness around my eyes, and my tears are long since spent. Tension has wound my shoulders into knots, and I think Bree knows it, because he hasn’t let up comforting me, or even tried to separate our hands. The others haven’t tried to talk to us either, but that changes when Drystan halts Blizzard at the head of our group.
“We camp here.” He dismounts, tugging the horse over to a tree. “Everyone, get set up. Bricriu, there’s a spring a hundred yards to the east; take Rose there so she can get cleaned up. Fomorian, you’re on first watch with me.”
Naris disappears, but instead of stumbling and falling as I expect, Bree cradles me, landing lightly on his feet.
This is the most skin-to-skin contact I’ve had with my púca… ever. But he’s not complaining.
“How can you bear this?” I ask, voice scratchy. “You shouldn’t have to. Máel?—”
“Is dead.” Bree shoulders his way through the undergrowth. “I killed her. Do you know how many years I prayed for the chance to do that? You gave me that gift.”
