Page 56 of Kiss of Death
“Because I made the same decision and accepted the consequences. He’s a man, and he can deal with it.”
I stepped back and shook my head. “As someone who’s been there in the flesh, as someone who knows what it’s like, how can you have so little empathy for a man I love? For a man who gave up eternity out of love and not ambition? For a man who saved me from the Barbarians, who gave me the strength of a god and the army of the dead, who did everything in his power to make sure I survived, even though he could never have me? We’re all alive because of him—especially you.”
He stared me down with that guarded and lethal gaze, his heart dead in his chest for anyone outside us and Khazmuda and his family.
“Stop giving him credit for your success.”
“But it’s true.”
“If anyone deserves credit other than you, it’s General Viper. With no alliance with the Southern Isles, he came to a land he’d never seen with three hundred ships and saved men and dragon alike. He looked me in the eye like a man and told me he did it for you. I would never accept a vampire for my daughter, butI would make an exception for him. I’m not unreasonable, Lily. But the god of the underworld…absolutely fucking not.”
“I don’t love Viper.”
“Maybe you would if you gave him a chance.”
“I don’t love him.”
“He’s handsome, strong, honorable?—”
“Fuck off. I said I don’t love him.”
He winced like I slapped him. “Don’t speak to me like that again.”
“Where is my father?” I yelled. “Where is the man who would burn the world for me just because I asked him to?” My angry eyes flicked back and forth between his. “Even after our last argument, I thought I would return, and you would immediately fight for me just because I asked you to. I told you I want to marry this man and have his children, and you continue to feel nothing. After everything you’ve done for me, after the way you’ve loved me like a dragon loves his hatchling, I really thought you would doanythingfor me.” Tears sprang into my eyes, salty with rage and heavy with sorrow. “Travel to the ends of the earth to find me when I’ve lost my way. Give up your life just so I would smile. Would do anything I asked just because I was the one who asked. But here I am, begging you to help me, and you continue to look at me with the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen. I tell you I love this man with my whole heart, and you push some other guy on me like he’s that replaceable. Imagine how pissed off you would be if your own father had said that about Mom? That you should just pick someone else because she was the inconvenient choice.”
“Not the same thing situation at all.”
“But it’s the same idea, and you know it’s insulting.” I slammed my fist into my chest. “You insult me. You insult my heart and my mind and my soul. You insult us.” Tears continued to spill down my cheeks.
His anger faded as his eyes softened too, softened to wilted rose petals in the springtime rain. “Lily?—”
“I didn’t need you to save Riviana Star. I didn’t need you to protect the Southern Isles. I didn’t need you when I defended the castle against the Barbarians who sought to claim it. And you know what? I don’t need you now.”
He shut his eyes like I’d cut him down with a two-handed blade. They remained closed as he processed the fist that just hit him in the face and bloodied his eye. They eventually opened again, dead inside, like he didn’t feel anything at all.
I gave him a moment to change his mind, to offer his sword and his power in this crusade, but he continued to stand there with dropped shoulders and scarred eyes. He held his ground, none of my words piercing the stone that surrounded his heart.
I turned my back on him and walked out, tears dripping down my face, my heart broken by the last person I’d ever expected to harm it.
14
LILY
I was back where I started—drinking a bottle of wine alone at my dining table.
Are you okay,Sunieth?
No.
Is there anything I can do?
I stared at the wineglass in front of me.No.I just wanted to be left alone to think, but it was hard to think when a cloud of misery blanketed my thoughts. It was like trying to take a breath when you were drowning—it just made it worse.
I had to get Callum out of the underworld, and now I had to do it alone.
How would I accomplish that?
A knock sounded on the door. “It’s me.” It was my brother.
