A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(24)

He turned his back on her and ran a hand through his thick hair, mussing it wildly. She could see his jaw ticking as he clenched his teeth in frustration. She was afraid of him, finally realizing he was having difficulty keeping control over himself. There was something equalizing in that fact, but still she was afraid.

“If you only knew what I have—but you won’t. You never will. You don’t want to understand. Your only object in this world is to plague me. Harass me.”

“I harass you?” She scoffed. “I am not the one who has ripped you out of the only world you have known! Away from friends and family and those I love—“

“Ha! Those you love.” But here he hesitated. “I was told…I was told that you do not have any family living with you. I was told that you do not have a lover.” His head swiveled around and he narrowed his eyes on her. “Do you have a lover?”

“As if I would tell you!” she huffed. “It is none of your business!”

“It is my business. Everything the concerns you is my business now. I have made you completely dependent on me. There is nothing that will affect you that will not be my responsibility. Tell me if you have a lover you will be pining for.”

“Why does it make a difference to you? You will do what you want anyway!”

He reeled about and grabbed hold of her by her arms and gave her a little shake. “Answer me!”

She should have said yes. She should have spit the lie in his face and watched it crash over him. Somehow she knew it would hurt him, and she wanted to hurt him.

“I do not have a lover. But I very easily could have. What would you have done then? Taken me back? Discarded me as used goods?”

“No,” he said, letting his hands fall away from her. “I simply would know how much harder this would be.”

She gaped at him aghast. “You have no shame! And you should feel shame. This is beneath you. Even you, as barbarous as you are, this is beneath you!”

“Do not attempt to know my mind or my feelings. You and your lofty, snobbish ways of viewing the Kiltians are well known. You wouldn’t try to understand us. It is easier for you to dismiss us as beasts and leave it at that.”

“Aren’t you beasts though? Warring to have your way just because it suits you!”

“I did not war on a whim! My people were desperate! We needed the space. We needed open places in which to live. We were crowded family upon family, unable to turn around without running into one another. You wouldn’t have just given the land to us. You had barely settled the Triagle Territory. It wouldn’t have hurt you to give us some of that space. In the end it didn’t, did it?”

“You say that because you don’t know what it took to relocate all of those farmers and homesteaders. The money it cost. The popularity it cost. We had to bring our armies into the capitol city to keep people from rioting in reaction to the deal we made.”

“We have both of us made sacrifices in the name of bettering our people.”

“What did you sacrifice? We gave up land and what did you give up? Money? You have more riches than you know what to do with.”

“We gave up lives. We threw young life after young life at you, that was how desperate we were. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see we had no choice but to force your hand?”

“We threw away lives too,” she said softly.

They stared hard at each other, both breathing hard in their passion. Each felt strongly for their position. Even though a truce had been struck between their peoples it was clear that forgiveness was a long time in coming. If the leaders of these two worlds could not find forgiveness, then what hope was there for the peoples themselves?

“I won’t stand here and defend my choices. I would do it all exactly the same.”

“Then you have learned nothing,” she said sharply.

“No. You have learned nothing. With your large, expansive cities and farmlands where everyone has acres and acres for themselves…with your big buildings and wasted spaces. You can’t know what it means to live in overpopulated homes where filth and disease can run rampant in a heartbeat. This room you are in would have been impossible two autumns ago. This much space used for one person?” He released a scoffing laugh. “Unheard of. Even for me. Even for the raja. Until this place was built the temple was built into the face of a cliff, dug out inch by inch. No light…no air. Just darkness and stagnation. But you don’t care about that. You don’t want to see it.”

He ran a hand through his hair again and she could only stare at him. Her jaw was set stubbornly, but she was beginning to feel unsure of her stance. He had told her these things before…but had she really listened? Had she really comprehended what his people had been facing without the land they had so desperately needed?

“Better to fight a war than die in a house riddled with plague and sickness. That was what my men thought. That was why they fought. Why did you fight? Because you didn’t want to share what you could easily have given away?”

“It was ours,” she said stubbornly.

“Now it’s ours and it’s over and done with. We have to move on from this. We can’t sit here and argue about what no longer matters.”

“It matters. To every family who lost a man or woman in the battles we fought, it matters.”