Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2)(39)

I glared at Daroc, but I was also grateful. I would have regretted any anger I took out on the man. I already regretted the words I’d spoken.

“She will hate me for this,” I said. We still stood amid the crowd, though they kept their distance and no longer stared, uninterested in the interactions between a king and his general.

“For this?” Daroc asked. “You have done much worse.”

I scowled. “I do not need your commentary.”

“Then how about some advice?”

“Are you someone who should be offering it?”

His jaw tightened. “Never mind. Your wife is right to hate you.”

Despite the dismissiveness of his comment, Daroc did not leave my side. After a moment of silence, he spoke. “I…did not mean that,” he said and paused. “Isolde is seeking stability and familiarity because her world falls apart no matter the direction she turns. Today, during court, I saw her looking to you for safety because that is what she does—only, you did not save her. You pushed her into the fire again.”

I wanted to say so many things.

I know what I did to make her angry. What else was I supposed to do?

Fuck.

But as I thought about Daroc’s words, I knew what he was trying to say—Isolde did not trust me to keep her safe.

And why should she?

I had not been able to save her all those years ago.

She feared history repeating itself.

“I must go to my wife,” I said, but before I left, I met Daroc’s gaze.

“Before dawn breaks, bring my sword.”

Then, I went in search of Isolde.

It was not hard to find her. She never came to my bed when she was angry with me, but as I made my way to her floor, I found Killian leaving her chamber. I stayed in the shadows until he passed, frustration heating my blood, then I entered her room. She sat at her vanity, brushing out her hair.

She did not even look at me.

“Did you have a nice chat with your commander?” I asked.

“Do not,” she said, turning toward me.

“What?” I goaded. “I saw him leave your room.”

“He came to see if I was all right.”

“Which warranted an invitation into your room?”

“Are you going to accuse me of fucking him?”

We sat in our anger for a moment, and there was something about how she looked at me that completely took my fight. I could not hold on to it now that I was alone with her.

“I know you are not fucking him,” I said, quiet.

She turned in her chair, staring up at me, with her lip—bloodied, bruised.

Carefully, I clasped her chin. “I did not mean this,” I said, whispering.

She swallowed, staring up at me, breathtaking. “I know,” she said.

I leaned forward, hesitant, but when she did not move away, I kissed her—softer than I ever had—drawing my tongue over her wound. Even as it healed beneath my touch, guilt gnawed at my gut.

How would I ever apologize enough?

I felt that I had committed so many wrongs against her in just the last few days, I would never make up for them. I had failed to be compassionate when she had shifted for the first time; I had dismissed her worries and connection to her mother’s homeland; and I had not been able to control my court long enough to prevent her harm.

I prayed for her, I begged for her—and yet, I could not take care of her.

I pulled back, running my thumb along her jaw, and we stared at one another. I could not place this look in her eyes, and her thoughts were more like static—a strange, unfocused tangle. She looked away and then stood, stepping around me to climb into her bed.

I turned to face her but did not follow.

She rested on her side, facing me.

“You hurt me today, more than you ever have before,” she said.

I swallowed hard. She did not need to say it. I knew. I would never forget the way she looked at me in the hall or how hard she slapped me.

“I understand why you did it,” she continued, her voice shaking and her eyes glistening. My heart and lungs felt like chaos, crushed and uncomfortable. I never wanted to be the reason for her tears again, and yet somehow, I knew I would be. “But in that moment, all I could hear were the screams of my sisters as they burned alive. All I could smell was their burning flesh. All I could feel were the flames licking my feet. And it isn’t as if I don’t already think of it all the time—relive it all the time—but suddenly, this nightmare that followed me into this life became a possibility as soon as Solaris spoke, and you stood there so stoic and cold and pretended that you had not watched me die because of people like him.”

I clenched my jaw so hard, it ached. “You think I did not relive it while he stood before me?”

“This is not about you,” she said, and her voice shook as she sat up. “You have never been hunted. Even now, you are hated, but no one can touch you because of your power. And then you callously reminded me that I have no magic.”

I wanted to beg for forgiveness at her feet.

“Sometimes I fear you will not value me as much as you valued her,” Isolde said.

That comment surprised me, and I felt a rush of anger that she would even say those words aloud. She had never expressed insecurity over this before, and it frustrated me that she would now.