If he lived to be a thousand years old, he’d never forget the sight of her young face and the sad bravery in her eyes as she picked out the clothes their mother would be buried in. “I wish we had something nice for her. She deserves something pretty. Just once.”
Life had been so brutal to all of them. But for Shahara, it’d been far more cruel.
Because I failed to protect her. The pain of that one night when he’d let her go to the market alone still haunted him. Yeah, he’d only been a kid and had worked all day at the hangar repairing heavy equipment—all he’d wanted was to sit for a single minute without someone yelling at him that he was stupid and slow.
Had he just found the strength to walk down the street with her…
I’m such an asshole. And he would never forgive himself for what had been done to the one person in his life he’d always been able to depend on. The only person who’d ever told him that he was worth something.
He’d failed her so badly.
His gaze went to Desideria’s stiff back. Another woman whose safety was dependent on him. The Andarions wouldn’t be a bit kinder to her than Shahara’s attacker had been. Desideria had no idea just how brutal life could be. She thought she knew, but she’d never seen someone strong broken by brutality. That look of haunted misery and shame that never went away. The fear that lingered forever afterward. Shahara had never fully recovered from her attack. At least not until Syn. He didn’t know what his brother-in-law had done, but somehow Syn had finally taken away the ghost in his sister’s eyes.
It was why he’d die for the man even though he still didn’t like the idea of Syn being married to his sister. Mostly because he lived in fear of Syn hurting her either accidentally or intentionally. He never again wanted to see Shahara look the way she had those first two years after her rape. Defeated and afraid of everyone and everything, she’d leaned on him so heavily at a time when he’d been nothing more than a gangly kid who needed someone to take care of him. It’d been at a time when Kase had been her sickest and Tess, rather than help, had drawn tight into herself and acted as if she’d been the one who’d been brutalized.
No, Caillen, I can’t do anything on my own. Someone might grab me. Help me, Cai! I don’t want to get hurt.
Tess had always been an attention whore and she’d refused to do anything for herself. Those years had been so fucking hard on him. The three of them had relied on him so much, he still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to hold it together for them.
Yet here he was…
Still screwing up.
And before he realized what he was doing, he reached out to touch a lock of Desideria’s hair that was spilled on the boards between them. The dark silken strands teased at his flesh. It was ever his curse to be attracted to women. He loved the way they smelled and the sensation of being held by someone. His mother had been too sick to hold him when he was young and Shahara had ceased to touch him after her attack. The worst part of that had been the way she’d looked at him for the next few years—as if she was afraid he’d attack her too. That had killed him most of all.
As for Tess and Kase, they’d never been affectionate that way. So he’d been forced to find affection with strangers who really couldn’t care less about him. People were cruel by nature and he’d seen the ugliest side of them more times than he’d wanted to.
He had no doubt whatsoever that Desideria would hand him over to save her own ass. All lives had a price tag and his was pretty low most days.
Still there was a part of him that he didn’t want to acknowledge that wanted what Shahara and Syn shared. That one person who would stand at his back and protect it no matter what. It was a part of him he hated and yet it was still there, needing. Aching. Wanting.
Why are you whining? You’re scarred. So what? Everyone’s a veteran of a fucked-up universe.
He was no different from anyone else. And as he lay there, twirling her hair around his finger while she held herself rigid, he wondered what scars she carried. Who had screwed her over and hurt her?
After all, her mother was a grand bitch who appeared to be lacking any kind of human decency. The fact that Desideria was serving in her Guard where others looked down their noses at her said that her mother treated her like crap. What kind of parent would needlessly put their child in harm’s way like that?
Honestly, her loyalty to the viper was admirable. And before he realized what he was doing a single word slipped out of his lips. “Sorry.” Wow, there was something he never did. To him an apology meant weakness, and he was anything but weak.
He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but somehow she managed to stiffen even more. “No, you’re not. You meant every word.”
“Yeah, but I’m sorry I offended you.”
“Why?” Her tone was brittle.
He answered her question with the simple truth. “Have no idea.”
“I’m still not speaking to you.”