“Yes.” He finally glanced at her. “But more than that.”
She blinked. He seemed to be struggling with the words, and that sign of hesitation only served to increase her curiosity. She’d been gone for a little over an hour—was he referring to her, then? And if so, why?
“What about?”
Scrubbing his jaw, he peered at her intently for several tense seconds before saying, “Perhaps it would help if I started from the beginning.”
She nodded for him to continue.
Taking a deep breath, he gazed at the flat meadow spread before them. Cicadas and grasshoppers added a gentle melody to the night’s breeze, which rolled with the redolent scents of honeysuckle and wild roses.
Lilith wanted to urge him to continue, but for once she held her tongue. If he wanted to share, he would. It wasn’t as though she’d been very forthcoming with him about her life, either.
“As I said before I was born a warrior. Trained from the moment I could hold a wooden sword, all to serve King Dionysis—a power-hungry tyrant who thought little of the subjection of his people in his constant quest for more. And while a part of me didn’t like it, I figured I had no voice. It was who I was. Who I’d been created to be. And there was nothing more to it.”
Lilith bit down onto the corner of her lip, wanting to ask him so many questions, but not wanting to veer him off course again.
He lifted a brow, as if noting her struggle. She waved her hand. “Continue.”
Shrugging, he stroked the grass beside him absentmindedly. “The changes in me didn’t occur overnight. I am a creature of habit and anything that takes me outside of my comfort zone makes me uneasy. It’s a flaw of mine. I struggle with doing what’s right—”
Unable to hold her tongue, she shook her head. “You seem entirely honorable, Giles. Look what you did for me with the girls, and the merry band of thieves. You’ve—”
“You mistake me.” He gave her a tight smile. “My desire to keep you safe is tied into my desire to see this journey to its end as quickly as possible. You are in my charge and so therefore your safety is of paramount importance to me.”
Duty.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
It was like jumping into an arctic pond to hear it. Swallowing hard, she nodded. Trying desperately to pretend his words hadn’t bothered her in the slightest.
“By ‘right’ I mean stepping beyond my line of duty, making a decision of my own that benefits no one other than myself. Though I was bred a warrior, in many respects I’m a servant. It is the role I’ve adopted here in Kingdom to my prince. I do as I am bid.”
“Don’t you have any feelings on the matter?”
“That’s just it. I am demone, the role comes so naturally to me that emotions rarely play a part in my life. It isn’t that I don’t have them, it’s that I’ve been so trained to ignore them that it is second nature. My desires and wants mean nothing.”
“They mean everything. How can you truly be happy without them?”
He sighed. “Happiness, joy—I’ve felt them. I’ve known them, but as a warrior they were always tied into conquest. Winning at all costs.”
“The joy of a child. Of a wife. Of a home—those mean nothing to you?” Why was she so adamant in pointing those things out in particular to him? She couldn’t understand that someone wouldn’t wish to know love or to be loved; the concept was entirely foreign to her.
Even with all the bullying she’d experienced as a pup, her one constant had been a loving and nurturing family life. Without it Lilith feared she might have become just as mean-spirited as the rest of her kind.
“I don’t know, Lilith. I’ve thought of those ideas in an abstract sense, but my life was always too busy. Because I cannot give all of me to anyone else, Rumpel already has it. I must be there for him whenever he needs me, whenever he calls me. Ready at a moment’s notice to carry out his every whim. Whether as a warrior, or valet, or game master.”
“Which leaves nothing for anyone else.”
He spread his arms. “Exactly. So though I’ve on occasion wondered what my life might be like were I born someone else, it is always fleeting. Even as far-removed from Delerium as I am, the caste system still remains alive and well inside me.”
She clenched her jaw. Lilith didn’t want to read between the lines, but this felt an awful lot like someone giving her the hint that it would never happen between them, and that burned her because she’d not asked it of him. In fact, she’d only just determined that she would let up on her pursuit of him.