The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

I considered him for a second, and then sighed, about to ask the one question I was afraid to hear the answer to—though it was the one I desperately needed to hear. “Leo, do you care about me, or don’t you? Was last night an act? Something to push me away to make things between Grey and me less messy? Or did you really decide that because you couldn’t control Baldy, it meant you didn’t care about me? Because if it’s the last one, I really don’t get it. How does his level of control over you equate to you not caring about me? Were you scared when he pointed the gun at me?”

“Terrified,” he replied without hesitation, his brown eyes holding mine and letting me see the bleak darkness in them. “I could feel his finger on the trigger, and all I could think was that I was going to lose you. That I couldn’t imagine any moment without you. But it wasn’t strong enough.”

“Or it didn’t matter how strong your feelings were to him. He just had that level of control! That’s not your fault!”

Leo frowned. “I know what Grey told you. I know about his offer to…”

“Okay, I am not there yet,” I told him, holding up a hand. “Right now, this isn’t about Grey. It’s about you, and your feelings. He seems to think you do care about me, but I want to hear it from you.”

“This is all new to me,” he admitted softly. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” I asked, curious about what could be so terrifying that he couldn’t tell me how he felt.

“Of losing you. Even before Baldy, even when you didn’t want to talk about it, I knew that whatever I felt for you was doomed from the start, because of Grey. Then he woke up and wanted to be aware, and I realized… I was never going to have you. That, plus what happened with Baldy…” He shrugged and looked away. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

I stared at him. “You’re right, you are stupid.” His head whipped back at me, his mouth dropping open, but I didn’t feel sorry for him. “Instead of just owning up to what you felt and what we did, you added to an already emotionally charged situation and made it that much more unbearable for the group. And you jeopardized the health of one of us in the process.”

He shut his mouth and cringed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

I stared at him for a moment or two longer, and then sighed heavily. “But speaking as regular Liana, instead of leader Liana, I am really happy that it was just you trying to push me away. That I can understand. If you’d told me that you never felt anything for me in the first place, that would’ve broken my heart.”

It hurt to admit it, but I had just finished chastising him about being honest regarding his feelings, and it was time for me to be honest about mine. I stared at him for several seconds, heart in my throat, but he didn’t leave me hanging long.

“Come here,” he said roughly, holding his arms out to me, and I practically threw myself at him, needing his arms around me more than ever. It had been a long, trying couple of days, and it promised to get harder, but in that moment, for the first time since yesterday, I felt safe.

Even if I was still a little sore with him. “I’m still a little mad at you,” I told him.

“Yeah, that’s fair. I was a really big jerk.”

I laughed against his chest, and then paused, suddenly uncomfortable, knowing the moment was being witnessed by Grey. I sobered, and asked, “How’s… Grey handling all this?”

Leo was silent for a second, and then let out a sharp laugh. “Um… I’m not sure you want to hear it. It’s not exactly… polite.”

I pulled away from him so I could peer into his eyes, instantly suspicious. “How do you mean?” I asked, drawing the question out.

Leo was already blushing, but his smile was broad. “He’s dutifully reminding me that it’s his hand and insisting that it should be placed lower.”

I stared at him for a second, feeling where his hand was still resting against my back, only a few scant inches from my butt, and then laughed. “He really is okay with this?” I asked.

“I think he’s going to want some time with you, too,” Leo said carefully. “But yes, he is surprisingly accepting. I quite like him, actually. I didn’t think I did, when we first met, but I really do now that I understand him a bit more. Now that he understands himself and me a bit more as well. His change is unexpected, and yet he seems satisfied with it. He likes the person he is becoming, more than he liked who he was before. I feel guilty, and yet… not. Is that wrong?”

I bit my lip. Grey’s personality shift was a bit alarming, but he didn’t seem upset about it. If anything, he somehow felt older and wiser, even if he still wasn’t fully restored. I could still sense him, the loving, playful man who had made me feel safe enough around him to share my innermost thoughts and secrets. I trusted him with my heart like no other, in a way that Leo couldn’t quite fill. But then again, I trusted Leo with my life in a way that I couldn’t quite trust Grey. His calm and patient way had also made me feel safe around him, but in a completely different way. Both men had definitely changed. Leo was growing emotionally, while Grew was more mature, and yet somehow, it only made them more attractive to me.

Did I think Leo should feel guilty? No, not at all. If anything, I thought he should feel proud of his personal development, how Grey had affected him, as well as his influence over Grey. The two complemented each other, like they were meant to be united from the very beginning.

I looked up into Leo’s eyes, and offered him a tender smile. “No,” I told him. “I think if Grey’s okay with it, I’m okay with it. I just want both of you to be happy.”

Leo returned the smile, his eyes glowing with love. “I’m always happiest when I’m with you.”

The sweetness of his words made me weak, and I lowered myself back down against his chest and snuggled against him. His arms folded tight around me, and he just held me—exactly as I had been needing him to for the past few days—with a strong, steady grip that told me that I was safe and secure. My heart felt lighter than ever, swelling with happiness. Both of them were staying with me. Both of them were willing to make this work. I felt loved and safe and cherished.

But more importantly, I didn’t feel alone.





34





The next morning I found myself winding through the halls of the Medica, Maddox beside me, two cups of a spiced rice drink warm in my hands. We followed the white-clad attendant silently, walking along the pristine surface of the Medica’s walls as he led the way to where Sage would be meeting me.

I was nervous, possibly even more nervous than I had been yesterday, but I kept it all behind a pleasant face, while rehearsing in my head my premise for being here. I wanted to talk to him about the upcoming council meeting, and the expulsion chamber vote that was about to be delayed for a second time. I knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere, but that was what made it perfect. If I could draw him into an amiable debate, then it might be convincing enough to keep my true purpose—collecting his cup at the end of the meeting—from him. Because if he drank from that cup, I would have some of his genetic material, and could test it against the samples we had gotten from the undocs.

The attendant stopped short of a door with a little green leaf on it, indicating that I was about to enter one of the greenhouses where the Medica grew medicinal plants, and quickly ushered me through as soon as the door opened. I shot a parting glance at Maddox, who mouthed, “Good luck,” and then slipped into the room.

The difference between the inside and the outside was like stepping from a freezing shower into a hot bath. The lights in here were warm and yellow, nothing like the antiseptic feeling of the halls outside, and the room was a riot of colors. Green, purple, red, white, orange, lilac—my eyes darted over dozens of different plants hanging from shelves on either side of the aisle the door had deposited me into, drinking in the sight and smell of all the flowers in bloom.

I let myself just look at it for several long seconds, trying to commit the beauty I was seeing to memory, and then started forward, trusting that somewhere in the room, Marcus Sage awaited me.