Aria stared at him with her head tilted to the side. “Today made you think of your time with her again, didn’t it?”
He knew she’d avoided saying the name to try to spare him some distress, but there was none to be spared, not tonight. “With Katrina, yes.”
Aria’s mouth pursed, a muscle in her jaw twitched. “If she hadn’t already been put to death, I’d kill her again for you.”
Max smiled as he stared into his glass of wine. “I know you would.”
“You never talk of what happened there. Would you like to now? I’ll listen to anything you’re willing to tell me.”
“There are some things that can never be unheard,” he reminded her.
She removed her glasses to reveal her reddened eyes and set them in her lap. “I think we’ve all gone beyond the point of being sheltered in our lives.”
“Then why not tell them what we did today?”
“Because it’s not necessary for them to know. They shouldn’t have to carry that burden too.”
“And hearing my horror stories are necessary to know?” He couldn’t keep the sharp edge from his tone.
“I think it would be better if you let it all out instead of continuing to keep it in, you know, like that whole ugliness thing Timber said.”
“And when are you going to let it all out?” he inquired. “Your eyes have yet to go back to their normal color.”
“That’s entirely different and you know it. I’m a dead woman walking without Braith,” she reminded him. “I’m barely keeping it going until all of this is over. You’re twenty-three years old and you have your whole life ahead of you. You deserve love and happiness, more than the rest of us probably.”
“Not true,” he said.
“You sacrificed yourself and became a blood slave because of me. What was done to you should never have been done to another. You deserve some peace, and I will do anything I can to help you find it.”
“You sacrificed yourself and became a blood slave because of John. If not for Braith, your experience would have been as bad as mine, if not more so. I am happy now.” At her raised eyebrow and disbelieving look, he continued. “Happier than I’ve been in a long time. Well, before everything went to shit anyway. I was healing. I’d found my place at Daniel’s side, helping him to rule and make decisions with The Council. I may not have been in charge, but I was still doing good, for all of us, and I enjoyed it.”
“And how do you feel after today?”
“Today broke me again a little,” he admitted. “But I’ll figure out how to put myself back together. I did before.”
“I can help with that, or I can try to anyway.”
“Sometimes, just sitting with someone helps.”
“Like when we used to sit together and fish without speaking?”
He smiled at the memory of those early days after they’d both been freed. They’d been such somber days, but the two of them sitting together had helped. “Yes, like that.”
“I can do that.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some wine?”
“I’d like nothing more than to be drunk right now, but I’m afraid if I let my guard down even a little, I’ll snap. I might even eat you.”
“I would have accepted no for an answer.”
She gave him a small smile as she leaned back in the chair, her reddened eyes surveying him. He missed their crystalline blue color, and he missed her full smile, the one that lit her face and radiated her joy. They didn’t speak for half an hour before he rose to his feet and poured himself two more glasses of wine.
Walking over, he sat in the chair across from her once more. “Do you remember when we were younger and used to play hide and seek in the caves?” he asked.
“I do,” she replied.
“How about the time William put a snake in your blanket?”
Her gaze flicked toward the closed door William and Tempest had gone through. “I’d forgotten about that. I never should have given him my room tonight.”
Max laughed and took a sip of wine. “What about the time you dove off the waterfall?”
“And my pants came off?”
“That’s the time.”
“I’d never been more embarrassed in my life, and all you guys did was point and laugh as my pants were swept downstream.”
“You were so mad.”
“You would have been mad too. The water was freezing.”
He smiled at the memory of Aria, sopping wet as she stomped her way out of the river after reclaiming her pants. “You didn’t speak to any of us for the rest of the day.”
“But you all brought me flowers the next day and said you were sorry.”
“None of us ever liked it when you were mad at us.”
“I know,” she said. “It was always the same way when one of you were mad at me. You weren’t as easily bought off with a bouquet though.”
“You always brought us a new fur.”