to take an action that I, as a man, as a healer, as a lover, cannot comprehend.”
Keir wasn’t one to exhibit intense emotion—at least to his patients. He tended to be a haven of calm. But his brown eyes had held a wealth of darkness when he’d said, “You retreated into what you knew best in order to heal. You can’t blame yourself for that instinctive action.”
Sharine accepted that Aegaeon had acted with unwarranted vindictiveness. To this day, she didn’t know why—as vulnerable as she’d been then, to charm of a kind she’d never experienced in her mostly solitary and quiet existence. Aegaeon had overwhelmed her; she’d wanted desperately to cling to him—and that was on her and the ghosts that haunted her—but in actual fact, she hadn’t.
He’d kept his harem, kept his life away from her and Illium in the Refuge.
Sharine hadn’t attempted to clip his wings, hadn’t sought to alter the core of his nature, content with the scraps of affection he threw her way.
How foolish she’d been, how hungry for connection.
But it all added up to a single conclusion: he’d had no reason to strike out. Not only at her but at her son. Their son. Forget what he’d done to her, it would’ve cost him nothing to have gone to Illium and hugged him good-bye. It would’ve taken but a sliver of his time to tell their boy that his father was going to Sleep for a period, but that he loved him and would return.
Such things mattered to a child, mattered deeply.
For breaking their bright, beautiful boy’s small heart, Sharine would never forgive him. Never. Even if she lived to the end of time and beyond.
No one hurt her child.
Hand fisting at her side, her nails digging into her skin, she opened the door of the suite and stepped out into the hallway. That hallway was wide and fell away onto a massive central core. Walking to the railingless edge, she looked down and realized that she was about three stories up in a huge citadel built of gray stone that was both martial and hard—and lovely.
Fine veins of minerals wove through the stone “bricks” and each piece of stone had gradations of color that caught her eye and had her running a hand over the nearest support pillar. It was warmer than she’d expected, the stone smooth from all the time it had stood here, all the warriors and others who had placed their hands against it.
It could’ve been a cold place, but the stone had a glowing heart, and against the walls of the central core hung tapestries lush with the life of this land. Huge works of art that she could stand in front of for hours, taking in detail by detail. But that was just the start. Above her curved a gently sloping ceiling on which had been painted a night sky sparkling with the stars she’d see if she looked up after darkfall.
Each star, she realized suddenly, was a dazzling gemstone turned tiny by the distance.
Below her, meanwhile, was a buzz of constant movement.
Titus’s people walked this way and that and crisscrossed over what looked to be a massive carpet in the colors of sunset that could’ve come from Morocco. Perhaps during a time prior to the warlike tension between Titus and Charisemnon. Most of those she saw wore weathered and bloodied warrior gear, including more than one angel in full, lightweight armor that wouldn’t impede them in the sky.
But she also spotted one angel and two vampires who looked to be in the livery of household staff, the colors rich gold and deepest brown. Titus’s colors. They were rushing, their faces hot and sweat dampening their hair.
Sharine had the terrible feeling it was because of her.
“You are ready!” The heavy boom of sound didn’t startle her; she’d heard Titus’s door open and close.
Annoyed at his tone and in no mood to hide it, she said, “You sound surprised.”
He looked taken aback, all big shoulders and heavy muscle under a pair of brown pants that hugged his thighs, and a white shirt with a rounded collar and an opening that came to partway down his breastbone, the swirling golden tattoo she’d glimpsed earlier now concealed.
He’d folded back the sleeves of his shirt to reveal heavily muscled forearms, his skin a dark, dark brown with a richness of depth. Wings of golden honey and cream arched over his shoulders, his control a master class in warrior discipline.
Droplets of water glinted in