“I love you. So much that I feel your pain as if it were my own.”
His chest expanded beneath her cheek. “I would never hurt you.”
“Is that why you’re bottling it up?” Lindsay pul ed back to look up at him. “Is that why you’re not letting me in? You should know I didn’t shield you.”
He pul ed her head back and looked at her.
“You’re torturing yourself over letting me go with Vash,” she said softly. “You’re wondering what that says about your love for me. But what are you comparing it to? What we have is something no one else wil have. Not just because of who we are as individuals, but because of the obstacles we’re facing together. We’re going to have to take risks—with ourselves and with each other.”
His irises were flickering blue flames, alien and ancient. Tormented. She wondered how he carried al that roiling emotion inside him, how he hid it behind the smiles he gave her and the stoicism he gave to his Sentinels, how he leashed it when he made love to her and fought battles with clearheaded precision. How she could get him to let it out.
“I manipulated you, Adrian.”
He stiffened.
“I know you’re feeling guilty about Helena.” She tightened her embrace when he jerked against her. “I used it against you to get you to put your Sentinels first and let me go with Vashti to help Elijah.”
A long moment passed. “The weakness was mine to exploit. I made it possible.”
“There’s no excuse for what I did, only for why I did it.”
“Why are you tel ing me this?”
“Because I have to,” she said simply, lifting her hand to push his hair back from his forehead. “Because we’re strongest when we’re one unit. I’m trying to remember that this is al new to you. That you’re trying and you’ve come real y far from the man I met in the Phoenix airport. But I need you to come farther, step closer, let me in. You’re keeping me out.”
“I don’t…” He frowned. “I don’t know how to do what you’re asking.”
“Think out loud. When the thoughts are swirling around in your head, give them a voice. Let me hear them. Let me be your sounding board.”
“Why?”
“Because you love me and you need me. I know you have to be strong for the other Sentinels. They lean on you, and if you fal , they fal . But you need to lean on someone, too. That’s where I come in, if you’l let me.”
“I’m fine.”
“Physical y, yes. Damn fine. Emotional y, you’re a wreck.” With her hand at his nape, Lindsay pul ed his mouth down to hers and brushed her lips across his. “You couldn’t have done things differently with Helena, Adrian.”
His hands flexed convulsively against her. “She came to me for help.”
“No. She came to you for permission. And you told her the truth—you weren’t the guy to ask for it. You broke a law by fal ing in love with Shadoe, then me. Helena wanted you to say it was okay for her to break the law, too, and you couldn’t do that. Honestly, it wasn’t fair for her to ask you.”
“She was in love, Lindsay. I know how irrational that makes us. I should’ve been more sympathetic.”
“You can’t tel me you weren’t. I know you. It broke your heart when she told you that she’d fal en in love with a lycan. I heard your voice when you cal ed me and, later, when you told me what happened.”
“I was going to separate them. Break them apart.”
“That was the plan,” she agreed. “But you might’ve changed your mind once you saw them together. Or you might have gone through with it. We’l never know. She’ll never know, because she took the option away from you. That was her decision. You can’t go around regretting the actions of someone else.”
“Even if I forced her hand with my actions?” he shot back, his voice clipped and icy.
“What did you do, Adrian? She asked you for permission to have a romantic relationship with one of her guards and you told her to ask the Big Guy Upstairs. Then she ran away and they kil ed themselves. Where in that series of events are you guilty of forcing her hand?”
“She knew me. She knew what I’d do.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t even know what you were going to do. No…Hang on…Hear me out. You took your time getting to her. You were thinking.
Debating. Reasoning with yourself. It’s not your fault that we’l never know what could’ve happened if you’d had a choice.” She cupped his face in her hands. “It’s not your fault. And if Phineas were here, I’m sure he’d be tel ing you the exact same thing.”