had to do was tell me, and it would have ended. You and I both know that. I’d have kicked your fucking ass to defend her. She told me you fucked her, and that you were rough.” Dismissing me, Zahruk leaned against his elbow on the table and put his hand under his chin as he poured another drink.
I knocked his arm out from under his chin, and he turned to glare at me. I let him see my disappointment, and he looked down at the table. Sighing, I put my hand on his arm, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Do you know what you’re going to do now? You’re going to shut the fuck up and never tell another person what you did to Darynda. Let her go to her eternal slumber with her fucking dignity. Keep her image pure and untainted by what you did to that beautiful soul who was in love with you.”
“I can’t,” he growled.
“Why, because you didn’t get to say you were sorry for what you did to her? She knows you’re sorry, Z. She fucking knows it,” I whispered thickly.
“I wasn’t in control when it happened, and I don’t lose control, ever! I am never the one to lose control. I thought it was just another fucking nightmare. Do you have any idea how close you came to being bent over next to Eris?” Zahruk looked over his shoulder to Ryder, who was lost in conversation with Vlad. He looked back at me with panic in his eyes as he whispered, “I wanted to bend you over that table, spread your pretty thighs wide, and take what I needed from you. I wanted to feel you clenching around me, to know what it tasted like to lick your flesh after you came.” He clenched his fists and lowered his voice to a hushed growl. “You’re my brother’s wife and the mother of his children, and I’d die before I ever did that. I’d end my life before I betrayed him, but the fact that I even thought of doing it makes me sick.”
“You’re such a romantic asshole, Zahruk.” I winked at him and reached for his hand, but he pulled it away from me.
“Something is wrong with me and has been since I entered the Kingdom of Nightmares.”
“Yeah, you’re a fucking perverted prick.” I studied him and replayed what he had said as my worry intensified. Plagued with nightmares? Or was he plagued by guilt because he could be a seriously fucked up asshole when he wanted to be? I bristled before slowly shrugging it off.
“Synthia, something inside of me is wrong. I have endless nightmares, but I don’t wake from them. It’s like I’m living them, and when I do think it is just another nightmare, it isn’t. Like Darynda, I assumed I was dreaming. What the fuck could it have hurt to have her in my dreams? It wasn’t real, so sharing her sweetness with others within a dream couldn’t have hurt her, now could it? She wouldn’t get attached, and there I could teach her what I was. The fact was, it wasn’t a fucking dream, and it’s too late to say I’m sorry. She died believing she meant nothing to me. She deserved better, and to know what it felt like to be with someone who wanted her.”
“Because you didn’t?” I cocked an eyebrow because I knew there was a part of Zahruk that had cared about Darynda, or he wouldn’t feel this kind of remorse.
“I wanted to fuck her,” he admitted, pushing his fingers through his dark hair. “I fuck hard, and I destroy when I do. I claim and mark them, and she was too pure for that. She was a maiden when she slipped into my bed, and I had no fucking idea. I wasn’t gentle then, either, as I pushed through her untried flesh, marking it as mine. It wasn’t mine to claim. She’s pure. She was pure.”
“And now she’s gone. She didn’t die a virgin, and she could have told you and Cailean no. It has been a rule for a while now that my handmaidens were off-limits. I think she wanted to be in