Highland Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon #6) - Genevieve Jack Page 0,51
happiness.”
Avery winced but was quick to clarify. “I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice. At the time, I thought I’d have my chance. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or be. But then Raven’s cancer returned. My father couldn’t tolerate the stress that brought on our family, and he divorced my mother. After that happened, any thought of moving on dissolved in the destitution of huge medical bills and my mother’s desperation to keep the pub, which had been in her family since the 1700s, solvent.”
“Do you resent it, that ye didn’t get the experiences yer sister did?”
“I didn’t at first. To be honest, I never loved school, and the traditional college experience maybe wasn’t for me. But I do resent that I never even stopped to think about what I wanted. That’s not on anyone else, just me. One year led into the next and I simply kept going, never really thinking about what I was doing at all, only that I was doing it for my family.
“And then, like a miracle, Raven got better. Gabriel fed her his tooth and healed her.” Avery shook her head, still awed by how everything had happened for her sister. “Afterward, you’d think something would’ve changed, but it didn’t. I was still doing the same things, only now there wasn’t a purpose in it. Gabriel paid off her medical bills. My mother’s business recovered. My father moved on with his life. And I still worked at the Three Sisters. I still hadn’t stopped to think what I wanted to do, so I kept doing what I’d always done.”
She looked down at her fingers as they threaded into the horse’s mane. “I just woke up one day and realized I wanted to live for me.”
“Aye.” His chin brushed the side of her head as he nodded. “I remember feeling a similar way in Paragon about our royal duties. I would ne’er be king, yet every wakin’ moment I was forced ta train for the crown. Train in the pits I told ye about. It was tradition there, one of the many royal duties expected of us despite all the honor going ta Marius as the firstborn. I suppose I shouldna have minded. In the end, he lost his head for it.”
“I heard. But then you ended up here, ruling your clan. I guess it turned out okay for you, aside from being captured and imprisoned by an evil fairy.” She chuckled darkly.
“That one thing, yes, hasna gone my way.” They both laughed together. “I suppose it’s been lonely a time or two as well. Aside from ma Glenna, I’ve had ta watch friends come and go. Human lives are short.”
As a human herself, Avery frowned at that. Her life was short. She wished she knew what to do with it.
“Nathaniel told me you were married once. Do you miss her?”
For a long time, Xavier didn’t speak. Avery wondered if she’d dredged up bad memories. She considered apologizing and suggesting he didn’t have to give her any details. But he sighed and answered in a soft, even voice.
“No. I never loved her properly. Truth is, Jane was mentally unfit, which is why her father put her in ma care. I tried, ye ken. I protected her up until the day she… fell from her window. I never loved her though, and our marriage was in name only.”
“Oh.” Avery silently chastised her heart for giving a little leap. What kind of sicko was happy about a man living out a loveless marriage that ended in his wife’s probable suicide? Her, that’s who. Some part of her wanted Xavier, and the idea he’d loved someone else enough to marry them had been a pinprick deep inside her heart. No matter how much her brain told her it was a nonsense thing to think, she secretly wanted to be Xavier’s first and only love.
Avery shut her mouth to keep from blurting out her inappropriate feelings. Silence descended as Tàirn’s hooves thunked against the trail.
Finally Xavier cleared his throat and spoke again. “How did you end up here? You said it was because of Nathaniel’s tarot cards?”
“Ah, yes.” She swallowed. “Nathaniel read my cards and told me that I was a caterpillar who had already made itself a cocoon and if I returned to New Orleans, I wouldn’t do so as a caterpillar but as a butterfly who had cut off its own wings.”