“I don’t think so,” she blurted out. “You don’t seem like you see yourself as a hero, even though everyone thinks you’re so great.”
Save me from being analyzed by children. It was all the more irritating an effort because she wasn’t wrong. “Let me just get you patched up and out of here.”
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, as if she were trying to staunch her tears. “It’s all my fault.”
I stared at her in dawning exasperation. “Whatever you want to believe, Hanna. Maybe donning fake responsibility feels better than being a pawn.”
She dropped her hands and stared at me in horror. Well, if she wanted to play the game of truths…
I wrapped the last bandage. “There, it’s already stopped bleeding.”
“Thank you,” she muttered. She slid off the tabletop.
She darted toward the door, and I said, “Hanna. Wait.”
She turned back. “What is it?”
“Honor’s got a tendency toward dramatic heroics, yes.” The word hero irritated me. “Henrick and Alis hurting her wasn’t your fault. But it doesn’t matter. You’re her little sister. You’re worth it. I’d do the same for Alina.”
“Alina?” she asked curiously.
“My little sister. I don’t know how to help her.”
“What happened?”
“She’s been enchanted by this… monster.” It hurt to imagine her brainless, under Lucien’s spell. It reminded me too much of the times Joachim and Teris had spelled Lynx and me.
“Are you going to break the enchantment?”
“If I can ever figure out what it is.” Lynx and I had run through every spell that could be used to control someone, every love spell. We’d made every potion, then broken every one of them, and none of them worked. “I haven’t protected her very well.”
Sympathy softened her gaze, and it irritated me. I’d been trying to comfort her.
“I’m sure she knows you want to protect her,” she said, so earnestly that it reminded me she was just a child. For whatever reason, she didn’t see me as a villain, unlike her sister. “I’m sure she knows you love her.”
I didn’t need her approval or her comfort, so I was surprised to find myself touched.
My lips twisted. “Perhaps. I’m not good at loving people.”
“Maybe you just need more practice.” She cocked her head to one side. “Really. Why do you hate Honor so much?”
I scoffed. Back at the coral castle, once Talisyn had flashed the image into my mind of Honor wounded on that rack, I’d been lit with fury. I was annoyed by the memory of how I’d burned to protect her.
“I don’t hate Honor.” I crossed my arms, leaning against the table, and clung to what I knew was true. Some things were truer than my fleeting emotions. “I think she’s lying about something. Either she’s lying about who she is, and she’ll hurt my friends when they discover she’s betraying them, or she’s ridiculously unsuited to our world, and she’ll just get hurt here. Talisyn and Jaik will get hurt too—either by her, or because of her. And I value my brothers more than anyone else.”
“She thinks you hate her.”
“I don’t.”
A knowing glint came into her eye. “You don’t hate her.”
The emphasis she put on those words suggested something else entirely.
I’d normally have shut down any suggestion that I might be interested in Honor in a hurry, but I didn’t want to hurt Hanna’s feelings any further, so I just sighed. “I don’t care about Honor at all—not to hate or anything else. I just want to make sure my friends are safe.”
“They’re safer with Honor,” she promised.
I barked a laugh, then regretted it as Hanna’s eyes widened. She looked wounded. “Listen, I believe your sister probably has good intentions, but that girl is clearly a hazard to herself and anyone around her.”
“You don’t know her,” Hanna said fiercely. “You should give her a chance.”
“Why?” I asked, unable to resist asking a ridiculous question. “Surely you don’t think I’m worthy of her.”
It was sweet she thought her sister was better than a dragon royal.
“Maybe you could be,” she snapped. “If you popped your head out of your sphincter now and then.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it, and she looked at me with her eyes blazing even more furiously.
“You’re just like your sister,” I explained. “I think she’s said much the same thing to me.”
She stared at me for a few long seconds, then suddenly dove to hug me. Her arms wrapped around my waist, her head pressing against my chest. Surprise jolted through me, then a rush of sympathy.
It took a few long seconds before I hugged her back. I hadn’t realized those teasing words would be such a meaningful compliment.
“It’s going to be all right, Hanna,” I lied. “I’ve got a feeling Hannaby girls always find a way to win.”
Chapter
Four
Honor
I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn’t pull myself out of sleep. My heart raced desperately as I ran down a dark, slick hallway. For a second, I was being chased by the hybrid.
But I wasn’t alone. Someone ahead of me reached back and grabbed my hand. Together, we raced through the darkness. I heard her sob, and I wasn’t sure if I’d heard the sound in my dream or as I was waking.
I was in bed, sunlight streaming through the window. I blinked in confusion at the unfamiliar room. The windows were open, revealing snow-capped purple peaks.
My body felt as if it had been torn apart and put back together again haphazardly. When I looked down and saw that I was lying on my stomach, my arms folded beneath my head still covered in bruises and welts. The misery that I’d been through came rushing back to my mind. My arms tied above my head, my back exposed, Henrick with the whip… My back throbbed in time with the memories. When I thought how my skin must be shredded, a sense of dread tightened my gut. I was afraid to even look.
Then I remembered Jaik tearing Henrick’s head off, and some of the fear fled.
I blinked, trying to remember the last moments before I’d passed out. There was someone in bed with me and my heart lifted, hoping that it was Jaik or Talisyn. But when the figure stirred, then turned toward me, it was my little sister. I was glad to see Hanna and at the same time, disappointment rushed through me.
Just as strong as the memory of the pain was the memory of the rescue. I’d seen Talisyn red hot with anger and Jaik’s punishing fury unleashed on those who had hurt me. The three men who claimed to hate me destroyed the drawing room to reach me and protect me. My head throbbed almost as much as my back. Had they been coolly following Jaik’s orders, or had they come to my defense as if they cared?
Hanna’s eyes blinked open, then she grinned at me. “I hope you don’t mind me sleeping in here. I’ve just been so worried about you.”
“Do I look as bad as I feel?”
She looked doubtful. “Do you feel really, really bad?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
I groaned. “You’re supposed to lie, Hanna.”
“Talisyn said Alis and Henrick enchanted you so that they can’t just heal you?”