Page 12 of Silver Lining (The Diamond Trilogy 3)
“Hate me,” I say, and he’s already shaking his head before the words are out.
“You were protecting me. No one has ever done that before. Even my brothers—I don’t blame them. They saved themselves the only way they knew how, but they didn’t save me. No, I did that the day I killed my own father. No one has ever protected me before you.”
I force myself upright—yes, finally—and Elijah puts up his hands to stop me. I throw all of my frustration into my glare, and he stops, putting his hands back into his lap. I hate that even more than I hate his calm, his composure. Fighting him would be better than this. I’d fight him right now if he tried to stop me again. Even if it meant tearing open the wound. Damn it, I wish he would, but of course he doesn’t give me the satisfaction. Only a patient look.
“I’m tired of this.” There’s a broken edge to my voice that I also hate. So much hate and pain that I’m drowning in it. It tastes metallic on my tongue. “Of you taking care of me. Of being an invalid. Of having you take care of me like a goddamn martyr.”
His green eyes turn dark, the color of moss in a forest. “I’m a shit caregiver. I know that.”
“It’s exactly the opposite. You’re perfect. Too damned perfect. I want you to rail at me. Yell, scream, tell me you’re sick and tired of feeding me chicken broth, because I’m damn sure tired of eating it.” I’m too loud, the rising voice too much for my overtaxed body, but I don’t care. I don’t care. I can’t care any longer.
Elijah’s lip quirks. “You want Chinese takeout?”
“Yes. But I can’t have it. We’d be found out.” I know this like I know he’ll come in here at the first sign I’ve tried to move. I know this like I know the edge of guilt in his eyes that never leaves. It’s there when I wake up, and there when I fall asleep, just like the relentless pain.
“I can maybe sneak a dumpling or two.” It’s a joke. A gentle joke for the woman who’s slowly going insane in the basement of a church. Elijah runs a soothing hand over my arm, a gentle pressure reminding me—yet again—that I need to rest.
He lets the silence settle over us like a blanket. I could kill him for being so perfect. I could kill him and kiss him and fight him if he’d just let me.
All my anger seeps into the ceiling and taunts me from up there, as useless as I am. I’m reduced to a hand on my arm. It’s not the kind of touch I crave from Elijah. It’s so neutral and bloodless that I don’t recognize it at all, never mind that it’s the way he’s been touching me for days.
I don’t know this man. This perfect, steady man who never shows me anything but competent concern. He’s been like some kind of caring robot, never flinching at my pain or at the blood, never losing his patience.
What happened to the beast who bared his teeth behind bars?
I’ve been trapped in this cell with the prince instead. A stranger.
6
Elijah
She’s pushing me.
Holly doesn’t lay back down. She tips her head back and glares at the ceiling.
That’s good.
Because I can’t let her see. I can’t let her see how close they are to the surface—my guilt, my shame. The violence that sits at my core. It wouldn’t take much to bring them out into the open. It never has taken much, and they’re like monsters now. They chew at the marrow of my bones and threaten to burst out of my flesh.
Her breathing is uneven now, hitched and angry. How could I not react to her? It’s been abject misery, tending to her without having her. The misery is almost powerful enough to override the aching lust at the core of me. Goddamn it, I want her. I want so much from her that I can’t have. Too much from her. I’ve taken too much already.
I let my hands ball into fists and release them.
I don’t want to hurt Holly.
I can’t hurt her.
She’s already injured. She was shot trying to save me from an inevitable fate. Does she realize how much this eats at me? By the end of all this, I’ll be nothing but a flayed heart. I’d rather take a hundred bullets than mar her smooth skin.
Memory intrudes, shouldering its way past weakened defenses. In that apartment I wasn’t a man anymore. I wasn’t a soldier.
I was a child, three years old, watching my mother die in front of my eyes. I couldn’t save her then. I can’t save Holly now. The bullet wound might be healing but the threat that looms outside these walls can’t be stopped. It can’t ever be stopped.
