Page 84 of Heir of Broken Souls

Everything evades me. My sight, my hearing, the feel of the hardwood beneath my feet.

It’s the first time Axel has acknowledged Ace’s death while sober, and after the dream I just had, my heart can’t take it. The grief that I have been quelching rears its ugly head.

What do I say to that?

What do I say to the man whose brother died right before his eyes, the one he revolved his entire existence around protecting?

Nothing.

Because absolutely nothing can fix what happened in that library.

As if my thoughts are flashing across my face, Axel’s body turns rigid, and he rips his gaze away from mine and moves it down to the lapping waves below—to the tails that rise and fall in a synchronized pattern.

I start, “Do you want to?—”

“No.”

“But you?—”

“I said no.”

“You can’t keep everything bottled up.”

He slides his gaze to me then. “Are you really taking this route with me?”

My head rears back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I may have been drunk since that day but I’m not a fool.”

“I never called you a fool.”

“No, what Ishouldhave done was call you a hypocrite.”

My eyes widen with hurt and pain. Then the anger takes over. “And tell me why, exactly, I’m a hypocrite?”

“Because you, out of everyone, have been locking everything away.”

“That’s not true. Lenox is practically a walking shell of himself, and Harlow?—”

“They weren’t the ones who found out their entire life was a lie. They weren’t the ones who had everyone from their old life ripped away from them, and they certainly weren’t the ones to find out that who they used to call Father?—”

“Stop it!” I explode.

The words burst from my lips, my chest heaving in rapid succession as he pelts me with everything I don’t want to face.

“Is this payback?” I ask, my voice like gravel.

He frowns at that. “Payback for what?”

“For what happened at the meadow,” I say, waving a hand to the tails below.

Axel scoffs, plowing forward as if I didn’t say anything. “Knox thinks he’s helping you by being gentle but all he is doing is allowing you to?—”

I take a step forward, cutting him off. “I’m sorry about what happened. I was out of line. You should have never found out that?—”

“Should have never found out likethat, or should have never found outperiod?” he says, his teeth gritted.

“We didn’t want this to be the tipping point?—”