Page 202 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Tears welled in my eyes, and I gulped to hold my emotions in check.
His mouth quirked without humor. “You remember—don’t you, Shorty?”
Yes, I did. Because my dreams had always shown me I was there—even after I’d forgotten I was.
“You were so little,” Pete choked. “You were hiding under your parents’ bed, and I truthfully hadn’t seen you until your mother pleaded for my help. With her powers guttering out, there was nothing she could do to stop Gentian from killing you if he found you there.
“And please believe me, Shorty, if I’d had any strength left after your mother felled me, I’d have saved her too. It still haunts me that I couldn’t. And I ken that I’ll never be able to atone for what happened to her. Because I was weak and abandoned hope.”
I cleared my voice of tears. Pete didn’t need them right then. He needed a friend. “It wasn’t your fault, Pete. It wasn’t your choice to be there.”
“Wasn’t it?” He stared down at his mug. “Didn’t I choose to become a harbinger?”
“You didn’t choose to become demonic.”
Disagreeable as always, he sniffed.
“What did Gentian do, anyway? Trick you into drinking the death poppy oil, then teleport you to the Spring Palace when you came to?”
“Aye.”
Ohmigoddess, I was being hyperbolic.
“He wanted to test me—test my obedience—to see how well the death poppy had quelled my defiance.” Nostrils flaring, Pete swigged from the mug. “And it had worked well, Shorty.”
“But why test you so soon?”
Pete shrugged. “Gentian now had a cold, hard predator in his control—with strength enough to take down his greatest enemy. Once he had me, he was all too eager to take what he felt rightfully his.”
“My mother?”
“She’d have been an added sweetness, aye. But Gentian wanted to be king. Hence, he and the members of his cadre escorting me there. Gentian rarely, if ever, gets his own hands dirty. But he wanted to claim the throne the moment the king was dead.” His mouth tightened. “His blood curse just summoned me to do the killing first.”
“How were there no guards around to catch you all?” I asked. “It’s a freaking palace, right? With a royal army!”
Pete shook his head. “Shorty, I’ve spent many sleepless nights pondering that question. Things might’ve gone very differently if there were only one or two guards outside the king’s chambers that night. They wouldn’t have survived me.”
I gulped at his certainty.
“But they’d have slowed me—raised the alarm. Maybe given your parents warning enough to flee or given the rest of the royal guard time to reach me—to put me down like the rabid dog I was.”
“But then you’d be dead.”
His gaze angled toward me, sorrowed. “Better me than her, aye?”
How could I answer that question?
“Pete, if Gentian didn’t use you, he would’ve used another harbinger. Thenbothmy parentsandI might’ve been killed.”
“No, I told you—Gentian waited for me—”
“Bullshit!” I cut him off. “Gentian has hundreds of harbingers. You’re telling me not one of them was as strong or as lethal as you?” I scoffed. “That justcannotbe true.”
“Believe what you will.” His mouth twisted. “It’s the truth.”
My mind spun a tale untold. “You want to know whatIthink the truth is?”
“Does it matter?” he grumbled, swigging from his mug again. “You’ll tell me anyhow.”
