“Your hands are massive.”
He stroked her knuckles with his thumb. That single sensation sent chills all over her body and made her hormones sit up and pant. “And yours are incredibly delicate. How is it a woman with hands so soft and tiny has managed to take a man’s life?”
“With great regret.” As soon as the words left her lips, she cringed at the slip. For some reason, her guard evaporated every time they spoke. It was way too easy to forget what she was supposed to be doing.
Hunting him – the predator.
But it wasn’t her fault. He reminded her too much of Fain, and in spite of her hatred for Fain Hauk, the little girl inside her wanted to feel safe again, like she’d done whenever Fain had rocked her to sleep while she’d stayed with her sister at their flat. It was easy to silence that stupid, needy voice when she was alone. Easy to tell herself that this was how life was supposed to be. Brutal and lonely.
Yet now that she was with Hauk, and saw how he protected his niece and nephew…
That whiny little bitch was back with a vengeance.
Appalled by her own train of thought, she glanced away.
Hauk reluctantly let go of her hand. “That bastard beat you, didn’t he?”
She stiffened as his unexpected question jerked her back to the days when Avin had felt threatened by her height and intelligence. Jealous of the job she had that she loved and the one he did that he hated. Back to when she hadn’t been a trained assassin, and had lived her life in stark terror of her boyfriend’s bipolar mood swings. “Excuse me?”
“Your boyfriend. It’s why you killed him.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.
Sumi wanted to deny it, but how could she? He spoke the truth. And while she’d learned how easy it was to physically kill a man, even one who was a lot larger and stronger than her, it was never easy to live with the guilt that forever remained afterward. “Yes.”
Hauk saw the horror and shame in her hazel green eyes before she glanced away again. It was a mannerism so similar to one Omira had once used that it sent a chill over him.
Nor did he miss the way her hands trembled as she noticed how much room he took up on the ground beside her.
“It’s why my size unsettles you.”
She nodded as more awful memories surged. “You’ve no idea what it’s like to be trapped and helpless. To be held down with no way to fight back, no matter how hard you try.”
“That’s not true. You’ve seen the scars on my back. I know exactly how it feels to have my life in the hands of someone else, and to hate it with every part of my being.”
She scowled at his angry tone. “What happened?”
Hauk ground his teeth. Her question knotted his gut and took him straight back to that day he would rather forget. A day that had forever changed his life, in more ways than one, and set him on a path he’d never foreseen. While it’d destroyed his destiny and cost him the respect of his parents, it’d compensated him with a battle brother he was grateful for every day of this existence.
Sipping his water, he narrowed his gaze as visions from the past haunted him. He’d been in a training pod at the academy with what he’d stupidly assumed were two Andarion friends. Unfortunately, all of them had been schooled with humans long enough that some of humanity’s finer traits had infected them. When Nykyrian had been sent to their academy, the full-blooded Andarions had declared it open season on the hybrid.
Something that was not in their culture. Fighting an equal or answering a challenge was Andarion. Picking on the weak was human. But Prince Jullien had insisted that they attack the hybrid, and drive him from their school so that they wouldn’t have to look at him.
Unaware at that time that Jullien and Nykyrian were fraternal twins, Hauk had assumed the animosity came from Jullien’s fear that the full-bloods would remember that he was a hybrid himself and turn on him. Jullien appeared mostly Andarion and usually passed without much comment as one of them.
Nykyrian had never been so fortunate. One look, and it was woefully obvious he was born of both species.
Now, Hauk knew Jullien had done it to protect his grandmother, who had abandoned Nykyrian to a human orphanage, hoping that the humans, in their hatred of Andarions, would kill the boy. Jullien had pushed them all hard to attack Nykyrian, and keep him in trouble so that he’d be kicked out of school.
Or die from their hazing.
In those days, Nykyrian hadn’t been the invincible warrior his extensive League training and adoptive family’s brutality had turned him into. He’d been a skinny, skittish boy. Unable to defend himself. All he’d wanted was to be ignored by everyone. Especially since the humans in his past had left him horrifically scarred, defanged, and declawed.
Instead of following the ways of their ancestors and teachings, the Andarions had banded together to traumatize Nykyrian, as if they were afraid he was infectious and would destroy them all.
On that particular day, Jullien had intended to run Nykyrian down with the pod.
Hauk had taken issue with their plans. And they had taken issue with him. While fighting each other over it, they’d caused the pod to malfunction and crash.
Jullien and Chrisen had abandoned Hauk. Left him in the wreckage to burn alive. Even now, he could swear that Chrisen had intentionally shoved him into the panel that had fallen on his leg and trapped him inside the pod. That the bastard’s eyes had gleamed in satisfaction.
While the flames had singed his flesh and the smoke had closed in on his lungs, he’d heard them outside, blaming his “incompetence” for the crash. Along with them and the other students, their teachers had made excuses as to why they couldn’t do anything for Hauk. Why it was acceptable to let a kid burn to death.
Knowing they had no intention of helping him, Hauk had held his breath as best he could, while he tried desperately to free his damaged leg from the searing hot metal. He knew he was completely alone. That no one would ever put their ass on the line for his.
At least that had been his thought until a shadow fell over him.
Nyk, well aware of the fact that they’d been trying to hurt him when they’d crashed, had run inside the craft, oblivious to the danger. For all he knew, Hauk had been as determined to hurt him as the others. But Nyk hadn’t let that stop him. And as he struggled to free Hauk, he’d been burned and wounded to his bones.
Still, Nyk had fought to save his life when no one else could be bothered, and then, wounded himself, he’d lifted Hauk up and carried him to safety right before the craft had exploded and sent debris raining down all over the two of them.
Out of a crowd of people and Andarions, it’d been Nyk who’d jerked his jacket off and used it to put out the flames on Hauk’s back.
To this day, Hauk didn’t understand Nykyrian’s mercy.
And every time he saw one of those scars on Nyk’s body caused by that crash, he knew the debt he owed to a boy who should have let him burn for his part in making Nyk feel unwelcome at their school.
But that was a long time ago. And it was something he’d never spoken of to anyone.
Not even Nykyrian.
Clearing his throat, he picked through the fruit in his bag until he found a friggle. “It was a training exercise when I was a boy. My pod crashed and I was trapped in the burning wreckage.” He offered her the fruit.
She declined it with a shake of her head. “It must have been awful.”
He ate the friggle before he spoke again. “It isn’t one of my happier memories. Sadly, it’s not one of my worst, either.”
“Were you scared?”
He wiped his hand on his pants. “No.”
“Really?” she asked incredulously.