Not exactly, but Sumi couldn’t argue that with her… not without outing herself. “I notice you’re not insulting her. Not like you do Dariana.”
Thia turned toward Sumi with an expression that was riddled with seething hatred. “Believe me, it’s hard not to, given what he’s been through because of what she did. But I love Uncle Fain and I would never dishonor the woman he gave his heart to. He’d beat my butt if I did. No one’s allowed to say a word against her. Ever. Being Andarion, his philosophy is that had he been worthy of her, she wouldn’t have left him. He takes all responsibility for his failed marriage, and still holds her on a pedestal. For that matter, he wears her wedding ring, she threw in his face, on his pinkie and has never removed it.”
Tears filled her eyes at the last thing she’d expected to hear. All this time, she’d assumed, from what Omira had said, that Fain hated her sister. That he’d been the one who’d left their marriage first.
“I should never have married an Andarion, Sumi. What was I thinking? They’re not human. They don’t act human. They’re terrifying creatures who will tear you apart. I know Fain’s going to come for me one day, and rip out my heart and eat it. I know it.”
Omira had lived in absolute fear of him finding her. But she’d never really said why she was so scared of him. Other than he was an Andarion barbarian.
“How do you know he didn’t leave her first?”
“Because I know Uncle Fain. Why would he still have her ring on his hand? Not to mention, all he’ll ever say about it is that he wasn’t what she really wanted.” Thia shook her head. “No, he feels too much grief to have left her.”
Sumi’s throat tightened as she remembered how heartbroken and terrified Omira had been when she came home after Fain had supposedly left. For three days, she’d locked herself in the bathroom, and had refused to come out. Barely nine, Sumi had been scared that Omira would kill herself.
“Father… we have to do something to help her.”
“Let the tainted whore die. Better for all of us if she’s gone.”
She still didn’t know how their own father could be so callous and unfeeling. When Omira had finally emerged, he’d refused to even look at her. While he hadn’t thrown her out of their house, he’d treated her like a ghost. Never would speak to her or acknowledge her presence.
Omira had accepted it as best she could. But it was the reactions from other people who’d learned about her husband and her ongoing terror that Fain would hunt her down that had finally done her in.
Sumi had just turned eighteen when Omira had decided she couldn’t handle it anymore – that life, and the condemnation of others, wasn’t worth the struggle to get through it.
All Omira’s suicide had done was worsen their father’s alcoholism and his hatred of the only family he had left. He’d turned on Sumi like some bastard stepchild he wanted out of his sight.
“You’re a whore, just like your worthless mother and sister. You’ll find some cock to suck and then leave me, too. Just wait and see. You bitches are all the same.”
As he’d predicted in his drunken stupors, she’d moved in with the first man to invite her, during her first year in college. She’d have done anything to get away from her father’s insults.
Little had she known, it wouldn’t be long before she’d wish herself back to her father’s hell over that of her first boyfriend’s. And even that disaster hadn’t been nearly as bad as the one that would arrive with Avin.
Old enough to have known better, she’d somehow allowed that bastard to deceive her completely. And she still wasn’t sure how she’d missed the warning signs of his insanity before she’d allowed Avin to move in with her.
At least with her father, she’d been able to gauge what would send him off into a rage and avoid most. Avin’s triggers could be as simple as asking if it was raining outside. They were so arbitrary and capricious…
She’d make a stew and it would be too salty. Then she’d make it again and it wasn’t salty enough. Don’t wear heels and tower over me! Why aren’t you wearing heels? Huh? You’ve wasted money on a closet full of them, and yet you never wear them!
“Closet full” by his definition was three pair. But that was another argument.
Gods, he’d been such a bastard. How had she ever allowed herself to think for one minute that she loved him? Who could ever love such a selfish prick?
A tear slid down her cheek as the pain of her past sank its claws into her heart. Sumi wiped it away before Thia saw it. There was no need in thinking about the life she’d had before. She was an assassin now. Her marriage was to The League alone. And at least it wouldn’t be too many more years of torture. She was already over the average life expectancy of an assassin. Sooner more likely than later, someone, probably Hauk, would kill her before she got them.
That was her life. The best she could hope for was to save her daughter from the same fate.
Clearing her throat, she brought the topic back to Fain. “Where’s Hauk’s brother now?”
Thia stroked the lorina’s head as it napped on her leg. “He lives as an Outcast and nomad. Sometimes in human zones. Sometimes Andarion, even though it’s dangerous. He never stays in one place too long.”
“So he’s healthy?”
Pausing her hand midstroke, Thia pinned her with a gimlet stare. “You’re showing a lot of interest in Fain. Should I ask why?”
There was no missing the underlying threat in those words. She better assuage the girl’s suspicions or she’d be meeting with a bad accident soon. “Curious is all. Sorry. I ask questions when I’m nervous. I rather stumbled into all of your lives. I’m just trying to get my bearings.”
Thia seemed to accept that. “I know the feeling. It took me awhile to acclimate to all of them myself. Especially Uncle Hauk.” A nostalgic smile tugged at her lips. “The first time I met him, I thought he was going to cut my heart out and eat it, and I ran screaming down the hallway.”
“Why would you think that?”
She raked a less-than-flattering look over Sumi’s body. “You do that now and you’re a trained assassin who’s a lot closer to his height than I was or am. Not to mention that whole wide-as-a-house thing he has going for him… It’s extremely off-putting, especially when you’re a kid. That male can palm a twenty-pound bowling ball. Seriously. I’ve seen him do it.”
Illyse rose suddenly and hissed.
Before either of them could move, the lorina launched herself into the darkness. Thia shot to her feet and pulled her blaster out.
“Relax, Thee, it’s just me.” With Illyse by his side, Hauk slowly made his way into the circle of firelight, carrying a giant beast over his shoulder.
Sumi’s eyes widened at the size of the creature while Thia holstered her weapon. “When you hunt, you don’t play around, do you?”
“Not really.” He scowled as he dropped the beast and then noticed Darice, facedown on the ground. Arching a brow, he turned toward Thia. “You kill him?”
“No. Just a good stunning.”
A slow, boyish grin curved his lips. He rubbed at his goatee with his thumb. “Would it be wrong if I left him there until morning?”
Thia shrugged. “It’s an Endurance. You tell me, oh great uncle.”
“Maybe I’ll just throw a blanket over him and leave him there for a while.”
Thia scoffed. “It’s more than he deserves.”
As Hauk prepped his prey, Sumi noticed that he was much more relaxed than he’d been when he left. He was almost peaceful now.
“So killing things is how you unwind?”
He looked up with a wicked smile that flashed a bit of his fangs. “Indeed. Want to help me skin it?”