Cassian had watched the entire ordeal, laying witness to Nyssa’s cruelty with a shocked, frozen expression tightening his features.
The beta had never seen or expected Nyssa to be so vicious toward the king’s slave. Of course he should feel no pity; she was Orion blood, after all—the very lineage that had cost him everything.
Yet something compelled him to help her to his quarters, to clean the blood from her shredded hands with rough, reluctant care, even as her quiet gratitude grated against his nerves like sand in a wound. He was no savior, and he would never be one for her kind.
She was the daughter of a cold-blooded killer. The Orions would all suffer—that was the vow he had carved into his soul the day he woke to Callix’s grim voice recounting the siege, only to discover his left
