“If she broke his heart.”
“But he left her.”
“Well, then. I don’t know what to tell you, Aeli.”
Aeli growled in frustration. This time, something in his past had affected her directly, made her doubt herself, so it was time she knew what she was dealing with. “He owes me an explanation.”
When Aelissm’s teeth had touched the scar, remembered pain seared through it, nearly as agonizing as the knife had been in his flesh. The hurt on her face needled through him like icicles, excruciating and pervasive. No matter how hard he tried to out-run it, no matter how hard he worked to close himself off to it, Sara’s hatred kept coming back, tormenting him from his memories, and now it was beginning to affect those around him. He had no right to drag Aelissm down with him.
He massaged the scar, t
