With a sigh he slowly rose from his seat and reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips with a quick kiss.
Fran flashed a toothy smile and walked off.
I gave one solitary clap. “Could you have gone any slower?”
“Could you be any more jealous?” he countered.
“Of your love affair with the elderly?” I tilted my head. “Jealousy wasn’t really the word I was thinking.”
“You’re welcome.” He leaned back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. “At least now you won’t have to resort to eating the table cloth.”
“You can eat the table cloth?”
“Sarcasm!” Alex said in an exasperated tone. “Learn it!”
I smirked. “I was kidding.”
You’d think I’d just announced I was going to go on a killing spree. All eyes fell to me, movement ceased.
“What?” I reached for my water and took a tentative sip.
“Dark Ones don’t joke.” Mason said seriously. “Did this whole humanity thing also replace your personality?”
I glowered. “Really, it’s like you’re begging me to kill you once this is finished.”
“And what is this?” Ethan’s eye narrowed. “You haven’t really said. And I can’t imagine you taking this type of… test sitting down.”
“Standing.” I licked my lips. “I was standing actually.”
“Sariel said nothing else?” Stephanie asked, her voice dripping with doubt. “Nothing about his reasoning?”
My mind flashed back to a few days earlier, when I offered up everything for a chance at—everything. A chance to fix an error.
A lapse in judgment.
The council members, the individuals sitting at that very table, knew me the best.
They’d seen me raze cities. Save lives. And do my fair share of destroying.
Yet even they didn’t believe me capable of having a shred of humanity. Which in turn made me question everything I’d come to know about myself. Was I their leader because they respected me?
No.
I was their leader.
Because they feared me.
Because they had no choice.
They weren’t my friends, hardly even colleagues. It had never been so painfully apparent as it was in that moment.
I truly had nothing in this world.
And maybe that was Sariel’s plan all along, his last cruel trick. Make the Dark One—who has no feelings—feel.
Because I felt a hell of a lot while I sat there.
Shame, disappointment, rage, embarrassment.