Текст книги "Collateral Damage"

Автор книги: Kaylea Cross

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Wait, what? His gaze shot to her face.

Erin examined the back of her head. “You’ve got a lump. Did you lose consciousness?”

“Maybe for a second, I’m not sure. Everything happened so fast…”

Liam’s jaw clenched. So she could likely add a concussion to the list of injuries on top of everything else. Great. Damn it, he’d known she wasn’t telling him everything. “You better check her over, make sure she’s not hurt anywhere else,” he said to Erin.

Erin glanced at him and raised a haughty eyebrow. “Thanks for the tip, but I learned about assessment in the first week of nursing school. And I’ve also roomed with her for a long time so I know exactly how good she is at putting on a brave face.” She shot a warning look at Honor before focusing back on him and her eyes hardened. “You’re Liam?”

He nodded but Honor cut in with, “He was just leaving.” The scathing look she gave him made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with him. Probably ever. Which was what he’d wanted, right?

So why did it feel like he’d just inhaled a gallon of broken glass?

Liam sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll go finish up with the briefing. You can give your statement when you’re ready.”

She nodded without glancing at him, and since there was nothing more to say and he wanted her to get looked after without any more drama, he left the room. For now he’d give her some space but he already planned to check in on her later and make sure she was okay. He needed to know that much.

As he walked across the base her earlier words kept bouncing around in his head, torturing him with the possibility that she’d been telling the truth. That she’d actually told her family she’d been wrong before.

That she’d chosen him over them.

It wasn’t fair that she’d been put in that position in the first place but it hadn’t been his doing. And, much as his instinct warned him to ignore everything she’d said, he couldn’t.

Because impossible as it seemed, if it was true, it meant that against all odds, there might still be a chance for them.

Chapter Six

Honor winced as she shifted the pillow behind her back and changed position on her bunk slightly. The stitches in the back of her shoulder pulled whenever she moved her arm and even when she didn’t the wounds throbbed. After sitting on her bruised ass for the past two hours she was stiff as hell and she knew it was only going to get worse before it got better.

The book she’d started was one she’d been looking forward to reading but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t concentrate on the story. Her thoughts kept slipping back to Liam, everything he’d done today, everything he’d said. He might not be willing or able to forgive her for what she’d done but he still cared enough to stay with her and wanted to make sure she was okay.

Obsessing about what it means is only going to make you miserable.

She got busy reading. She was only half a chapter into the story when her cell beeped with a text message. Her heart leapt, hope surging inside her that it might be Liam. But when she eased to her side to retrieve it from the upturned crate that served as her bedside table, disappointment filled her, along with dread. Her sister.

For a moment she contemplated ignoring or deleting the message, but since it had been nearly a month since she’d last heard from Charity, she decided to read it.

Just heard about attack on the news. R U OK?

A bittersweet pain pierced her. In spite of everything, Charity still loved her and cared enough to reach out. She knew this was her sister’s version of the proverbial olive branch. No matter how toxic she could be or how conflicted Honor was about their complicated relationship, she didn’t have the heart to ignore the peace offering.

I’m OK, she replied, leaving out all the details. Made for some excitement around here.

A few seconds later a response came back. I’ll bet.

When Honor didn’t reply, Charity sent another text. Was worried about U. Stay safe and keep in touch. Miss U.

Staring at the small screen in her hand, Honor’s throat tightened. If the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then she knew she couldn’t reply in kind and let herself slide back into the part of peacemaker. Her entire life she’d always smoothed things over, avoiding conflict when she could and diffusing it those rare times when she couldn’t. She’d been raised that way, had been expected to fulfill that role, or suffer the consequences.

It had taken losing Liam to make her wake up and eventually break free of that cycle, using the backbone she’d been born with. After losing so much in an effort to embrace who she truly was and what she wanted, she couldn’t go back now. Wouldn’t, no matter how much this hurt.

Thanks. Be well, was all she could think to say. Charity didn’t send anything else.

As Honor set the phone back on her nightstand, a sinking sensation filled her, the same reaction she always had when the scale of the loss hit home again. Though she was on the other side of the world in a combat zone and had just been wounded in a deadly attack, it was knowing that she essentially no longer had a family that made her feel totally alone. Seeing Liam again today and his reaction to what she’d said felt like the last tether of hope grounding her had been severed.

The hut door opened and Captain Candace “Ace” Bradford walked in, dressed in her flight suit. Ace stopped inside the doorway as she shut the door behind her and raked her gaze over Honor, her eyes zeroing in on the sling and bandages. “How bad is it?”

“Not as bad as it looks from this, just a few stitches and stuff.” Stuff being a few remaining shards of shrapnel they hadn’t been able to dig out of her. And a mild concussion that made her feel like an army of miners was hammering at the inside of her skull with pickaxes. She set down her e-reader. “Did you guys get airborne when the attack happened?” She hadn’t seen a Spectre in the air earlier, but everything had happened so fast and she’d only seen a portion of the battlefield from the Chinook’s shoulder window.

“Yeah, but it took a while. We’re lucky we didn’t lose more aircraft to those rockets.” Ace walked over and sat on the foot of Honor’s bunk, her expression worried. “Heard you were in the air today too.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“Ryan.”

Of course. His and Ace’s relationship had caused quite the scandal when the story had first broken in the media—them both being in AFSOC, and Ace’s father being a Senator and all. Somehow they managed to see each other and still fly under the radar while being back here together. Not an easy feat, to make a relationship like theirs work, but they clearly loved each other a lot and were willing to do whatever it took to stay together.

Honor admired them both a lot for that. She should have given Liam that exact same dedication and loyalty when she’d had the chance.

“Who’d he hear that from?” she asked, pushing aside the painful thought.

“From a SOAR pilot.” Ace’s brown eyes searched hers. “Were you on Liam’s bird?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know it until I got on board though. Everything happened so fast, it was utter chaos out there. A crew chief came up yelling that they needed a gunner. One of my guys and I just ran after him up the ramp.”

“I know, it was crazy out there.” Ace leaned back on her elbows, still studying her. “So. You guys talk at all once it was all over?”

“Unfortunately,” she muttered.

Looking all kinds of intrigued, Ace rolled to her side and propped her head in one hand. A few tendrils of honey-blond hair that had escaped the tidy bun framed her face. “Why, what did he say?”

“I think he felt bad about the way he’s ignored me, so when he realized I was hurt he came with me to the hospital.” She reminded herself that it was likely guilt that had motivated him, nothing else.

“So he definitely still cares.”

Honor swallowed and lowered her gaze to the blanket she’d draped over her legs. “Yeah.” As much as he’d let himself, anyway. She supposed she should be grateful that he cared about her at all anymore. “Not that it much matters now.”

“What? Of course it matters.”

“What matters?” Erin asked as she stepped into the hut.

Ace glanced at Honor for permission before answering. “She was telling me about Liam.”

“Oh.” Erin shrugged out of her jacket and came over to perch on the other side of the bed, leaning on her hip and elbow beside Ace. She raised a dark eyebrow, her expression curious. “So, you were saying…what about him? That he’s an unfeeling prick and doesn’t deserve the time of day from you?”

“No.” She scowled as a wave of protective anger washed through her on his behalf. Only she could call him a prick, no one else. “It’s not… He’s not…” Man, she so didn’t want to have this conversation, let alone when she was so raw. “Look, he’s not a prick, okay?”

Erin blinked in surprise at her vehemence. “Uh, okaaay,” she said slowly. “Can you elaborate on that then? Because from what I saw earlier at the hospital, you wanted him the hell away from you as soon as possible, and I assumed it wasn’t because he was being a sweet, supportive guy. So please enlighten me,” she finished blandly.

Honor glanced at Ace, who was now watching her with avid interest, then back at Erin. Their low opinion of him was her fault. She’d never told anyone the details of what happened to cause the break-up, not even Erin. She was too ashamed of everything about it, how she’d reacted, how she’d handled it, and couldn’t bear to see her friends’ expressions when they found out what a coward she’d been. If there was such a thing as karma then she’d definitely received the punishment she deserved because losing Liam had been the most devastating thing of all.

“It’s complicated.”

They both just kept looking at her, waiting.

Honor sighed and leaned her head back against her pillow, propped against the steel-frame headboard. “There were family issues involved on my end. Big ones. Stuff you’d see on a really bad reality show. Long story short, I handled it badly and I screwed up. Okay? I screwed up big time and now he won’t forgive me.”

Erin sat up. “Wait, does this have anything to do with why your family basically disowned you a few months ago?”

Ace’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Your family would do that to you?” Her appalled tone made Honor wince inside. She wouldn’t apologize or defend her family’s actions though, because there was no excuse for their narrow-minded view of the world and their hypocritical treatment of others. She’d just never been forced to outright confront that harsh reality before Liam. Not really.

And that made her feel like a coward too.

She shrugged. “It sucks, but to be honest it’s probably for the best. Something had to give.” The truth is, you probably did us both a favor. Liam’s harsh words still rang in her head.

“Wow, I’m sorry,” Erin murmured. “And I assume this is probably somehow related to the whole Liam thing?”

Honor could only nod, unwilling to spill the ugly details, even with her closest friends.

“Okay, no,” Ace said with a frown. “You need to back up and tell me the beginning of this story because I can’t stand not knowing now.”

Oh, God. Honor rubbed a hand over her face and decided to go for it. “All right. You know I met Liam because he was seeing my older sister for a short time, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how that all happened either. From what I know of Liam and your sister, she and Liam have nothing in common, so I can’t see them dating.”

“Yeah, it didn’t last long. Only a couple of dates spaced out over a few weeks. Charity met Liam at a bar off post one night and went nuts over him.” Honor winced at the choice of wording. “She’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder about a year before that. Manic highs, crazy lows. They’d found a combo of meds that seemed to help her, but from day one she somehow had it in her mind that Liam was The One.”

Ace’s eyes were wide. “Holy. From day one?”

Honor nodded. “She came home from the bar and went on about him for over an hour to me. A week later they went out to dinner before he left for a training mission. During the short time he was away they texted and e-mailed each other, and Charity became obsessed with him. It was scary to see her like that, to be honest. I knew she’d gone off her meds but my parents wouldn’t listen. They were ecstatic to see her so happy, couldn’t see how unhealthy her attachment to him was.”

“He picked up on it right away though,” Erin said to Ace.

“Yeah, he told me later that after their second date he’d already been thinking of ending things because of how obsessed she seemed to be getting,” Honor said. “Anyway, she invited me and a guy friend of mine to dinner with them on their second date. Liam and I hit it off right away and it was pretty clear we had way more in common than he and Charity did. I didn’t have any romantic intentions toward him or anything.”

“And that’s the night he realized he was with the wrong girl,” Erin said, a smug edge to her voice.

“That’s what he said later, yeah, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Charity called me later that week, bawling that Liam had broken up with her. I tried to point out that they’d only gone out a handful of times, but it hadn’t done any good. She’d built Liam up so much in her mind, she was devastated when he ended things. She’d already gone off her meds but after that she started drinking and threatening to kill herself if he wouldn’t take her back. It was ugly.”

“Whoa,” Ace murmured, propping up a little higher on her elbow. “What did she do when she found out you guys were dating?”

“We didn’t get together until months later, after we’d become good friends and gotten to know each other really well on the phone and by e-mail. Liam kept his distance at first. Kind of a cooling off period he later said, for Charity’s sake. We didn’t start officially dating until the day he came to surprise me down at Kandahar two years ago.”

“And how’d your sister take that news?” Ace asked.

Honor huffed out a breath. “Not well, but I knew she wouldn’t. She seemed to slowly accept it, though I never talked about him to her. That’s why Liam and I kept how serious things were between us a secret from my family for so long.” Her parents hadn’t taken the news of them dating much better than Charity had.

“Until they got engaged. Then the shit hit the fan,” Erin added to Ace.

“Okay, wow, I didn’t know all that,” Ace said, shaking her head in wonder. “And what happened when you got engaged?”

Honor fiddled with the edge of her blanket. “I’d rather not get into it.”

Ace’s eyes filled with sympathy. “Sure, of course. And so whatever happened is what led to the falling out thing with your family?”

“Initially, yes, but I did what I could to smooth things over with them after Liam and I broke up.” That had come at a price far higher than she should have been willing to pay. “No, the real problem was when I finally worked up the nerve to do what I should have done in the first place.” Sided with Liam instead of them.

Erin’s eyebrows rose. “What did you do?”

Honor shrugged. “I told them I’d been wrong to let him go, and that if I had to choose between them and Liam, then I chose him.”

Resounding silence filled the hut as the other two women stared at her.

“Holy shit,” Ace finally said. “I had no idea you were going through all that all this time.”

“Me neither, on the last bit,” said Erin, her expression showing a flash of hurt that made Honor feel badly for hiding everything.

Not that she ever wanted either of her friends to know the lurid details of what had happened the night they’d gotten engaged. Or the other events that had led to the break-up.

“I know. And it’s not that I don’t trust you guys or anything, it’s just that I’m ashamed of the way everything went down. I mean, my dad’s this well-respected preacher in my town and my family’s supposed to be this upstanding, Christian model for the rest of the community to follow, but the things they said and did, and then them forcing me into the position they did… The hypocrisy just makes me sick.”

Her fingers curled into the blanket, her stomach taut. The very reason she’d never defied her parents in the first place was because she’d instinctively known how they’d react. Looking back, she realized now that her being cast out one day had been inevitable. When it had finally happened, much as it shamed her to admit it, in a way it was a big relief. “I should have stood up to them a long time ago.”

Erin reached out and rubbed a hand up and down Honor’s leg in silent sympathy. “I’m really sorry, hon, that’s so shitty of them. As for Liam, maybe if you just go and apologize—”

“I have apologized. Several times. First by e-mail because he wouldn’t take my calls, and then today I finally apologized to him in person. He didn’t exactly throw it back in my face or anything, but he doesn’t believe me.” Well, maybe he believed she was sorry, but definitely not that she’d sided with him over her family.

Erin’s eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “Then that makes him a prick in my book.”

“No.” Well, kind of, yeah, but… “You just—you don’t know him. He has his reasons for not wanting to give me another chance.” And they made her guilty conscience writhe.

She knew how badly she’d hurt him the night she’d walked out, and there was no way to fix it now, no matter how much she wished she could. That devastated look on his face when she’d left was something that would haunt her until her dying day.

“Well, I still say he wouldn’t have gone to the hospital unless he cared,” Ace said. “So at least that’s something. Maybe he just needs some time now, to process everything,” she finished, ever practical.

“Yeah,” Honor murmured, not really believing it. Somehow, knowing he cared made the ache in her chest even worse. God, unrequited love was the worst.

Erin withdrew her hand from Honor’s leg and put on a smile. “Well, you’ve got us, no matter what, no questions asked. Right?” she said to Ace.

Ace nodded. “Absolutely. And for God’s sake, talk to us next time something happens, instead of keeping everything inside. We’re both here for you.”

Honor smiled. “Thanks, guys.”

Erin waved away her thanks and pushed to her feet. “You take the prescribed meds I gave you?”

“Yes.”

She raised one eyebrow. “All of them?”

Honor couldn’t lie for shit. “Well…”

Erin rolled her eyes and rounded the bunk to grab the plastic prescription bottles on the nightstand. “Here. Two of these, and two of these. Right now.” She thrust out her palm and wiggled it impatiently. “One dose of each every six hours until I say different. Or else.”

Ace laughed as Honor took them meekly. “Your patients must love your incredibly gentle bedside manner,” she said to Erin, sarcasm dripping from each word.

Erin shrugged as she watched Honor swallow the pills. “Sometimes tough love is the best medicine, especially when dealing with alpha male patients. Or alpha males in general, for that matter.” She aimed a sly smile at Ace. “But I usually get my way in the end.”

Honor stopped listening and tuned them both out. She was too absorbed in the memory of that terrible night that had cost her everything she held dear.

Chapter Seven

Nineteen months ago

The phone rang in the bedroom as Honor stepped out of the shower in the master bathroom. Wrapping a towel around her body she smiled as she rushed to the bedside table and glanced at the screen, expecting to see Liam’s number. Instead she found her mother’s cell.

A jolt of alarm hit her. It was after midnight. They’d never call her at this hour unless there was a problem.

Ignoring the dread curling inside her, she picked up and blurted, “What’s wrong?”

“Your sister’s in the Emergency room.” Her mother’s panicked voice was hoarse with tears. “She tried to kill herself.”

Honor’s stomach pitched and her hand tightened around the phone. “What?”

“She took a bottle of sleeping pills and washed them down with straight vodka. The note said she couldn’t live with whatever you told her.” Her voice cracked. “What did you say to her, Honor?”

Honor felt the blood drain from her face. Charity had her problems, but this was unthinkable. Guilt and denial warred inside her, mixing with the rising wave of panic. “Where are you?” she demanded.

“In the Emergency waiting room.”

“Is Dad with you?”

“Yes.” She started to cry. “They wouldn’t let us sit with her. They took her into the OR a few minutes ago to p-pump her stomach and get her stabilized but she wasn’t c-conscious…” She dissolved into tears. “My God, what did you do?”

It felt like her heart would burst. “Mom, I’m coming down. Be there in twenty.” Without waiting for a response she ended the call, raced for her closet and threw on jeans and a sweater. She flew down the stairs of her off-base townhouse, snagged the keys and her wallet from the entry table and dashed for her car parked in the driveway. As she turned the engine over she called Liam, her hands shaking so much she could barely dial his number.

“Charity’s in the hospital. She tried to kill herself after I called her,” she blurted when he picked up.

Liam cursed. “I’m sorry. Wait there for me, I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“No,” she said, a lump of fear and grief lodged in her throat. “Can’t wait.”

“Then I’ll meet you there.”

“No. Not a good idea.” Understatement of the fucking year. She could just imagine what would happen if Liam showed up at the hospital with her parents right now. “I’ll call you later.”

Not wanting to waste any more time, she set the phone on the passenger seat and reversed out of her driveway, ignoring it when he called her back twice. As she drove she was torn between fear for her sister and the terrible, gnawing realization that this was all her fault.

The roads were nearly empty. At the hospital she parked and shut off the engine, then sat for a moment, her gaze locked on the aquamarine solitaire on her left ring finger. He’d chosen it because it reminded him of her eyes, he’d said, before getting down on one knee.

She’d only had it on for three hours. Right now the sight of it made her feel queasy. She couldn’t walk in there wearing it.

Honor worked it off her finger and slid it in her front jeans pocket before climbing out of the car and heading into the Emergency ward, her heart thudding in a sickening rhythm against her ribs. Both her parents stood when they saw her come in. Her father had his arm wrapped around her mother’s shoulders and her face was streaked with tears. Both their expressions were grim, their stares accusing.

Swallowing hard, Honor approached them. Without a word she reached out and wrapped her arms around the both of them. Her father was stiff but after a few seconds gripped her with his free arm while her mother buried her face in Honor’s shoulder and started sobbing.

Honor closed her eyes and held on tight. She was dreading telling them what had happened.

They stood that way for a few minutes before her mother finally gathered her composure and stepped back. Feeling awkward, Honor put her hands into her pockets. The fingers of her right hand made contact with the ring and her gut twisted harder. “Any updates?”

“No,” her father said, lowering his large frame into a chair where he’d set the well-worn Bible he never went anywhere without. At fifty-nine he was still a powerful, imposing man. He’d spent over twenty years in the Navy serving his country, and he still bore the signs in his rigid discipline and posture. “They said they’d update us when they can.”

“Sit down, Mom,” she told her mother, gently guiding her to her seat. “I’ll get you some tea.” When her mother murmured her thanks she rushed off to find the tea, using the time to figure out what she was going to say to them. They were going to demand an explanation of what happened between her and Charity and there was no hiding from it.

This whole thing felt surreal. Tonight should have been one of the happiest memories of her life. She’d been so excited until that call had come in, even though she’d known she couldn’t hide the source of her happiness from her parents for long. The reckoning was inevitable; she’d just never expected to have to come clean to her parents at a time like this.

With tea in hand she headed back to the waiting room. Her parents were still sitting in their seats, her father’s lips moving as he read a Bible passage to her mother. “Any word from the doctors yet?”

“No,” her father said.

She pulled in a deep breath. Time to come clean.

After handing her mother the tea, she remained standing, enduring her father’s hard stare as she thought frantically about how to word this.

“You look like you have something you want to tell us,” her father said in that implacable tone that never failed to make her stomach knot.

She nodded. “I called Charity a few hours ago.”

Both her parents’ expressions sharpened. “What did you say to her?” her father demanded.

“The truth.” She’d have preferred to have this conversation in private somewhere rather than out here in the middle of the waiting room, but there was nowhere else to go at the moment. There was also no way to break this to them gently, so she told them flat out. “Liam proposed tonight.”

Her father launched to his feet, his face turning a mottled red as fury contorted his expression. “He what?” Her mother had blanched, was staring at her with wide, horrified eyes, one hand covering her mouth.

Honor swallowed. “I said yes.”

His eyes bulged. “The hell you did.”

Her mother stood and grabbed hold of her husband’s arm. “John.”

“No.” He wrenched from her hold and turned a withering glare on Honor. “How dare you,” he whispered, the low volume somehow even scarier than if he’d roared it. From the corner of her eye she could see several people staring at them from across the waiting room, but tried to block them out. She had bigger problems to deal with right now than losing face in public.

“I’m sorry, but it’s done.”

“You’re not sorry,” her father snarled, fists clenching. “This is what you wanted all along. How dare you stand there and lie to my face!” he shouted.

Now everyone in the room was gawking at them. Inwardly she cringed but knew there was no escape from prying eyes. “I didn’t know Charity would react like this,” she rushed on, desperate to calm him down, make him listen. She had to have gone off her meds. It was the only explanation. “I knew she’d be upset with me, but that’s why I called her before anyone else. I wanted her to hear it from me. I thought it would be easier for her.”

Her father shook with rage. “You know how fragile she is. You knew it would drive her to this!”

“No I didn’t!” she burst out. Her angry show of defiance had predictable results. Her father’s brows crashed together and he took a menacing step forward, his mouth a tight slash in his face.

“John, no.” Her mother grabbed his arm again, freezing him in place, though he never took his eyes off Honor. Then her mother’s gaze shot over Honor’s shoulder and the sudden flare of dread there made Honor brace for the worst.

Whirling around, she saw Liam stalking toward them, wearing his game face. He was in full protective mode and had obviously seen her and her father arguing.

“Oh, shit,” she breathed and shook her head at him, raising her hands to ward him off. Not now. He would only make things so much worse.

Liam ignored her and kept on coming, not stopping until he was close enough to wrap an arm around her shoulders and lock her against his side. She could feel how taut his muscles were, his body braced for battle. Together they faced her parents, the brittle tension seething between them.

Her father stared at him. “You would dare come here at a time like this? After what you’ve done?”

Liam didn’t blink, meeting that furious gaze head on. “I’m here for Honor.”

“She doesn’t need you here, we’re her family.”

“So am I,” he fired back.

“You’ll never be her family, and you’d best get out of my sight.” The threat seemed to reverberate off the walls.

As they stared each other down, Honor scrambled to figure out how to diffuse the situation. “Dad, look—”

His bloodshot gaze shot to her, the raw fury there cutting her words off as effectively as a knife. “How dare you? How dare you do this to us, your family, then bring him here?”

To her horror, her eyes began to tear up. This wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. “I didn’t—”

“Honor hasn’t done anything wrong,” Liam cut in, holding her tight to him. Normally his touch and body heat would have comforted her but she was so keyed up she was barely aware of it.

Her father leveled his gaze on Liam. “You’ve both broken God’s law,” he snarled, nostrils flaring. “You’ve defiled His word and committed a mortal sin by breaking His commandments.”

Honor’s head snapped back at the hate-filled words. He sounded and was acting like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”

“Honor thy father and thy mother,” he said coldly. “And Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” His voice shook, his chest rising and falling in a rapid rhythm.

The Fifth and Tenth Commandments? Honor shook her head in disbelief, realizing for the first time just how severe this breach between her and her parents really was. He was literally twisting the Bible to suit his purposes.

Not for the first time, she wondered if Charity wasn’t the only one in the family to suffer from mental illness. “I haven’t dishonored anyone, and the last accusation is ridiculous. Charity and Liam only went out a handful of times over the period of a few weeks, and none of that matters right now because we should be focused on her—”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Her father’s hand shot out to grab her upper arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he shook her once. “You took what belonged to your sister, consented to be joined to him for all eternity, and your sister suffered for it.”

Liam grabbed her father’s arm and wrenched it away from her, his expression livid. “You don’t touch her like that. Ever.” His voice was so cold it sent a shiver of dread up Honor’s spine.