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Enough that I didn’t want to think about it now; I didn’t want to think about it ever.

And Pritkin knew it.Whatever registered on my face caused him to change tactics and veer off in a different direction.But not a better one.

“You proved it again by coming after me tonight and almost getting yourself killed,” he said more quietly.

“Which I wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t run off!”I wasn’t quiet because any recall of that horrible night felt like fingernails raking down my nerves, which weren’t in great shape to begin with.

“Which I wouldn’t have needed to do if I could trust you—”

“To dowhat?”

“To listen to me!You used to know how to do that!”

I stared at him, and the fact that water was dripping off his substantial nose in a steady stream did not make the expression any less formidable.He meant every word, and that was not okay.None of this was.

“I used to read tarot in a bar and didn’t know one end of a gun from another,” I reminded him.“You made sure that isn’t the case anymore.You trained me yourself—”

“Yes, for yourprotection.Not so you could do whatever the hell that was!”He flung out a hand, hit the shower wall, and cursed inventively.“Not to mention that you didn’t have a gun—you didn’t have anything but a bunch of crazed women who never met a fight they didn’t like!The covens are mad, and I was mad to leave you with them and—”

He kept on talking because, despite being pretty taciturn most of the time, when he got going, he could go for awhile.But I couldn’t hear him anymore over the roar in my head.I fought Zeus, I thought dizzily.

I took on the father of the gods, one on one, and while I didn’t win, I didn’t lose, either.But Pritkin hadn’t been there; he hadn’t seen it.And despite everything, he insisted on treating me like spun glass.

I didn’t know how to make him stop if everything we’d gone through hadn’t already done that, but I had to figure it out.

We couldn’t go on like this.

“You don’t trust me to handle myself,” I interrupted.“Even though you trained me.”

“I trust you.”It was grim.“In a normal fight, I’d rather have you at my back than anyone else.But this isn’t a normal fight, and you—”

He stopped abruptly, enough that I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say.

“And I what?”

He stared at me for a moment, but apparently, he thought whatever it was needed to be said.Enough to risk upsetting me when he knew I was already teetering on the edge.But he didn’t look like he was happy about it.

“I’m not the only one who can’t get over that camp, Cassie.”

Chapter Thirteen

Iwas silent for a beat, not sure if I wanted to go there.In fact, I was pretty damned sure that I didn’t.And I didn’t have to.

Something told me that I could step out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel, and walk back into the other room, and this time, he’d let me go.He wouldn’t say a word because we’d both vastly prefer to avoid this conversation.But if that happened, we also wouldn’t come to the understanding I wanted and that we needed because, without it, he was going to get himself killed.

So, I braced for a bad time.“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we were both scarred that night.I have been dealing with the fact that I didn’t protect you—no, worse than that.That my incompetence resulted in you ending up in that mess in the first place—”

“You weren’t incompetent,” I said, because he hadn’t been.He’d been unlucky, something that could have happened to any of us.But apparently, it wasn’t my turn to talk.

“—and which resulted in you getting hurt and almost killed.I swore an oath to protect you, and I didn’t protect you, and it eats at me every day.Everyday!”The green eyes were very bright, with what almost looked like flames behind them.“I hate that, more than I can tell you, but as badly as I have struggled with that failure—”

“You didn’t fail.You got meout—”

“Not in time!Not before—”

He broke off again with a curse and then cursed again and hit the wall, this time on purpose.And hard enough that, if a ward hadn’t protected the dirt in here to make it waterproof, he might have broken it.I wasn’t sure that he still wouldn’t.