Page 77 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Regrettably, he was right. It was pointless to just sit and stare while the entire world was literally crumbling around him.

Yet, he still stared.

A few more moments of indecision on his part gave enough time for Hallie to arrive, folded cloth bandages in her arms. She’d cleaned up and changed clothes since he’d last seen her.

Her skirt was slightly shorter, more of her scuffed boots showing as she walked.

Her shirt wasn’t one of her lacy blouses but a plain one with simple buttons a quarter of the way down the front.

It was tighter across her shoulders and chest. He had trouble focusing on her face.

She swept past him without even looking at him.

Yep. She was definitely angry at him.

Kase ran his good hand through his hair. Sergeant raised an eyebrow. Huh, maybe he did have a personality. Didn’t help him now.

“Hallie, wait!” Kase said, reaching out.

She didn’t, in fact, wait. Instead, she avoided his grasping hand. She wove her way through the throng, handing off a bandage to one of the medics. Kase followed, dread pooling in his core. She knew, and now he was going to pay for it.

I didn’t mean to get into a fight. I didn’t mean to get drunk. But I did.

“Hallie…” He caught up enough to grab her arm. She didn’t turn. “Hallie, could we talk?”

She yanked her arm out of his grip. Pausing to hand off another bandage, she still ignored him. Kase muttered a curse under his breath.

He trailed her back to the supply tent. She didn’t look at him once and entered without turning back. With a deep breath, Kase straightened his shoulders and followed.

The space was small. Hallie stood in front of a makeshift table and gathered strips of cloth.

Even with her anger permeating the air like the summer heat, Kase couldn’t help but examine the line of her shoulders and the curve of her waist. Her long braid reached just past the middle of her back, and Kase had to resist the urge to reach forward and tug on it just to see how she’d react.

Probably a bad idea—tempting nonetheless.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Was he simply overthinking things because she was clearly mad at him? Women were confusing—Hallie especially.

She folded a strip of cloth around her hand and set it aside. “If you’re going to ogle, then you can leave.”

Nope. Not overthinking.

Kase swallowed. “I wanted to talk.”

She folded another bandage and added it to her stack. “And if I don’t want to?”

Blasted woman.

He stepped up to a pile of what looked like bedsheets.

He grabbed the nearby knife and began cutting the sheet into strips and adding them to Hallie’s pile to be folded.

He was careful not to get his own blood onto the sheets.

“Sorry I didn’t write again, but I’m officially off house arrest now, though there are still some parameters. ”

Hallie focused on her work, not giving any indication that she’d heard him.

His blood warmed—and not in a pleasant way.

Kase’s neck protested as he bent to avoid the tent’s low ceiling, probably because he’d been sleeping at an odd angle in his cot every night.

He paused his cutting and rubbed it. His injured hand twinged, and he sucked in a breath.

Hallie shot him a quick glance before returning to her work.

“So, the reason for the loaded flashpistol following you around?”

“Parameter.”

She went silent once more. Kase rubbed his neck again out of nervousness. Hallie turned and gestured to an empty bucket. “Sit on that and cut.”

“Thanks.”

He obliged, but even if his neck was no longer protesting at his positioning, the air still felt thick with tension.

The only real sounds besides those of the hospital ward beyond the tent’s canvas was the ripping of the old bedsheets.

The soft yet piercing scritch of each tear only added to the tension.

His cuts were imprecise and jagged, but he didn’t think the people needing them would mind as long as they kept their wounds covered.

Kase finished the one he was working on and grabbed another. This one was the color of the night sky. It would hide blood better.

“You’re angry with me,” he said as he cut off another strip. Scritch . It was a little lopsided, but Kase didn’t bother fixing it. He threw it on top of her pile.

Hallie’s hands jerked with each movement of wrapping the next bandage.

Someone opened the tent flap. “You have another batch ready for sanitizing, Hal?”

It was the other woman, Petra. Hallie’s friend looked much the same as she had when she’d been scolding Kase the other day—tired and overworked as everyone else. Her apron had a few more questionable stains than the last time.

Hallie set the current stack in her friends’ arms. “I’ll dry the other batch once I’m done here.”

“Thank you.” Petra turned to leave but not without a glare for Kase. “And you’re not supposed to be here, Master Shackley. Especially after—”

“Thank you, Petra.” Hallie said through gritted teeth.

Petra narrowed her eyes at Kase, but she left, the flap shooting a small breeze across Kase’s damp skin.

Hallie turned back to her work. “Why are you here?”

“Because like I said before we were interrupted, you seem to be upset with me.”

“Incredibly astute.” She started on another pile of bandages. She wrapped another and threw it down onto the table. “What tipped you off?”

“Probably the fact that you’re taking it out on bed linens.”

She froze with the latest bandage wrapped around her hand, which had begun to turn red from her vigorous wrapping. How was this same girl who’d run to him after he’d leapt off his hover? “Would you rather I take it out on you?”

Kase huffed. He tore another strip. “Actually, yes.”

Scritch .

She still didn’t turn. “Why do you care?”

“What?” He stopped, the knife hovering over the next section of the bed linen.

“You heard me.”

It took every last ounce of self-control in that moment not to lose his cool. He would regret doing so if he did. He’d learned that lesson the hard way twelve too many times. “Stop being cryptic.”

Hallie’s shoulders tensed further. Well, he could’ve said worse.

“I am not being cryptic.”

He stood then, leaving the linens and knife on the rocky ground. “Oh, I’m sorry. Just immature, then.”

She twirled around then, her eyes blazing. “As if you’re so high and mighty.”

“At this moment?” He still had to stoop a little, but he crossed his arms. “I’m the one trying to talk to you about it, and you’re acting like a petulant twelve-year-old.”

She flinched only a little. “Why do you care? I’m merely a conquest to you, right?”

“What?”

She didn’t drop her gaze. “Not to mention that you still can’t control your temper.”

All the anger and blood and anything remotely life-giving drained from Kase’s face all the way down to his toes. “Hals, if this is about the card game, I can explain…”

“So it’s all true?”

“How did you even find out?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Hallie threw the rest of the cloth strips down.

“It does.”

Hallie played with a small hole in her blouse sleeve, her arms crossed, pinning them against her body as if keeping her from lashing out at Kase. “I thought I knew you. And it seems like I was wrong.”

“I would’ve told you.”

“When?”

That gave Kase pause. His eyes darted around the small tent, trying to think of any way to explain what he was thinking and how to say it in a way that made sense and calmed her down.

Probably expecting too much.

“Well, I’m not sure, but—”

Her face twisted. Oof, wrong thing to say. Really wrong thing to say.

Her voice was tight with anger. “You’re telling me you would’ve continued dragging me along until you’d had your fun?”

“I would never do that to you.”

“Then explain Lavinia Richter.”

Kase opened his mouth and closed it again. He ran a hand through his hair. He wouldn’t have any left if things kept up at this rate.

Hallie crossed her arms again, which was rather distracting even with her throwing daggers with her eyes.

He forced his gaze to meet hers. “Listen, Eravin roped me into a game of Hanged Man’s Nebula the other night, and…

well, I wasn’t planning on playing, not with everything… but I couldn’t get out of it.”

Hallie stayed silent, so he continued. “And I got to drinking, trying to get Eravin to lower his guard…losers had to spill secrets, which is ridiculous, but I was stuck.” Kase fell back onto the bucket and rubbed a hand down his face.

“I drank too much, and when I finally lost, Neville asked about Lavinia.”

“Neville?”

“Old friend of mine. Or at least I’d thought he was.” Kase stared at Hallie’s boots. “Obviously, I was oblivious to how he felt, because he lit into me about her.” He swallowed. “But he asked about her, and then…”

“Who is she?”

Kase looked up and instantly regretted it. He gritted his teeth. “She was Stradat Forrest Richter’s eldest daughter.”

“No.” Hallie’s voice held no trace of the tears threatening to fall. It was sharper than a knife and laced with frustration. “Who was she to you?”

Kase’s eyes glazed over. He hadn’t hit Neville hard enough, clearly. He briefly wondered if he could find him and do so. Shocks. But it wasn’t Neville’s fault. Kase was the one to blame. “We were involved a year or so back.”

“And you used her to get back at your father?”

Kase’s heart felt like someone was cutting it slowly, as if savoring the deed. “Yes.”

He couldn’t look at her. He didn’t think he could bear the hurt in her gaze.

Instead, he focused on her boots. Her feet seemed to make the decision for her, and she grabbed the piles of folded and unfolded bandages and made toward the entrance.

Kase caught her hand. “Look…it was mutual. She was trying to get out of an arranged marriage to some dignitary from Tev Rubika. If given the chance, I’d do things differently. I’m…not proud of it.”

“And am I just the next pretty face? The current pawn in your game?”

Kase shook his head, unable to believe that she could think that and also angry that he’d somehow allowed that line of thought to even enter her head. “How can you ask me that after everything we’ve been through?”

Hallie waited a moment, her arms full of crudely cut bandages, the tears in her eyes waiting in the wings. “And the fighting?”

Kase hesitated. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Waylan said something…crude. And well, I was drunk. I started the fight.”

“Crude?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter now.”

“It does if it makes you act like your father.”

It turned out that being verbally sucker-punched by Hallie was much worse than actually being sucker-punched. She’d said it so calmly and quickly, as if she’d been prepared to use that line of attack. As if she’d just been waiting for the right moment. “What?”

“Lavinia Richter is one thing. I know I shouldn’t be hurt. It was in the past. I was about to marry Niels, for stars-sake.” She said the words as if in apology, but that couldn’t make up for the other ones she’d needled at him. “If that’s all it was, I could move past that. But…but…”

She took in a shaky breath, shutting the tent flap. “But if all it takes for you to lose your temper is some stupid words…if you think it’s okay to get drunk and gamble away your money…or secrets, or whatever it might be, then I don’t know if I can…”

Kase tried to control not only his temper, but also the urge to pull her into his arms—a true dichotomy.

Because if she walked away now, he didn’t know what he’d do.

He’d already said goodbye to her once, and he’d hated every minute she was gone.

He wet his lips to give him another moment to think and douse the anger warring for his attention.

She thought he was like his father.

The crushing realization she might be right was almost enough for him to run. If it was true, he might indeed lose her, and he wouldn’t survive that.

He kept his words as measured as he could.

“When you were at University, Waylan and a bunch of his friends had bets on who would sleep with you first. While yes, I wasn’t in complete control of my faculties due to the amount of straight whiskey I drank, which was indeed a mistake, I did clock him for it.

But I’d argue defending your honor doesn’t make me Harlan Shackley. ”

Hallie’s cheeks reddened at his words. “Oh.”

She looked down. Kase played with his ring. She didn’t say anything else, and the silence was deafening. She needed time to process his words, but the waiting for her reaction was agonizing. He chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“I kissed Niels.”

Kase stiffened, his anger resurfacing. He tried to tamp it down—judging by her wince, he was unsuccessful. “What?”

A few tears managed to escape her hold at last. She brushed them away with a jerky movement. “I healed him from a bullet wound, and he kissed me.”

“So you kissed him or he kissed you?” Blood roared in his ears. He could barely hear himself think. The man might already be comatose, but Kase would pummel him to dust anyway.

Which wouldn’t help him with Hallie. But shocks, he wanted to.

“He kissed me,” she said, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t kiss him back. After Jack died, I just up and left and never got closure with him, so…I didn’t think I’d done anything to make him think he had a chance again, but obviously I was wrong.”

Kase opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He shut it again. All he could hear in his head was the pounding of his heart.

She pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes. “I just wanted to be honest with you.”

He wasn’t sure if those words were a dig at him or not. He had been honest. He should’ve told her about the card game before someone else had, but he hadn’t lied. And who had told her about Lavinia? Surely not Zelda. How could she have known?

It was the comment about the conquest that bothered him. Yes, Lavinia had been a means to an end, and he regretted all of it. But Kase wasn’t the type to use women as a counting stick of any sort. Not in that regard. Lavinia had been using him just as much.

Had Waylan said something? Eravin? Maybe Neville. They were the only ones who knew.

Before he could respond further, the tent flap opened again.

Kase turned to ask Petra to let them have a few more minutes, but instead of Hallie’s friend, it was Sergeant’s face that appeared.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Lord Jove and Lady Celeste are being brought to the ward. They’d both fallen in the same collapse. ”

Hallie’s head whipped toward Kase. “Where have they been? I thought they were in another part of the Catacombs.”

Kase shook his head, the rush of emotions in the last few minutes messing with his comprehension of Sergeant’s words. “What do you mean?”

Jove—his mother. Had he heard the man correctly?

“They found them. They’re alive.”