Page 58 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

~ DIADRE ~

I could feel the ache in him. The bone-deep pain and disappointment. And it tore me up inside, because I knew that feeling.

Oh, how I knew that feeling.

But I railed against it, because when I had felt that way, it was at the hands of men who’d either discarded me like a used handkerchief, or betrayed me.

When a surge of pain washed from him through the bond, I felt angry because I wasn’t that kind of monster!

And yet… I hated that I had hurt him. Hated myself for it.

But I also despised that he had a slave. He still had a slave. No matter how he might have helped her or protected her… he owned a woman.

God, I was so conflicted!

The instinct was there to go after him. To insist that he see that I was right to be hurt and scared—to question! Couldn’t he see that the entire reason I didn’t trust was because he held all the strength while I was at his mercy? And that was true for this slave woman, also?

Couldn’t he see that all the power was his?

Something deep inside me resisted that thought, and I didn’t understand it.

Despite my weariness, my body felt tight and itchy. I needed to move. I needed to get my head clear! But I couldn’t. So I paced, walking circles that matched the loops in my head.

He owned a slave—a despicable practice!

But it was a tradition he hadn’t established or agreed with. A practice he wanted to work against. The slave he’d taken, he’d done so to save her…

He should never have taken her at all!

But that would have meant ignoring the pain she suffered at someone else’s hands…

He could have freed her!

But in his world, she would only have been taken again…

He had to play by the rules of the society in which he lived, and he’d made the choice he thought was best.

But it was wrong!

But the alternative would have been worse… wouldn’t it?

It was impossible to know, because we couldn’t know, because this was the path he’d chosen.

He’d say, he’d been forced to it. He’d seen no other choice.

Just like me.

I rolled my head on my neck trying to loosen the tension there, because suddenly my mind conjured all the ways my society placed expectations and restrictions, and the ways I’d had to learn to work within those strictures, despite the conflict with my own beliefs.

I wanted to argue that it wasn’t the same. That I had broken the rules because I knew it was important to change!

Of course, I had also been the recipient of the kindness and strength of men like him, helping me. Using their power to help me make changes…

But he’d made it seem like he embraced the role his society expected! That wasn’t change!

And yet… he’d used his power to make life better for someone else. If he was telling the truth.

The thought came, then fled in the wake of my own rush of indignation and offense.

My mate was not a liar.

Oh God…

My mate was not a liar.

But he’d withheld information and…

And there were many things about my life that he didn’t know yet, either.

Around and around and around my mind went. The arguments endless and swaying back and forth like a pendulum, carrying my heart with them.

All the things he’d never told me fighting all the ways he’d protected me, wrestling with all my fears, which battled all the ways he’d attempted to help.

All the ways our worlds were different.

All the ways he quietly accepted my differences without telling me they were wrong—and all the ways he had lived in defiance of the wrongs perpetuated in his society. Unlike many of the men I’d grown up with.

Was my own society really so different, when women—with few exceptions—were expected to move from their father’s household, to their husband’s, to remain demure and offer their bodies, to breed and…

I swallowed hard. The Nephilim were brutal in ways my people were not. But my people were not flawless, and the men I had allowed to get close had brutalized my heart, if not my body.

First and foremost among those, Walt who had fed me compliments like sweets, then laced them with poison.

What if Jann had found me first? Or if he’d found me when Walt still had me deceived… how might my life have changed? How might I be different if I’d had his protection from those young years?

How might Jann have saved me from that ultimate humiliation?

I blinked.

I wanted to push that thought away. Why?

Because if I was so sure he’d have saved me then, then he was working to save me now, too.

But.

But?

My heart thrummed, and the bond pulsed, swelling in my chest, pressing on my heart.

Jann was a good man. He was my good man. Meant for me. Sent for me. Wanted me. Gave himself up… Shit.

Shit.

My mind took me back to that moment when I’d shrieked at him.

“…every time I sink deeper with you, something else happens, some new nugget of information or new attitude, and I’m suddenly thrown loose again, rattling in the wind wondering when is he finally going to show his true colors?!”

“True colors?” he snarled. “You think I haven’t shown you who I truly am?!”

Oh, God… He had.

Over and over again.

Listening. Waiting. Protecting.

He killed the man who hurt me.

He also held back, omitted details about himself and his life that he knew would upset me.

But…

My breath grew quick and heavy, my heart sluggish and my chest tight because the fog was lifting and I was starting to see myself.

See the way I had distrusted and twisted every small gesture in the beginning. Accused and condemned. Hated him for the ways his people lived.

But not what he did.

He’d already proven that he lived differently, and urged others to do the same.

Was he violent? Yes. But so was I. Had he warned me? Yes. Had I listened? No.

I shook my hands. My ribs felt too tight. I wanted to shy from what was becoming clear, but I couldn’t. It was something Jhonas had told me once, and Yilan had hinted at. Something I didn’t want to admit, but…

Shit. Shit!

I covered my face with my hands and tried to inhale, but the thought had the ring of truth.

Once I’d gotten past his Nephilimness my fears were never based in the man Jann showed himself to be. I knew he wouldn’t destroy me.

There was darkness in his past, just like mine. Pains and hurts. Yet he’d turned his fear aside and come for me. He’d plowed into the Shadows of Shade for me. He carried me to walk the shadows even though they made him pale.

And he kept telling me he would not harm me, even when I harmed him.

A sick kind of dread and self-loathing washed through me as I set aside the ways I’d been hurt before and looked at his actions alone.

He’d teased me, but never hurt me.

He’d never attacked, only protected.

He’d never been cruel, only strong enough to tell me what I didn’t want to hear.

And probably most important of all, he had had ample opportunity—before and after the bond completed—to take advantage of me. And he hadn’t.

His pupils dilated and his hand slid into my hair, fingers tightening to a fist and pulling against my scalp so that goosebumps washed down my spine. I gasped and he froze again. A trembling wave rippled through him as if he fought himself, deep within.

“Touch me,” he growled. “Put your hands on me. Show me, Diadre. Show me what you want.”

My breath caught as I pulled out of the memory and tried to focus, but those questions only reminded me of the other women in Theynor and how they’d responded to him once they got past their initial fear of his size… and it wasn’t the reactions of women who were afraid.

So why had I been so convinced that he had deep darkness to reveal?

Because every other man who’s ever wanted me always turned out to have a nasty secret.

I stopped pacing, hand on my heart where the bond throbbed as my pride crumbled.

Oh, God. I’d been punishing Jann for all the ways the men before him had hurt me.

It was the flipside of the coin from the men in my life who’d punished me for not fulfilling their expectations.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no….

“Jann,” I gasped, turning straight for the spot where he’d pushed through the brush, but I’d barely taken a step when he appeared, his face scratched from the bushes and lined with tension, but his eyes searching the space—and me—for danger.

But the only danger here right now was me.

We both froze, staring at each other and the wariness I saw in his face broke my heart.

“I hate that you have a slave,” I whispered. “That’s going to take some processing. But you… You’re a good man.”

He blinked. I swallowed hard.

“No… I need to say that better… Jann, you’re better than good.

And I’ve been refusing to accept it. Refusing to trust. I’m so sorry!

” Suddenly unable to be apart from him, I threw myself into his arms, into that massive chest, and he caught me with a shocked grunt.

“You were right—you were right! You’re good.

You’re mine. I can feel you and I’ve been…

I’ve been waiting for you to prove that you’re like every other man, and you aren’t! I’m so sorry!”

Still clinging to his neck, I pulled back to meet his eyes—mine blurry and full of tears—to find him staring at me, a little shocked, and still hesitant.

But there was hope there in his beautiful eyes.

And that made my tears overflow. I wiped them quickly away, but knew, I had to let him see. Had to show him.

“Please, be patient with me,” I whispered, then put my hands to his face and sighed… and showed him.

I felt him tense the moment I let him see my memories of being in the arms of other men—and I hated the way the bond flinched at that—but he didn’t push me away, and didn’t push me out of his mind.

He held on, growling as one by one, he saw the ways each of those men doubted me, belittled me, held me down… made me less.

I sucked in a breath when his growl became a grunt and he breathed. “Oh, my beautiful girl… I can do so much better than that.” Then he stumbled to that rock and settled down, pulling me into his lap and holding my face, tipping his head against mine, and showing me what he saw…