Eros

Killing Time - 71

"Kaido wait!" Alora called behind him, and he turned to her.

"Damnit, Alora, get back with the others."

"I won't." She snapped back, insistent. "I meant what I said."

"I don't give a shit what you said. I don't need you with me. Get back to the camp and finish what you started." In the blood trance, he could repress his anger, but he lashed out with it instead. He won't let her take the fall with him.

She fell silent.

Damnit, he expected an argument. Heated words were much easier to take than the sadness in her eyes.

"Well, that's too bad." Her gaze lowered from his, voice low and husky. "Because I need you."

It was he who fell silent then.

"You better grow out of it." The words came out, making his heart stone. "Before you end up like the rest who needed me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I am talking about Siera!" He stepped into her, voice raised in fury. "About William, about my squad, about my father!"

His fists clenched, knuckles whitening. He met her eyes, and his will to shout faded into a whisper. "About you."

"You never failed me!" Alora yelled back in his face. "William's death wasn't your fault, and knowing you, I bet my life that neither were the others."

A dark grin twisted his mouth. "Don't waste your breath on that lie. I told it to myself so many times it lost meaning."

"Kaido," Alora said his name with a softness that rattled him. She cupped the sides of his jaw in her hands, her fingers caressing his skin through the stubble."Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Her voice broke with sorrow. "My family was slaughtered while I was away. My brother was burnt right before my eyes. Is it my fault?"

She tightened her grip, tugged his chin down, and glared into his eyes. "It's not."

Tears of rage glistened at the corners of her eyes, reflecting verdant flares. "It's the fault of the poor souls who raised blades on them, the mad king who ordered it so, and the old magus who orchestrated the slaughter. The same who burnt my brother, and scarred my face."

"It is his fucking fault." She said, loud and clear. "And he must pay for it."

"Why leave the camp then?" Kaido took her hands at the wrists, and with reluctance, pulled them from his face. He missed her touch at the very moment it broke away from him, yearned to have it again. But now was not the time to be selfish. "Go north with the Vineclaws. How do you plan to get revenge if you're stuck with me?"

"Simple." She said. "We will be heading north ourselves."

A snort of laughter escaped him. "As amusing as it will be to show up where they're heading after they kicked me out, I will have to decline."

She frowned at him. "Why?"

"Because they are right." Kaido said. "I wouldn't trust to fight beside a man who killed of his own side either."

"You saved all of them, for fuck sake!" Alora yelled in frustration then clenched her jaw shut. Her hand half-rose to her burnt cheek, and her eyes squinted with pain. For some reason, it pained him too.

"Enough screaming, you're hurting yourself." He brought his hand to her healthy cheek, thumb tugging her gaze up to his. Her eyes shied from his, and she whispered.

"Will you come with me?"

"You realize that you're asking me to go as deep as possible into these cursed woods, to fight a war that isn't mine, alongside men who'd rather have me dead?" The absurdity of her request struck him as he said it out loud.