“How can you say that?” I wanted to scream at him but with a lot of effort forced an even tone. “You’re the same person.”
“I’m not.” Ansel squeezed the orange, his fingernails digging into its peel. “Believe me. I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “And Bryn loves you.”
“I’m not her equal, not anymore. You can’t have a match without a true partnership. You of all people should understand that.”
“Of course I do.” I frowned. “But you’re wrong about this. I already told you, Searchers and Guardians have been together in the past. They’ve had families.”
“I know.” Ansel’s smile was spiteful. “I’ve heard. From you. From Tess. Searchers and Guardians. Monroe and Corrine. Him and her, her and him.”
“So what’s the problem?” I’d crushed the rest of the orange segments in my fist. Juice leaked out between my knuckles. “It works. That was real love, real partnerships. People died for them.”
“It’s not the same,” he said, lowering his gaze.
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t born a Searcher. I don’t have their power.” He looked at me again, gray eyes furious like a storm. “All I am is less than what I was. And I can’t ever be more. Eventually Bryn will realize that. And she’ll leave. It will be for the best.”
“What if she doesn’t?” I stared at the pulped mess of orange lying in my palm and felt like I could be staring at Ansel’s ravaged heart. “What if she wants to be with you and have a family?”
“Where I’d play dad to a pack of wolf pups?”
“That’s how it works,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “Tess explained that whole essence-of-the-mother thing. But the biology or magic or whatever it is doesn’t matter. It’s not whether Bryn and I are able to be together or make a family. It’s about whether we should be.”
“Just give it time, Ansel.” I didn’t know what else to say. I hated the desperation in his voice, the finality.
“I promise I’ll never hurt Bryn,” he said. “I won’t tell her how I really feel. I’ll be with her when she needs me, and when she wants to, I’ll let her go.”
We stood there, staring at each other. There was nothing else to say.
Ansel smiled, all emptiness, handing me another orange. “You still need to eat your breakfast. You murdered the first orange.”
“Thanks.” I managed to push the word past the thickness of my throat.
“There you are!” Bryn’s voice turned me around. She was skipping up the path, beaming. “Sorry-I took an extra-long shower. All-natural heaven! The Searchers really should find a way to market that stuff. I’m going to talk to Tess about it. Smell my skin-I’m roses and thyme!”
He turned to her and I saw it happen. The mask went up, transforming my broken brother into the Ansel we’d always known.
I couldn’t be there, not in that moment. I didn’t want my face to give anything away to Bryn. Making an excuse about having to meet with Anika, I hurried away from them, trying to distract myself by scarfing down my orange. But I’d only made it halfway across the garden when I ran into another reminder of how unsettled everything in my life had become.
Connor lounged on a stone bench next to the path. His shirt was unbuttoned. His chest, carved hard muscle, was crisscrossed by scars. Scars that I recognized.
I thought about turning around but realized I needed to clear the air or at least my own conscience with him.
“So how many Guardians do you think you’ve killed?”
“I’ve been trying to cut back,” he answered without opening his eyes. “But they’ve all been kind enough to leave me souvenirs, as you can see.” He brushed his hand across the scarred flesh.
I crouched on the bench next to him, letting sunlight warm my neck and shoulders. My pulse had set off at a gallop, but I forced myself to follow through on what I wanted to say.
“About what you saw this morning…” The gentle warmth I’d felt became a prickling heat as blood rushed into my neck and cheeks.
“Hey, no judgment,” Connor said. He folded his arms behind his head, tilting his face up so he could peer at me. “Though if we lose the Scion because you can’t keep your pants on, there’ll be hell to pay. Literally.”
When I snarled, he laughed.
“I wasn’t ever going to ask you about your steamy rendezvous, sweet cheeks,” he said. “You’re the one who brought it up.”
I wrapped my arms around my shins, resting my chin on my knees. “I just wanted you to understand.”
He sat up, one corner of his mouth crinkling. “Understand what, exactly?”
“That Shay, Ren, and I are in a complicated situation.”
“Complicated, eh?” His smile widened. “I thought it was all pretty clear. Two guys get you hot. You’re going to have to choose one.”
“That’s not all-”
Connor cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Sure, there’s always the nitty-gritty details, but it boils down to the basics. One of you, two of them. Love’s a bitch.”
“Nice.” I wished I could call him a liar, but his reduction of my life story was a little too logical.
“Look, sweetheart, I can’t cast any stones. Just callin’ it like I see it.” He pushed his chestnut hair out of his face. It was still damp from the shower. He’d already begun to tan after a few days under the Mediterranean sun. The bronze of his skin made the white zags of scar tissue appear to leap off his chest.
“You mean all your awesome pickup lines are just talk?” I grinned. “Who’d have guessed?”
He threw a sidelong glance at me but didn’t answer.
“You know what I think?”
One of his eyebrows went up.
I leaned toward him. “I think all that off-color chatter of yours is just a way to distract you from the fact that there’s only one person you’re interested in.”
“You really think I’m a one-woman kinda guy?” Connor smiled, but his eyes were hard.
I held his gaze. “I think you’re in love with Adne.”
He was the first to look away, staring at a nearby bubbling fountain.
“I made a mistake with Adne,” he said quietly, withdrawing into his own thoughts. “About a year ago.”
“A mistake?” I frowned. “Oh… you mean you slept with her.”
His answering laugh was cold. “No.”
“You didn’t sleep with her?” I couldn’t understand the mocking tilt of his smile.
“I definitely did not,” he said. “And I think that was the mistake.”
“You lost me.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bench, resting his arms on his thighs. “Adne was just a kid when I met her. I was sixteen. Cocky as hell.”
“Yeah, you’ve totally transformed since then.”
He smiled, but not at me. “She was having a rough time.”
“She told me,” I said, remembering Adne’s description of how Connor had been the friend she needed after her mother had died.
Connor was watching me, alarm rising in his eyes. “What did she tell you?”
I frowned as I saw the color drain from his cheeks. “Just that you joked around with her after she lost her mom.”
“Oh… right.” Connor returned to his casual pose.
“But you’d better be about to tell me what you thought she said.”
He shook his head, but spoke quietly. “She’s sixteen.”
“I know that.”
He glanced at me. “Last year she was fifteen… and I was twenty. We always get together around the winter solstice. Ethan, Kyle, Stuart, and I came in from the Denver outpost. Adne had a break from her classes.”
I nodded. So far none of this seemed extraordinary.
