[i]I’ve got a friend here too that makes me feel the same way.[/i]

Thank Nyx herself that the passage is too dark to allow the look of Tragic Heroism that works its way across Skotia’s face to be noticed. How his eyes fluttering shut might be mistaken for exhaustion or a flinch at his injury being jostled. No, it makes sense. Whatever he might have been thinking, whatever is passing between the two of them here, it’s for her sake. It’s an apology. It’s not for [i]him.[/i]

He must make things right before the end of the night; he has to carve this love into the very stones of Salib, in honor of Hera and Aphrodite. Only once he’s fixed what Redana broke by running, only once Bella gets [i]her[/i] happily ever after, does he get to rest. And he won’t do it next to Bella. That’s not part of his story. You don’t get a gift-wrapped servitor as a reward for making things right.

“My Praetor,” he says, bleeding from a far more grievous wound with a brave face and only the thinnest strain in his voice, “I have always and ever been a slave to true love. I swear by my name that you [i]will[/i] be reunited with the Ikarani. It is the least I can do as a pet— but you [i]will[/i] need your hound.”

There’s a firmness there. The kind that Bella would use to tell the Ikarani she would be needed in turn. “There is someone here who will kill you if she gets her hands on you. She is not permitted to kill me. You might not like your pet saving you, but I am not going to let you die tonight. It’s the least I can do, my Praetor…”

Carried as he is, he can trace the scars of the whip on her back, long-faded but still there. The punishment for the failures of a princess. Each and every one deserved to be taken in turn. “You have been punished for someone else’s sake before,” he dares. “Let me protect you this time. I can take it.”

His side hurts. It hurts like nothing else has ever dared to hurt him. But he only has to stand up under it tonight. If he fails here, he will carry that failure for the rest of his life. That is why he throws himself here before her, tells her to use him as a shield. It’s the only way he can make things right.