He heard the anger and the pain in her tone, and for a moment he was bewildered at its source. "Everyone was invited. Anyone who wanted to come, at least. I spread the word around the Settlement and the Sea of Branches. I asked Andira to leave a note on your doorstep..." He trailed off at the flash of fangs, an animalistic display of anger she fell into so easily, though she had been Attuned for less than a year. Her words cut at him, sharp and and merciless, and he shuddered as she lashed out and everything he had feared about seeing her again came to pass.
The pulsing knots of darkness in his veins twisted and writhed in simmering frustration, an answering rage building in spite of his intentions to hold it back and control it. "I came here because I didn't think that we were done," he said softly. "Or why do you think I'm here now? I have trusted you, Amalia. I've given you more trust than any other person on two worlds, save Rory. I handed you the weapons to hurt me more deeply than almost any other and yes, I am scared of how deeply you can wound me with them." Less than a year they'd known each other, but in that time they'd saved each other, held each other...
Hurt each other.
He was shaking, he realized, the tremors traveling from his hands to his shoulders and down his spine. Anger and sorrow, betrayal and rage, confusion and denial twisted through him like serpents in his gut, his blood bubbling like boiling tar. "You and Rory and Isuma are all the family I have left," he rasped, taut and aching with the strain of a body that wanted to fight as much as it wanted to flee. "I love you, Amalia Chandrakant, and nothing will change that, but I can still be angry at you. Still be afraid of being hurt by the people I love. And if you really think that I ever thought you hated me... that I could think that about you at all... then I..." He trailed off, jaw clenched too tightly to get more words out as rage and sorrow choked him, his caramel skin gone white as he let loose so much of what he had promised himself that he wouldn't when he had walked in the door.
The pulsing knots of darkness in his veins twisted and writhed in simmering frustration, an answering rage building in spite of his intentions to hold it back and control it. "I came here because I didn't think that we were done," he said softly. "Or why do you think I'm here now? I have trusted you, Amalia. I've given you more trust than any other person on two worlds, save Rory. I handed you the weapons to hurt me more deeply than almost any other and yes, I am scared of how deeply you can wound me with them." Less than a year they'd known each other, but in that time they'd saved each other, held each other...
Hurt each other.
He was shaking, he realized, the tremors traveling from his hands to his shoulders and down his spine. Anger and sorrow, betrayal and rage, confusion and denial twisted through him like serpents in his gut, his blood bubbling like boiling tar. "You and Rory and Isuma are all the family I have left," he rasped, taut and aching with the strain of a body that wanted to fight as much as it wanted to flee. "I love you, Amalia Chandrakant, and nothing will change that, but I can still be angry at you. Still be afraid of being hurt by the people I love. And if you really think that I ever thought you hated me... that I could think that about you at all... then I..." He trailed off, jaw clenched too tightly to get more words out as rage and sorrow choked him, his caramel skin gone white as he let loose so much of what he had promised himself that he wouldn't when he had walked in the door.
