Page 48 of Blood Code

But that’s obviously not why I reacted.

The valves of my heart felt clogged, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe again. I pushed past him, turned my back, and clutched the counter for support.

He had not just said what I thought he did, right?

No world existed where what he'd just said was true.

The love of my life.

The love of my life.

The love of my LIFE.

No, it just wasn’t possible. He'd betrayed me in every way imaginable. Every fucking way. He didn’t get to do that and then say I was still the love of his life.

How the fuck was I supposed to reconcile that with what I’d been through?

It just didn’t and couldn’t make sense.

My tongue felt heavy. “What?”

He hovered behind me. “I know this is a surprise and something you didn’t want to hear.” His voice was steady and stripped of all emotion.

It was a surprise, but not in the way he thought. I needed him to keep talking, yet my body and mind were at war, my body falling apart while my mind screamed at it to pull itself together.

Because fuck, I needed to hear what he had to say about Xeniya.

This might be the most important conversation we would ever have, and I was messing it up because trauma had my body in a chokehold.

Because, yes, trauma lived in the body.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Get yourself together, Xeniya. Get yourself together.

I drew in a sharp inhale. You can do this, Xen. You can do this. Then I turned back to him and asked, as steadily as I could, “Xeniya? Who was she?”

“She was Nika and Ilya’s sister. We trained together as kids and grew up together.”

“Then you fell in love?”

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t you married to her?”

He cleared his throat. “The short answer? Because she’s dead. The long answer is that my father didn’t want me to marry a Russian. Especially not one with so much potential power. He always wanted me to marry an Irish girl.”

“Oh…” I drew the word out, coaxing him to say more. “And now you have chosen to marry an Irish girl.”

He nearly growled. “My father would be so happy.”

“Your father doesn’t have a head.”

He snorted. “What a relief.”

My chest tightened. “You didn’t get along with your father?”

“I hated my father, and I’m not the least sad he’s dead.”

Severin pulled out a stool and sat down while I remained standing, angling my body toward him.