hapter One Hundred And Fifty Seven
The silence that stretched between us was dense and suffocating, a heavy blanket of unsaid words and bitter history that threatened to choke the very air from my lungs. Khalid stood over me like a dark, immovable monument of grief, his chest still heaving, his dark eyes demanding a truth that he was nowhere near prepared to handle. He wanted to know why. He wanted to know how I could have kept a secret as monumental as his own blood away from him for five long years.
I looked at his rugged, scarred face, and a sudden, violent wave of hot, unadulterated fury replaced the paralyzing fear that had gripped me in the arena. The audacity of this man. The sheer, blinding arrogance of a king demanding an explanation from the peasant he had left behind to drown
