Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

fighting to save other women, other children, from death. Searching for something I could never find or deserve.”
    “Redemption,” she whispered. “But, Brennan, she never told you about the baby? You said you offered to marry her.”
    “She laughed at me when we were discovered and I offered marriage. Said a mere warrior could never be good enough for her. I was a dalliance, at best, and a means to scratch an itch, at worst,” he said slowly, experiencing again his furious humiliation, as if it had happened only hours before.
    Worse, far worse, humiliation became gut-wrenching pain as he continued. “She never told me about the child. Never a hint. Refused all communication. She had a marriage planned . . . I heard later that her intended husband had learned of her affairs and of the pregnancy from tale-bearing servants. He denounced her publicly, and her so-called friends from her social class Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
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    abandoned her.”
    He clenched the wooden arms of the chair so tightly the wood splintered and broke in his hands. Slowly, he released the fractured pieces of wood and watched them fall to the floor, not caring that he’d ripped open the palm of his left hand. Blood dripped, drop by fat, glistening drop, onto the carpet.
    “So much blood,” he whispered. “She cut her wrists, they said. The human body contains so very much blood, did you know that?” He looked up at Tiernan, desperate that she should understand. “For centuries after, I saw that image in my nightmares. Her life and her blood, drained out on the marble tile. My child’s life drained away with it. All my fault.”

Chapter 6
    “No,” she said. “No, it wasn’t your fault.”
    Tiernan knew from her Gift that every word he’d spoken was the truth, or what he believed to be the truth. She also knew that his perception of events was badly skewed; that there was no way any but the smallest portion of blame was his.
    “You were wild, like so many young men. Like I would have been, if I hadn’t . . . if things had been different. But that woman—Corelia—she was the one who used you, Brennan. She was the one who harmed herself and her own child, because she believed she was too good to marry a mere warrior.”
    He looked up at her, and she imagined she saw a glimmer of hope through the pain in his eyes.
    It was too much to take in, though, too much to understand or even try to understand. She didn’t know him, couldn’t know what he was thinking, but some part of her wanted to help him release so much undeserved guilt and pain. But now wasn’t the right time, and she probably wasn’t even the right person.
    Anyway, he was bleeding on her carpet. That much she could fix. Sympathy and a stronger emotion, one she didn’t want to analyze, overcame the lingering wariness she’d felt. She took a deep breath and released the door handle.
    “You need to bandage that hand,” she said, heading for her backpack. “I have a mini first-aid kit in my bag. Let’s get you cleaned up and then we can figure out what to do. Oh, and you’re totally paying for that chair, my friend. A reporter’s budget only goes so far.”
    He looked down at his hands and blinked, almost as if he hadn’t realized before that moment that he’d hurt himself. “Did you not hear me? What I’ve done? What I’ve caused? Order me from your presence and be done with it, if you have any mercy at all,” he rasped out, his face starkly white. “I don’t know if I can promise to let you go if I remain with you any longer.”
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    Heat swept through her at the reminder of the other things he’d said to her, but she tried to ignore it. Priorities. Fix his hands, then worry about the rest of it. She found the kit and withdrew Neosporin and a large adhesive bandage, then glanced at him as she walked to the bathroom to wet a washcloth. “I heard you. I also heard what you didn’t say, though. That you tried to do the right thing by her and she wouldn’t let you. That she was a selfish woman who committed the worst possible act against herself and her own baby.”
    A thought occurred to her. “How old were you when this happened, anyway?”
    He bowed his head. “I had nineteen years.”
    She paused, one hand on the faucet. “Nineteen? Are you kidding me? You were a child yourself.”
    “Age cannot excuse fault.”
    “No, but if everybody who did