Chapter 135: Taran

"Why do I need it?" I ask, my voice softer than I'd intended, fear leaching some of the stridency from my tone.
He looks over at me, his eyes hard. "The first time I met you, you had a gun. You remember, Taran? How we met out here in the desert? You knew the value of having a weapon then. Now is no different. If I become incapacitated, you'll need it to defend yourself."
I lick my lips and nod. He's right. I've come to depend on Diogo to keep me safe from harm, when the reality is, if he's not around, it'll be up to me to fight my way out of a situation. I'd been all alone when Stryker took me, and though I hadn't been forced to actually defend myself, the entire scenario could've gone in a completely different direction.
We remain silence as Diogo races across the desert. It takes a few minutes, but eventually I realize where he's headed. My suspicion is confirmed when a rocky outcrop rising from the desert becomes visible. I hold my breath as he drives around the outcropping and stops the jeep in the exact location where I was attacked by Primitives one year ago. The place where Xavier had dragged me to after forcing me from the city. Where I first met Talon, the Outsider who would kidnap me and try to sell me to my sister's Sanctuary.
"Diogo..." I whisper, pain in my voice. I want to demand an explanation. I want to beg him to turn the car around and take me back to the safety of the city where I can set eyes on Blaze and reassure myself that he's unharmed.
I jump as Diogo's door slams, the sound reverberating through the vehicle. He strides around the jeep and jerks my door open. I sit staring past him at the clearing in fearful anxiety as if expecting the dead bodies of the men who died here to still be on the ground. Of course, they aren't. They would have either been buried or dragged away by predators.
Diogo loses patience waiting for me. He takes my arm and pulls me from the safe confines of the vehicle. I stumble against him and he rights me, holding me in front of him so I'm facing the clearing, one hand on my arm and the other on my shoulder, holding me immobile. I'm still clutching the rifle. For several long moments we stand like that looking at the scene of a horrific massacre. Only there's nothing left to look at. Just dust, scrub trees and rocks.
I'm not sure what Diogo's point is, why he brought me here, but as the past comes flooding back, I cringe against him. I don't care how angry I've been at Diogo, he's still my husband and he still represents safety to me. He remains large, solid and stoic at my back, silently reassuring me that he won't let anything happen while we're out here in the open, vulnerable to attack.
"Why have you brought me here?" I whisper.
At first, I'm not even sure he hears me as the quietly spoken words are taken by the constant desert breeze that plays havoc with dust, throwing it about and coating everything in sight. Diogo takes his time answering, before finally dropping his chin to my shoulder so I'll hear him when he speaks. He reaches past me and points to where the lineup of Outsider vehicles had been on that terrible day.
"Do you know what I saw when I arrived here?" he asks.
I shake my head, lost in my own visions of the past. Of those terrifying seconds when I'd taken refuge in one of the cars only to be driven into the open by a Primitive as she smashed through the window and came after me.
"A bloodbath," he says bluntly.
The Primitives had kept coming at us, uncaring of whom their victims were. Driven to spread the Death Kiss, they'd torn through our little group, murdering anyone that came into their path.
"Do you know what I didn't see?" he asks, his breath against my ear sending a shiver of awareness through me.
"No," I whisper.
"I didn't see you. Dead or alive, I didn't see you here. I turned that corner and flung myself out of my car and into a bloodbath with the single goal of finding my wife. I cut down everything in my path in the hopes that if I killed enough, I might be able to save you. I searched every single body on the ground, every severed limb, looking for you." I can hear the ache in his tone as he describes what he saw that day and an answering ache rises in my throat. "The thought of losing you destroyed me. I've never lost control the way I did that day. And when I finally found you, you were laying on the ground, a Primitive with her teeth in your throat. I thought I was about to die because no part of me wants to live in a world where you aren't alive."
I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears threatening to spill while a sob leaps to my throat. I take a deep breath and subtly move against Diogo, pressing my back against his front.
"If you'd died that day, I would've died with you. I would've laid down at your side, held you against me and I would've shot myself in the head."
I shudder, the tears now spilling free. Still I keep my eyes shut, trying desperately to hold the horrific images at bay. It's no use. I can't seem to keep them out. Every word paints a vivid picture of that day, the day we almost died together.
He continues speaking, coming to the reason for our sojourn into the desert. "You are my life, Taran. My Sanctuary and my happiness. I love you more than my sanity can take. If anyone threatens my Sanctuary, they will die by my hand. I refuse to apologize for that. Xavier put you at risk over and over. For that alone, I would've relished his death. But you were bitten as a direct result of him taking you into the desert against your will. For that, I would happily resurrect a dead man so that I can bury a knife in his heart over and over again."
I flinch and his arms tighten around me for a few seconds before he turns me and tilts my chin up. Finally, I open my eyes. Hot tears splash down my cheeks as I struggle to blink them away and breathe. I want to stay mad at him, I want him to suffer the way he's made me suffer, the way he made Xavier and countless others suffer. But I can't. He's just a man, and men make mistakes.
"I can accept your reasoning, but not your actions. You didn't have to kill him that way, nor did you have to lie about it," I insist. "You could've given him to Sanctuary and allowed the people to decide. You shouldn't be judge, jury and executioner. That's why I'm so angry, Diogo. You take lives without thought. You've become so used to the brutality surrounding your role as Warlord that you no longer value human life."
He stares at me long and hard, his own anger and frustration close to the surface. "You will forgive me," he demands. "I won't give you a choice."
The Warlord lays down his decree before taking me by the hand and escorting me back into the car. I shiver in apprehension as he strides around to the other side, his eyes never leaving mine. How does he intend to force my forgiveness? And will our marriage survive his heavy-handed ultimatum?