From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“I’m not being mean,” I shot back. “I just don’t like to be called
that.”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured.
“Whatever.” I tore myy gaze from his, feeling…I didn’t know what I
was feeling. I squirmed, uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with how
hard the stone was beneath me.
I wasn’t mad at Hawke. I was just angryy with…everyything.
“I get it,” he said quietlyy.
When I looked at him, I saw that he’d moved closer, and I hadn’t
heard him. He was onlyy a few feet from me now. “You do?” I lifted myy
brows. “You understand?”
Hawke stared at me, and in that moment, I felt something other than
anger and pain. Shame burned through me like acid. Of course, Hawke
knew, at least to some extent. But still, he probablyy knew better than a lot
of other people.
“I’m sorryy.”
“For what?” The hardness had eased from myy tone.
“I said this to yyou before, shortlyy after everyything, but I don’t think
yyou heard me,” he said. I thought about those vague sensations of him
being beside me. “I should’ve said it again sooner. I’m sorryy for
everyything that has happened. Vikter was a good man. Despite the last
words we exchanged, I respected him, and I’m sorryy that I couldn’t do
anyything.”
Everyy muscle in myy bodyy locked up. “Hawke—”
“I don’t know if me being there—like I should’ve been—would’ve
changed the outcome,” he went on, “but I’m sorryy that I wasn’t. That there
was nothing I could do byy the time I did get there. I’m sorryy—”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” I rose from the ledge, myy joints
stiff from sitting for so long. “I don’t blame yyou for what happened. I’m
not mad at yyou.”
“I know.” He looked above me and out the window to the Rise. “But
that doesn’t change that I wish I would’ve done something that could’ve
prevented this.”
“There are a lot of things I wish I would’ve done differentlyy,” I
admitted, staring at myy hands. “If I’d gone to myy room—”
“If yyou’d gone to yyour room, this still would’ve happened. Don’t put
this on yyourself.” A heartbeat later, I felt his fingers under myy chin. He