Snake Charming by Genevieve McCluer

Author:Genevieve McCluer [McCluer, Genevieve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B0D1J49155
Goodreads: 211191125
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2024-05-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Elfriede

How am I supposed to even face her after confessing that? She knows that I did nothing while the woman I loved threw her life away. She knows that I’m a coward. She can say all she wants that it’s not my fault, but we both know it’s not true.

I try to pull away, but she’s holding me quite firmly. Tails are fun.

Her tail slowly unwinds from me until I can pull back. I feel her eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to look. There’s no way there could be any affection left after she heard that.

“You’ve never told anybody that before, have you?”

I shake my head.

“It isn’t your fault,” she says for the dozenth time, as if it makes it any truer.

“If I’d fought, they could’ve lived.” My gaze is locked firmly on her chest. It’s a very nice image to be stuck on, though it’s wet from my tears.

Her tail presses under my chin, guiding my head up. I don’t resist, but I still can’t meet her gaze. “Freddie.” She cups my cheek and leans in until there’s no place else I can look. She pulls away enough that I have a clear view into those yellow-flecked green eyes. They don’t look disgusted. Or even disappointed. They look almost loving. “You’re a hero. You saved so many people. Even if you only bought them a year, it was a year of freedom.”

Is that what I did? I suppose it kept them from camps and ghettos, and it did let us enjoy Paris. And a few got away. But it’s not enough. “I know how important freedom is, but being alive means more, and I could’ve given them that too.”

“You did. Were they civilian casualties, or did they join the resistance?”

I don’t like where this is going. “They joined the resistance.”

“Then they chose to die like that, didn’t they?”

I have to blink away tears again. “Hertha tried to convince me to join her.”

“But she still joined without you. That isn’t your fault.”

I shrug. It certainly feels like it was my fault. “I swore, after my husband, that I’d never let anyone control me like that again. And that I’d never kill like that again. The horror in the faces of my sons and daughter still haunts me, and I couldn’t do that again.”

“And you’d have given up both of those by fighting. You did enough.”

“Yeah, good job not fighting the Nazis. I’m sure so many have shared that sentiment.”

She huffs. “Good job saving people from the Holocaust.”

I open my mouth to reply but come up short. It’s hard to think of a way to say how that was awful of me.

“I never thought I’d say this, but you have a rather low opinion of yourself.”

“The hell I do. I’m fantastic.”

She grins. Goddamn it, she just won. All she had to do was play to my ego. Her lips catch mine in a quick kiss, and she pulls away, grinning. “Then you admit it.”

“Fine. I guess I did something good.

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