So what has happened between them to make Athos wish to leave them? To even consider leaving the duty that had claimed him and given him protection for five years from the ghosts of his past? There is so much that has happened and he is beginning to see it clearly that he will not know until he goes back and lives it.

"I don't understand any of this, Anne," he breathes out her name like a plea, keeping his distance because he knows he is subject to her touch and wants nothing but to be able to love her without thinking of the blood in La Fère, but his mind will not allow him that.

He needs a drink.