“Don’t you want to watch?”
The urge to flee hit him again, but this time he was prepared for it. He forced his muscles to relax. Released his grip on the glass, leaned back into his chair, and casually shook his head.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Don’t you want to see Ultan pun—”
“I’ll be in the training room.”
He was on his feet before he had time to fully process her words. He didn’t need to hear any more.
She looked startled by his sudden movement, but the emotion he sensed was more confusion than fear.
She was never afraid.
He wanted to hate her for that, but he could only manage envy.
When she said the traitor’s name, he reacted without thinking. He reacted without control. And he hated himself for not being in control.
That was why he couldn’t attend the trial. However much he wanted to see the traitor tried, convicted, and sentenced—hopefully to the ultimate punishment—Aedan didn’t think he could make it through.
And he never wanted to put himself in a position of not being in control. Never again.
Six
“Morning, Regan,” Bree greeted when she arrived for duty the next day.
The fierce warrior stood guard outside Prince Aedan’s room like some kind of ancient statue. Bree had a feeling that an entire army could show up and not one soldier would get through.
“Good morning, Bree,” Regan replied.
Her tone was always somewhat formal, as if she wasn’t quite used to interacting with people on a social level.
From what Bree’s brother had told her, that wasn’t far from the truth. He also told her that Regan had, until meeting Peter, harbored a secret crush on the clan’s younger prince.
Bree smiled. Her brother had a way of charming even the sternest people. Regan never had a chance of withstanding his efforts.
“Everything go okay last night?” Bree asked. She wasn’t trying to be nosy. She just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything she needed to know.
Regan nodded. “Fine.”
The fae guard never offered Bree much of an answer. And Bree supposed that was all she could expect. Bree wasn’t a member of the clan, and she got the feeling that Regan did not want to be divulging any personal details about her prince to an outsider.
Still, they shared a duty. And they shared love for Peter. Shouldn’t that give her some credit?
Then Regan shocked the heck out of her by saying, “He doesn’t—” Her eyes widened, like she wasn’t sure why she was telling Bree this, but she continued. “I don’t think he sleeps well.”
Regan looked pained to have revealed even that little detail.
Bree nodded—in acknowledgment of the report and the trust it had taken Regan to tell her.
She wasn’t surprised by the revelation. In fact, she would have been surprised if Aedan wasn’t having trouble sleeping after what he went through. If Bree had been kidnapped and tortured by that evil traitor, she might never sleep again.
She was just about to press Regan for more specifics when the door swung open.
Aedan filled the opening. Bree swept her gaze over him. Looking for signs of insomnia, she told herself. Other than faint smudges beneath his eyes, he looked fit and healthy. Much better, in fact, than the first day she started her protection duty.
His gaze narrowed on the two girls, as if he suspected them of talking about him. Regan would be horrified if he found out he was right.
Bree quickly spread a smile across her face.
“Good morning, sunshine. Ready for a run?”
He scowled at her.
“I should be going,” Regan said, and then made a hasty escape.
Aedan didn’t say a word, just turned on his heel and started down the hall.
“Guess it’s going to be that kind of day,” Bree muttered to herself.
She shrugged as she started after her charge. They hadn’t exactly become friendly in the days she’d been guarding him. More like a tentative truce. A grudging acceptance.
Not today.
Maybe a good long run would improve his mood.
By the time they arrived, sweaty and exhausted, in the dining hall some three hours later, Bree had serious doubts that anything would improve Aedan’s mood that day. He had been angrily silent for the duration of their run. All of her attempts at making small talk of any kind were met with icy silence.
Part of her knew she shouldn’t care. It wasn’t her duty, she reminded herself, to make him talk. Or to make him happy.
But another part of her, the part that ached a little more every time she saw him, wanted to do whatever it took to make him smile. To make him better. To make him whole again.
Because as much as he liked to pretend to the world that he was fine, she saw the cracks. She saw the shadows lurking beneath the facade.
If only she knew how to chase them away.
They ate in silence. They were so late that no one else was in the dining hall, so the only sounds were the scrape of knife and fork against plate and their breathing and chewing.
The longer run had made her even hungrier than usual, so when she finished the first round she pushed to her feet to get another.
“Want anything more?” she asked.
When her question was greeted with a skeptical scowl and a shake of his head, she counted that as progress.
She browsed the buffet, looking for something to satisfy the hunger gnawing at her. There wasn’t much left. The kitchen staff kept the buffet stocked, but they were nearing the transition to lunch, so pickings were slim.
In the end, she opted for a banana.
She turned to head back to the table, and froze when she saw Aedan hunched over his plate. There was something different about him today. Something more haunted.
Maybe it had something to do with what Regan said about his sleeping.
On her way back to the table, Bree had the overwhelming urge to get him talking. Maybe a peace offering would help.
As she approached, she pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Hey, wanna split this—”
Before she could finish, almost before she could blink, Aedan was on his feet, his chair knocked over and his knife pressed against the side of her throat.
His eyes were wide, wild, and totally unseeing. He wasn’t in there.
Her heart broke for him.
“Aedan,” she said softly, “it’s me. It’s Bree.”
She wrapped her hands gently around his wrist.
He blinked several time, as if willing his mind back into operation. She watched as his dark eyes cleared.
The instant he saw her—really saw her—the knife clattered to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have—”
He pushed her away. Not hard enough to send her stumbing, just enough to move her out of his way. Then, without a word, he stormed from the hall.
Bree stood there, staring after him, wondering what on earth she should do now.
Seven
Aedan’s hands shook. His entire body shook. His very soul shook.
Everything about his reaction had been pure instinct, pure loss of control.
Bree couldn’t have known it would set him off. He hadn’t known himself. One second she was touching him from behind, the next he had a knife at her throat.
It had only been the very thinnest thread of sanity that kept him from plunging the blade into her flesh.
If he had hurt her, if he hadn’t retained that barest hint of control… He couldn’t even let himself think about what might have happened.
He would have sentenced himself to the Everdark.
He stormed through the castle, trying to escape his thoughts. Trying to escape his fear. He couldn’t run fast enough for that.
Down endless halls, up endless stairs. He didn’t even know where he was going until he arrived. The observatory tower.
High above the palace
, where few ever ventured.
Cathair used to bring him up here, when they were boys, to tell him stories about the stars and the fae gods who had put them there.
Aedan stepped up to the edge, braced his hands on the cool stone wall and inhaled a massive breath of fresh forest air. His leg muscles burned with the climb of the stairs he didn’t remember ascending.
Up here, maybe his demons couldn’t find him. Up here, he could think.
As the fresh air filled his lungs, it chased away the fear. It chased away the dark shadows lurking within him.
When at last his mind cleared and he could think again, his first thought was, She wasn’t afraid.
His survival instinct had taken over and he had been on the verge of slicing her throat. And yet he had not sensed an ounce of fear from her.
She should have been terrified. For the love of Morrigan, he had been terrified. But if she had been even the slightest bit afraid he would have felt it. His magic would have surged with the power of it.
Instead, he felt pity.
He couldn’t even muster any insult. He deserved her pity. He was pitiful.
His hands clenched into fists against the rough stone.
Why hadn’t she been afraid? He didn’t want to scare her. That was the last thing he wanted to do. But still, she should have been afraid. She should have been scared for her life.
A wave of anger washed through him, fury at her for not being frightened.
He knew it was ridiculous to be mad at her for that. For not cowering in terror at his shameful reaction. But he was. He was almost as angry at her as he was with himself. Because she knew how to control her fear.
In his time with Ultan, fear had been his constant companion. Had been his master. His every thought, his every action was dictated by his fear. And here was this girl, a human no less, and she made him look like a child. She made him feel like a child.
He was ashamed of himself.
“I thought I might find you up here.”
Aedan did not turn at the sound of his brother’s voice.
“Is there a reason your guard is hiding in the stairwell?” Cathair asked.
At that, Aeden turned. Sure enough, there stood Bree, just inside the open doorway between the stairwell and the tower roof. She didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes trained down into the stairwell, as if waiting for an imminent threat to climb the four flights of stairs to reach the top.
Little did she know that the greater threat was already on the roof, within Aedan himself. He turned away from her, facing his brother. He ignored the question.
“Did you want something?”
Cathair stepped up to the parapet and leaned against it. Too casually.
Aeden tensed.
“You need to attend the trial.”
“No thanks.” Aedan forced himself to relax.
Cathair sighed. “You will have to testify.”
All of the emotion that Aeden had climbed the stairs to release flooded back through him. The thought of taking the stand, of getting up there in front of his entire clan and telling them every sordid detail brought on the panic. He would break down entirely. It would be humiliating.
“I know it will be difficult for you—”
“You don’t know anything about it!” Aeden snapped.
They didn’t. None of them did. Because Aedan hadn’t told them. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
To his credit, Cathair didn’t even flinch.
“I would like to.”
Aedan laughed. A full, gut-deep laugh.
He saw the way they looked at him. The young prince who had been taken captive for only a few days. How could he be so very damaged in such a short time?
He could practically feel the question from every fae he passed.
They had no idea.
“Anything else?” Aedan asked, feigning boredom.
“Ultan will testify. We need you to provide rebuttal.” He hesitated and Aeden braced for whatever came next. “You need to be in court while he is on the stand so we know which of his statements are lies.”
“I can answer that right now. They will all be lies.” Aeden turned away from his brother. “I’m not attending the trial.”
I can’t.
He couldn’t be in the same room as the traitor. A small voice in the back of his mind—a voice that spoke in the same dark tone that Ultan had used on him—said that if the powerful fae were ever able to lay eyes on Aeden again, he would be back in control. Aeden could not risk that.
“There is a chance that he will be acquitted.” Cathair said softly. “Some on the council may sympathize with his plot.”
Aeden curved his fingers over the outer edge of the parapet, squeezing until it felt as though the stone would crumble beneath his grasp. Or his bones would crumble against the stone. Cathair didn’t understand. He couldn’t. When his rescuers came, Aeden told them only what he absolutely had to. Guilt and shame and fear made him keep many of the details to himself.
He didn’t think he would ever be able to say the words out loud.
What if it means Ultan gets off? the voice asked.
This time the voice sounded more like Bree.
I don’t know, he answered honestly.
“I don’t—” he started to say the same words to his brother, but the last got caught in his throat. In the end, he finished with, “I don’t think so.”
He pushed away from the wall, trying not to notice the pained look on Cathair’s face. He didn’t need his brother’s sympathy any more than he needed to talk about his feelings. He needed control. He needed power and strength. And the only way to get those was to keep training.
As he walked past Bree on his way to the stairs, he sensed more pity from her.
He hurried past her and started down. Training. He needed more training.
Eight
By the next morning, Bree still wasn’t sure what to think about the incident in the dining hall. She wasn’t surprised by Aedan’s actions. After what he must have gone through with Ultan, she should have known better than to sneak up behind him. She wouldn’t have faulted him at all if he had actually hurt her.
It was a testament to his inner strength that he hadn’t.
No, what confused her was her own reaction.
By all rights, she should have been terrified. Aedan had obviously been out of his mind, acting only on instinct and ready to defend himself with violence. And yet she had remained utterly calm. Her heart never sped up, her bloodstream never flooded with adrenaline.
It was as though her instincts knew that there was no way that Aedan would hurt her.
They barely knew each other. She certainly didn’t know him well enough to trust him with her life. Heck, she barely trusted her brothers with her life.
But Aedan she trusted implicitly.
That was definitely cause for confusion.
If she had any thoughts of talking to him about what happened, they went out the window when she got to his chamber just as he was emerging in his running gear. He didn’t say a word as he turned and started down the hall.
Bree looked at Regan, who only shrugged.
Great. No help there.
Bree gave her brother’s girlfriend a wave and then turned and started after Aedan. He stayed ahead of her by at least two paces throughout the entire run. Not that she wanted to complain. She appreciated the view.
Aedan ran with the lean, graceful movements of a cat.
For all she knew, his ainmhi was feline. He might spend one day each month as a panther.
She also appreciated the silence. It gave her time to gather her thoughts.
By the time they reached the royal dining hall, Bree had decided that she needed to apologize to Aedan for startling him the day before.
But almost as soon as he grabbed his plate, he had it filled and was finding a seat—not at the table for four where they had eaten each morning after their runs, but at a much smaller table against the far wall of the ro
om. A table large enough for two, but with only one chair.
Bree got the message loud and clear. He didn’t want to her sitting with him.
Being from a family of seer guards meant that Bree didn’t have a normal teenage experience. She had never attended a human high school, had never faced the venomous wrath of mean girls or wannabes.
Now she knew what that must feel like.
She straightened her spine, loaded up her plate with as much as she could manage, and then took a seat at the large table in the center of the room. The one filled with members of the Palace Watch and the Royal Guard. She sat at the edge of the group of soldiers, on the end closest to Aedan. He might not want her there, but she still had a job to do. She still had to be in position to protect him.
She was just shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth when the guard to the her right spoke.
“Pretty posh gig you got there, girlie,” he said in a tone that made it clear that he wasn’t jealous in the least. “How’d you score that? Daddy call in a favor?”
The other guards snickered.
Bree sighed around her eggs and ignored the jab. After a lifetime around members of the various fae forces, she was used to those kinds of comments.
Fae females in the ranks were pretty common, and for the most part Bree thought they were treated as equals. But for some reason, being a human girl was a different thing altogether.
Especially being one of the youngest in Seer Guard history.
Many of the men looked at her like a little girl playing army. She had learned to not let it get to her when her brothers treated her like a baby, and she wouldn’t let it get to her now.
“No, lemme guess,” one of the others said. “The prince requested her special.”
“Can I put it a request for personal duty?”
“I need some one on one protection.”
Several of them snorted.
Bree froze, her eyes glued to the plate in front of her. She felt her cheeks flame. The two worst things about being a ginger: instant sunburn if she didn’t slather on the super SPF sunscreen and a blush that could be seen from a mile away.