32. Fooled Me Twice
Chapter thirty-two
Fooled Me Twice
T here is truly nothing sacred left in Faerie, I realised as I came to an abrupt halt and slowly pivoted to face the golden-eyed fiend.
Arms crossed over his chest, he was leaning against the wall beside the double doors of the dining room, an arrogant smile on his face.
He’s been here the whole time. Of course he’s been here the whole time .
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He cocked an eyebrow and let his arms fall to his sides, hands sliding into his pockets. “Power,” he said, pushing off the wall. “What good is magic when you can use your body to get what you want instead, yes?”
Bile rose up my throat in defiance at the vulgar insinuation, but I held it back and willed the flames licking my cheeks to die down. “I hardly think I can be blamed for the sins of the stars,” I replied, lifting my chin slightly.
Wren gave me an appraising look. “How much of the book have you actually read?”
“Enough.”
Nineteen chapters, to be exact .
But he didn’t need to know that.
Micael’s older brother had just discovered him with Livia in the barn, and he spent the next few pages trying to persuade him to leave her instead of telling their parents. The angle he chose to take was the question of what would happen when Micael eventually met his mate.
“The bond is predetermined by fate, and it’s pretty clear that the author relates that to the stars,” I went on, willing my voice to remain casual and businesslike. Wren was no ordinary customer in Dante’s Bookstore, though. “And the stars are wrong for denying them, but that’s what happens, isn’t it? They are forced apart—not by his family, but by his true mate.”
Wren’s expression gave nothing away. “Keep reading,” was all he said.
“You can’t blame me for this,” I answered sharply. “I saw the way you looked at me in there. I can see the way you’re looking at me now.”
Amusement cooled the fire in his eyes, and he took a step towards me. I refused to back down. Wren was a puzzle I was on the brink of solving, and that step forward—that possessive, territorial look in his eyes—might very well be the last piece.
The post-orgasm clarity from his High King might have been a factor, too.
“I thought it was the Malum at first,” I admitted, sending signal after signal to the muscles in my body to hold steady as he took another slow, predatory step forward. “There was guilt written all over your face when you told me what happened to them. I’m familiar enough with it to know. I figure that since you knew them, maybe one or two of them were even your lovers, and perhaps that made you loyal to them. But it’s not the Malum. It’s me.”
Wren paused a foot away from me, golden eyes flaring with interest.
“You knew who I was as soon as you saw me, didn’t you?” I questioned softly, biting down on the fear in my voice. “That’s why you told John that you didn’t want to take me with you. That’s why you made it clear to me that I am a half-breed, and stupid, and slow, and all of the other cruel things you’ve said and thought about me.”
He rolled his shoulders back, cracking his neck, but kept his cards close to his chest as I picked them out one by one until I found the ace of spades.
“Your loyalty is with the crown, and you can’t stand it,” I whispered, “that a half-breed human is your intended High Queen.” Something like bravery flowed through my limbs, and I used it to take a calculated step towards him until we were as close as we’d ever been. “How different do you wish it was, Wren? You said you don’t want to take me home, though you keep offering in the hopes that I’ll agree. That was a faerie lie, wasn’t it? You don’t actually want to be around me for that long, but you wish that I was gone. You kept a loophole open for me so I could change my mind. But you know I won’t. So, you tell me. Would you rather that I was dead, or would it be easier for you if I had never been born in the first place?”
Eyes of firelight stared down at me, and he parted his lips, exposing his flesh-shredding canines as he ran his tongue along the edge of his teeth. A soft growl rumbled in his chest, and he said, “It would be easier for me if you were never born.”
Truth.
Every word echoed with truth. He didn’t even try to work his words around it.
The final piece clicked into place, and I felt my courage abandoning me as it did. A cold, empty feeling of loneliness took up its position.
I had finally figured it out.
He was going to let himself die in that clearing—not out of guilt, but because he knew the repercussions of my actions would have been much worse than the slap I received from the sentry. That was why he saved me each time. He also knew the consequences that I would face for his death would be no less than what he would receive for letting me, the High King’s mate, die.
Wren defended me only in the presence of the High King and played nice when there were eyes on us, but he glamoured me in Sthiara so the townsfolk wouldn’t know I was there. Because he didn’t intend for me to stay. He tried to bully me into leaving, and then he attempted to convince me by pretending that he understood. Finally, after the army of caenim lay dead in that field, he even tried his luck at trying to seduce me away.
“Now, you tell me,” Wren growled softly, eyes of molten gold roaming over my face. “Do you want to go home yet, Auralie? You haven’t gotten what you followed me here for, but does it really matter which High Fae man finally gives it to you? I can still smell your arousal mixed with the come all over the slit between your legs. If I fill it for you, will you be happy? You’re mad at him. So, if I fuck you until you forget and send you home dripping with me for the next six months , will you be satisfied? What will it take for me to be rid of you?”
Fury like nothing I had ever felt before filled me to the point of overflowing, but I sensed the darkness before it erupted, and this time, I held it at bay. Even for Wren, I wouldn’t let it consume me again. Not even after that.
Taking a step back, I flexed my fingers, letting the motion send a bolt of self-awareness charge through my veins. I would not let it consume me—would not let it become me.
“The next time you throw me a blade,” I said with lethal calm, my voice steady against a growing wave of devastation, “you’d do well to think twice.”
He laughed bitterly. “The next time I throw a blade at you, bookworm, I don’t intend to miss.”
There was no one else around to hear the threat. Even the House had gone quiet again, the lights lowering to a dim flicker.
Lucais had probably evanesced from the dining room as soon as I slammed the door, and the only other people I had seen around were Delia and Morgoya. The former was forcibly silenced, and the latter was probably as displeased about the Oracle’s predictions for her High Queen as the man standing in front of me, who was visibly shaking with each violent breath.
We stared at each other for a few moments longer until the rage simmered down into a mild shade of hatred, reflected in the soft golden tones taking over the wildfire in his gaze.
There was no way for us to be freed from each other. That was the unspoken truth that hovered between us, bouncing back and forth between our locked eyes.
He was the High King’s best friend, and I was the intended High Queen.
And we hated each other. We really, truly hated each other.
He fooled me twice, and I would never forgive him.
Wren turned away before I did, prowling down the hall to the east wing, rattling the glass cabinet doors with each heavy step. I didn’t breathe until he had disappeared from my sight, until the burn marks from his eyes had healed over on my skin.
And then I walked back to my bedroom, far too proud to fall apart in the halls, and asked the House to lock my door and leave me alone as I climbed into bed and let the tears soak into the pillowcase beneath my head.