4. Aldrin
Chapter 4
Aldrin
W e stare at each other, dumbfounded. It is like there is a knife in my heart and it twists again and again. I want to hide. To refuse to allow her to see me like this, beaten and broken.
I have no choice.
Keira’s eyes roam over me, taking in the crumpled clothes, the deep lines beneath my eyes and the gauntness of my face from all that weight I lost so swiftly.
I must look like a tormented mess.
Tears form at the corners of her eyes, but they don’t fall. Her hands shake, and she balls them into fists to hide it.
She takes another step toward me, then stops herself, like she too isn’t sure if I am a monster here to hunt her. It shatters my fucking heart to see that hint of fear on her face when her eyes meet mine.
I would do anything, anything , to gain back that trust we once had.
Then her features crumple, lips twisting downward. “What have they done to you, Aldrin?” Her voice breaks.
Keira still cares for me. I want to grab her and tuck her into my arms, wrapping them around her body until she feels safe enough to cry into my chest. Hurt and anger lies between us, but it will never change the fact that I love her.Maybe I am a fool for that.
My gaze falls over her hungrily, like that of a man dying of thirst presented with an oasis. It trips over her beautiful rosebud lips, down her cream-colored neck and to her generous bosom, where a hint of cleavage is visible. My eyes soak in the curve of her hips.Up and down they glide, committing every detail of her to memory. I cannot help myself.
For months I longed to touch her, hold her, to even just look at her, and when I finally did, she was ripped away from me almost immediately.
It was the wrong thing to do. I am sure they have told Keira that I am a predator, here to tear her away from her life, despite everything that passed between us.That I tricked and manipulated her, and only wanted her for sex and childbearing.
Keira recoils from me, taking a step back. Her eyes narrow with simmering fury. My heart hammers painfully. I am too scared to breathe, to say a damned thing, in case she runs away from me. Her gaze flicks away, taking in the basic room.
“These living quarters are not good enough.” She stalks to the doorway, turns her back on me and addresses the guard in the corridor. “He is to be kept as a noble prisoner and reunited with his people.”
I stand ever so slowly and take a cautious step toward her, as though approaching a wild animal that might flee at any moment. “Keira…please, Keira, I?—”
She turns swiftly on her heel. “I am not ready to hear from you, Aldrin!” she snaps with such aggression that it is like a slap across the face. Then she turns her back again, refusing to look at me.
I don’t know what I was expecting from her—a warm hug? A punch in the gut?—but it wasn’t this. Anything would be better than this stone wall. She might as well not even be here.
“If you won’t hear me out, at least find Hawthorne.” My voice breaks on his name. “They tortured him last night.”
Keira turns her head at that, and her eyes flare wide. She rushes from the room, pushing past the guard and through the ward. He curses and runs after her, slamming shut the door to my cell. It is like the sun has disappeared behind rain clouds.
I sit on the bed and wait. My foot taps on the ground, all my nervous anticipation pouring into that single motion. Surely she will come back. She won’t leave me here to wonder what happened to Hawthorne.
But Keira has left me before.
Twice now.
Time ticks by and what feels like an eternity passes. I become drenched in cold sweat and my jaw aches from grinding my teeth.
When the door opens again, Keira stands in the cell’s entrance, face ashen. “I didn’t know they were going to do that to Hawthorne. I am so sorry.”
I stand swiftly. “Does he live? Is he okay?”
Keira refuses to hold my eye. “He’s delirious, but physically, he will make a full recovery with the right care. Emotionally?” She lets out a long breath. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier. I?—”
“KEIRA!” Edmund’s voice bellows from down the corridor. With the sound-blocking ward on the cell, I am surprised to hear him, but Keira’s position must interfere with it. “You are not to disturb those prisoners!” the Lord Protector roars.
“Shame on you, Father!” Keira screams, her hair billowing around her shoulders, embers floating and crackling around it. “I have seen how you have kept them. What you did to poor Hawthorne! There is no excuse for that.”
A cringe runs through me at the implication.
“I have done what was needed here!” Edmund’s voice turns deadly quiet, just outside the door. “In case you have forgotten, it is my duty to protect these lands against the fae. I need to know when their army will arrive to take this realm.”
Keira laughs, the sound bitter and resentful. “I can’t believe I almost fell for your delusions! There is no army coming. He is an exiled king! You are angry because a fae dared to court your daughter, and you refuse to see what is right in front of you.”
My heart rate kicks up at her words, and by the Soul Ripper, I dare to hope for a moment.
“It is not I who is blind to the truth,” Edmund grinds out, still hidden from me.
“You will listen to me, Father.” Keira points a finger in his direction as light flares down the strands of her hair. The tips truly look like flames. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. “You have had over a week to do things your way, and they have gone horribly wrong. I was naive to trust you. Aldrin and his people will be reunited and kept in the suite for highborn prisoners, with every luxury and the utmost respect.”
“Keira,” Edmund warns, voice low.
“If not, I will petition the priestesses themselves. They are not all as jaded as my grandmother. I will personally free Aldrin. I will give him the antidote to the poison you have clearly been administering to inhibit his magic, and he will break himself out.”
“You speak of treason!” Edmund retorts. “Besides, the apartments are not secure enough for these dangerous threats to our realm.”
“Then ward them! Or the gods help me now, I will return to the Otherworld freely if I cannot trust my own father!”
Energy crackles within the room as both father and daughter threaten to lose their grip on their magic. A shiver runs through me. They could be so incredibly powerful if they knew what they held.Both have blocks on their magic.
“Do you truly trust this man that much? Do you believe he is no threat to yourself or this realm?” Edmund says softly, and there is so much vulnerability in his voice. Fear, even—the fear of a father trying to protect his daughter. For a single moment, it humanizes the Lord Protector, and I almost feel sympathy for him, until I remember what he has done to Hawthorne.
“Yes,” Keira whispers, and the single word makes my heart stutter. “He made an oath to me that he would never hold me against my will.”
“I am more afraid of him holding your mind at ransom with lies.”
“For what it’s worth,” Caitlin’s voice cuts in, her approaching footsteps clicking on the stone floor, “I don’t believe Aldrin has intentions to invade this realm. It is Keira’s right to question him, not yours, Father.”
A silence stretches out between them. My stomach does backflips.
Keira’s entire body ripples with tension.“The highborn prison suites.”
“The highborn prison suites.” Edmund’s voice is low, deflated.
“I want them working on it immediately,” Keira says.
“My condition is that you are never alone with him ,” Edmund cuts in swiftly. “With any of them. You can speak to him during family meetings. That starts from now, Keira.”
An arm reaches into the cell and pulls Keira out by the elbow. She shoots a glance at me over her shoulder. There is so much said in that one look: the longing in her hazel eyes, the shock in her parted lips, the way her body doesn’t want to leave me behind.
The door slams shut, and the impact reverberates through me. It is a symbol for where we currently stand, on either side of a divide that I can’t penetrate on my own.
Food and drink are brought to me as the shadows move across the room, then give way to full darkness. An entire day passes, and I wonder if Edmund has lied to his daughter.
Then the door crashes open and multiple guards stream in, armed to the teeth with swords, axes and daggers.
One tosses a black canvas bag at me. “Put this over your head. We are transporting you.”
I turn it over in my hands and raise an eyebrow at them. The guards part down the middle and Edmund strolls in.
“Didn’t think we’d allow you to map out our fortress, did you? Put it on, or I’m leaving you to rot in here.”
“Are you always this much of a bastard, Edmund?” I say as I put the damn cloth over my head and hope for the best.
Nerves run through me like a fire that erupts from deep in my belly and sparks up my limbs. I have no control over my life, and it is terrifying.
My arms are bound behind my back and the bag is tightened around my neck with a collar. The fabric is suffocating. I cannot see a thing, and the air becomes hot and humid from my breath.
The guards lead me through the corridor, purposely banging me into corners. I ram my elbows into their ribs, eliciting pained grunts. I am not warned when we reach a staircase; my ankles smash into stone. As I pitch forward, the guards laugh and taunt.
I tear the feeble rope from around my wrists, throwing my hands out, but before they collide with the steps, someone grabs the back of my tunic and drags me upright.
“Big fucking men, are you, taking advantage of a blinded and bound fae?” I whip around toward the source of the voices. “I could crush your skulls with my bare hands. Who among you are brave enough to fight me? I’ll even keep the hood on so you have a chance.”
I lunge forward, and multiple bodies back away from me with a hiss of breath and scuffing of boots.
“I didn’t think so. Stop messing with me, or I’ll break your faces.”
“Don’t antagonize him.” Edmund’s voice seems distant, pained. “My daughter is already angry enough with me.”
One man grabs me by the elbow and makes an effort to guide me. These guards respect Keira. They don’t want to upset her. Then I remember she probably rode with many of them into their great hunts of vulnerable, lost fae.
Anger, the bitter sense of betrayal—it all rears up in me in the most sickening way. Righteous indignation is so much easier to hold on to than this vulnerability, and the fear that comes with it.
We reach the top of the long flight of stairs and a warm breeze hits the exposed skin of my lower arms and chest. We are outside. Interesting. Orders are called out, then I am swiftly dragged inside and up more flights of stairs.
We stop and someone pulls the sack off my head. I blink rapidly as my eyes adjust to the warm, flickering light in the room.The humans all stand an arm span back from me, as though I will bite them.
I might.
I glance around to get my bearings. Multiple fire orbs hang high along a ceiling with scalloped architraves and simple chandeliers. The smooth stone walls are either occupied by bookshelves or adorned by tapestries. Red velvet couches and armchairs take up much of the sitting room, with a mahogany table in the center boasting a crystal decanter of wine.
I peer into an adjoining dining area. There is a large, ornately carved table laden with a banquet of food and multiple jugs of wine. It has a dozen chairs around it, and there is a bar along the back wall with a variety of liquors behind glass doors.
All of this is simple compared to my palace, but after the last number of days, it feels like luxury.
I crane my neck to gaze through the other doorways and find multiple bathtubs filled with water, and pallets made up with pillows and quilts.
Edmund barks orders to his guards, but I don’t hear them. I sway dangerously on my feet as fatigue rushes in. Abruptly, the humans funnel out of the room. Edmund is the last to leave, his magic still binding me as he examines me from the doorway.
“Just so you know,” he says, “we never tortured your man. Not like you think.”
I am so sick of these games.
I shoot him a gaze simmering with hatred. “Then why was he screaming when they pulled him from the room?”
“Because we told him you were about to be executed. Not even I would stoop so low as to cut up a man.”
He turns on his heel, stalks out of the room and slams the door behind him. Tethers of air release me, and I collapse to the ground.
I hadn’t realized he had been helping to hold me up.
Hot tears run down my face as I finally let go of everything I have been holding in. All the fear and grief and betrayal. Keira and I have both let each other down. My people suffered for the love between us, and now it may wither up and die. She can hardly look at me.
By the time the door opens again, I am seated at the table with a forgotten plate of food in front of me, staring into space.
The guards drag in a man who stumbles as they push and prod him. They remove the bag from his head, and Hawthorne scans his surroundings with wild eyes, searching for threats.
I walk over to him with wide arms. His entire face lights up as his gaze falls on me. As we embrace, Hawthorne’s body shakes with tears. We fall to the ground in a half-crouch, both exhausted, physically and emotionally. Neither of us notice the human guards leave.
“I was so scared for you, Aldrin,” Hawthorne chokes out. “For me too. The starvation, the sleep deprivation, the thirst— that was bad enough. But when they said they were going to execute you?” He shakes his head and his entire body shudders.
I continue to clutch his chest to mine, repeating again and again that it was a lie. When he calms, I seat him in a chair at the table.
“Have they given you food today? Water?” I ask.
Hawthorne squeezes my arm. “This afternoon, after Keira intervened. They allowed me to sleep last night and gave me real food. A lot of it.”
I pour wine into a chalice, diluting it with water because he is probably still dehydrated, then fold his fingers around the stem. The gods know he needs something to take the edge off.
I search deep inside me for a hint of healing magic, but I can access precious little of it. And the others may turn up in worse conditions.
The door crashes open and Hawthorne jumps, splashing wine in his lap. Guards march in, dragging with them a woman who hisses and swipes out with her elbows and fists. Lavender braids cascade out of the bag on her head and swish around her waist.
“For fuck’s sake, won’t anyone tell me where the actual fuck you are taking me now?” Klara roars, stomping hard on a man’s foot.They deposit her in the entrance of the suite then back away rapidly. Not a single guard dares to remove the hood on her head.
Part of me admires her fight, wishing I had shown the same savage fury, but a deep sadness fills me to see such rage triggered in the normally level-headed minister.
“Klara.” I say her name as a warning. “It’s me, Aldrin. I’m going to remove your hood. Please don’t punch me.”
“Oh, I’m going to fucking punch you!” she screeches.
I grab the top of the hood and dart quickly back, narrowly missing a right hook from her. Klara staggers and I put the couches between us, but she circles around them to get to me.
“This was your brilliant plan!” she hisses as she chases me. “ Let’s go into the human realm and find a human woman who doesn’t want me. I’m too mighty and powerful for any mere humans to capture me. Well, how did that go for us, Aldrin? Did Keira tell you that her father is an incredibly powerful fae?”
Klara plucks pillows off the couch and throws them at me. She shrieks incoherently when they pommel me in a most unsatisfying way.
“They don’t know about her father,” I say simply, dodging to the left when she picks up an unlit candle and tosses it at me.
“I don’t CARE!” Klara roars. She pulls a book off a shelf and readies herself to throw it.
I hold up a hand and raise my eyebrows. “Don’t you dare damage a book!”
“I want to damage your head!” She curses as the book slams against the wall behind me.
Klara rushes at me again, and I am forced to circle the couches. It is then that I notice another of my band has been brought to us, still blinded by the hood. His escort of guards watches us with consternation.
“Now that is a sentiment I can get behind,” Drake’s voice booms, right as a guard whips the bag off his head. He steadies his staggering steps by grabbing the guard’s elbow. “Boy, I said I will destroy you if you touch me again. Do you know what we do to humans in our realm? We drink their blood. We wear their skin as cloaks. And we use pretty little boys like you to pour our wine.”
Drake beams his classic sardonic smile that is all teeth down at the blond guard with delicate, handsome features, who is probably around Keira’s age. Drake towers a good head over him and is half again as wide, and the guard visibly pales, not understanding Drake’s humor. Few appreciate it.
“Don’t start more rumors, Drake.” I run a hand through my hair. “They already think badly enough of us.”
Klara comes up beside me while I am distracted and rams an elbow hard into my ribs. I double over, more from the shock of it than the pain, and she gives a satisfied grunt.
Drake opens his arms wide for her and she rushes into them. They stay like that for a long time, rocking together, holding each other up, whispering words only they can hear.
Silvan enters next, his eyes narrowed and simmering with a savageness as he mutters something about Cyprien being the smartest of us all for staying in our realm.
The shoulder-length sheet of his strawberry-blond hair hangs limp over his face, and the shaved half of his head is fuzzy with regrowth. He merely grunts at me, then stalks to the table and takes a long swig of wine straight out of the jug.
He lets out a string of profanities, then hunts the bar for something stronger.
When Zinnia arrives, she simply gives me a slap on the back. “I’ve survived worse in your employ. It wasn’t exactly the dungeons of the Shadow Court when I was discovered spying.” She uses the derogatory term for the Starlight Court without flinching, then walks to the table to inspect the food. Most fae are too afraid to speak or even think about that court full of demons.
I can breathe easier now that all my people have arrived in one piece. Logic would dictate that we all collapse into bed; instead we will begin to plan our next move. Or try to.
We have no cards left to play.