Chapter 21 Bechora #2
“Let me guess, that person is gonna be you,” I replied, rolling my eyes and attempting to step around her.
She shifted to block me again, eyes narrowing. “You think you can walk around the Academy with your little… entourage like you own the place? Like you belong? Did you forget what happened the last time I had to set you straight?”
I opened my mouth to tell her exactly where she could shove her threats, but a cold voice cut across the pathway. “She does belong here.”
We both turned. Vallynn stood a few feet away, posture perfect, his expression impassive in that terrifying, controlled fae way.
Shock flashed across Daena’s face. “Vallynn… why are you defending her?”
“I’m not defending,” he said. “I’m correcting.”
She blinked rapidly. “I’m your betrothed. You don’t get to correct me.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Her mouth fell open. “I’m meant to be your queen,” she insisted, taking a step toward him. “You and I are supposed to be soul bonded, we’ve already begun the preparation rituals. That was decided long before she ever crawled out of whatever gutter she came from.”
A cold spike shot down my spine. Vallynn didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. When he spoke, his voice turned to ice. “You’ll never say something like that about her again.”
Daena recoiled. “You’re acting insane, Vallynn. And for what? Some weak mage from the human realm who’s managed to con not one, but two powerful males into claiming her, with a third panting after her like she’s a gift from Selir. All so she can rise above her station?”
I couldn’t help myself, I snorted. “I can either be weak, or powerful enough to con my mates, not both. Which is it, Daena?”
Daena’s face twisted at my comment, her composure cracking. “It’s both,” she snapped. “You’re weak and manipulative.”
Before I could answer, Vallynn stepped forward, the shift in his magic so sudden and sharp the air felt like it tightened.
“Enough,” he said. The single word hit with the force of a command.
Daena’s head whipped toward him. “You’re choosing to defend her over your future? Over me?”
Vallynn’s voice went even colder. “My future is not yours to claim.”
“We’ve already done a soul-bonding preparation ritual,” she insisted, voice rising. “You can’t pretend that didn’t happen!”
“I’m not pretending,” he said, tone lethal. “I’m rejecting it. I’m rejecting you and your ridiculous attempts to grab power for yourself. You will never be a queen.”
Daena stared at him like he’d sprouted horns. “You’re throwing away a political alliance. You’re throwing away your future queen.”
“I’d rather have no queen than one who speaks as you do,” Vallynn said, his voice mild but lethal.
Her nostrils flared. “You’re humiliating me in front of a nobody.”
“Bechora is not a nobody,” he said calmly.
My heart lurched, but his tone gave nothing away. It was a factual correction, nothing more.
Daena looked between us, baffled. “Why are you even involving yourself? She’s beneath your station. She’s beneath everyone’s station. What could you possibly gain by alienating your own Court for her?”
Vallynn stepped closer, and Daena shrank back. “What I gain is my autonomy. And what I lose is an unwanted betrothal.”
Her face flushed with fury and disbelief. “My father will hear of this.”
Vallynn chuckled darkly. “As if our betrothal matters to him beyond how it can help him rise in station. My father will find another way to appease him and secure his loyalty. You’re simply a tool for his ascension in rank, Daena, and you’re no longer a useful one.”
Her mouth opened and closed, choking on words that refused to form.
He didn’t give her time. “Our fathers made an agreement. They also unmade dozens before it. Loyalties shift. Alliances crumble. The only person who believed this arrangement was permanent is you.”
Daena let out an outraged, wounded cry and stormed away, heels echoing violently down the corridor. The moment she vanished, the air snapped back into motion. I rounded on Vallynn instantly.
“What the hell was that?”
He turned toward me with infuriating calm. “A long overdue end.”
“I didn’t need you jumping in to save me! All you’ve done is paint a bigger target on my back,” I snapped.
“I wasn’t jumping in for you.”
“Oh, really?” I folded my arms. “Because it sure looked like you were playing hero in some twisted attempt to make up for the fact you’ve been lying to me .”
His jaw ticked. “I don’t ‘play hero’. I told the truth.”
“You told the truth in the most dramatic, condescending, fae prince way possible.”
“If I wanted to be dramatic,” he said, voice tight. “I’d have ended the betrothal in front of the entire Academy instead of on a nearly empty path.”
“That’s not the win you think it is.”
He stepped closer, magic flickering sharp in the air. “Daena is cruel. Ambitious to a fault. And she believes she can speak to you however she wishes. I won’t tolerate that.”
“I don’t need you tolerating anything for me; you don’t have the right. Just because I’ve figured out what you are to me doesn’t suddenly absolve you of all the horrible ways you’ve treated me, all the ways you lied to me.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I lied. I hid our bond. I avoided you. I failed every expectation placed on me. Including the one fate demanded.” The word fate made my chest tighten, and I hated that it did. “But hear me,” he said, jaw tightening, voice low. “I’m done being a coward.”
My stomach dropped. He looked at me like I was the only thing he’d ever seen clearly. As though the decision he’d just made tasted like blood and freedom.
“You called me that,” he said. “A coward. And you were right. I’ve been hiding behind duty and telling myself I’m keeping you safe, when really I’m just hiding.”
“I find it hard to believe you’ve had a change of heart in the last few hours,” I bit out.
“Believe what you want, but I’m done hiding, Bechora,” he replied. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I’m not shielding myself with excuses anymore.”
“Then what are you doing, Vallynn? What do you want from me? Because running off your fiancée in my defense isn’t exactly subtle.”
His throat bobbed once. “I’m not asking anything of you,” he said. “I’m only making something clear.”
“And what’s that?”
He held my gaze, unblinking, unguarded for the first time. “That I’m done letting fear dictate my actions. Not with my father, not with her,” he paused. “And not with you.”
“This doesn’t change anything,” I insisted, confusion coiling tight in my gut. “Whatever this sudden change of heart is, you’ll forgive me if I’m not buying it.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he replied. “But I will prove to you that I’m done being a coward when it comes to you. Whatever it takes to do that.”
I didn’t know how to respond, my mind was a maelstrom of want and hurt. Vallynn held my gaze a moment longer before stepping back, breaking the moment with practiced precision.
“I should go,” he said quietly.
But his eyes lingered on me for one more heartbeat.
One filled with truth. One filled with everything he wasn’t ready to say but finally wasn’t running from.
Then he turned and walked away, leaving me standing on the cobblestone path with a heart far too loud and a day that suddenly felt much more complicated than it had moments before.