Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Marcus didn’t want to tell her. Not yet, anyway. She hadn’t taken the news about the stasis pod well, and the rest would only agitate her. But how could he keep it from her? She had a right to know the truth.
“Tell me!” she screamed.
He winced at the anguish in her voice, but it was the despair reflected in her eyes that pierced his heart like the sharpest blade. It cut deep, adding yet another scar to the hundreds of others already covering his soul.
Fedra shoved her hands into his chest, sending him stumbling backward. “Tell. Me,” she said between clenched teeth.
“They were crazed,” he finally told her.
Her dark eyes held his for a long minute before she snorted a laugh. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I do.”
“Why should I?”
Marcus wished he had kept everything to himself until after dealing with Eurielle. Fedra was too upset to think clearly, but what Lotti had relayed to him had been too upsetting. He’d had to get her take on it. Now, it was too late to take back his words. He’d have to deal with the consequences.
“You should follow your heart,” he answered.
Fedra turned toward the railing. “I’ve lived with one truth for so long that I can’t accept anything else.”
“What if you were lied to?”
She shook her head. “You think everyone knew when I went into the pod that I would be in there for so long.”
“I think it’s a verra good possibility by the design and construction alone.”
“You think I’ve been lied to.”
He nodded. “You’ve taken what you experienced and what you were told and cultivated that hatred until it consumed you.”
“That’s right. I readily—and gladly—went into the pod.”
“Is it so terrifying to contemplate that you were set up that you can no’ allow yourself to consider that I might be telling you the truth.”
She swung her head to him, face tight and eyes wide with unshed tears. “Yes!” She swallowed and looked away. “You’ve done nothing but defend the dragons, sharing stories and trying to make me look at them as something other than monsters.”
“What were you told would happen if you go to the dragons?”
“They’re magic. They would die,” she stated.
He let out a sigh. “If you carry through with your mission, how does that make you any different than the dragons who attacked your world?”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Say you’re right and I was lied to about the pod. So what if they didn’t explain it in detail,” she argued, fighting to keep what she knew to be fact. “What’s the difference between a thousand years and fifty thousand years?”
“The fact that you could’ve died at any time.” He could’ve kept her talking about the dragons, but he could see she was having a hard time with everything so he let it go for the time being.
“It wouldn’t have mattered. I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that I’d die in stasis, and I still agreed. Had they told me everything…I wouldn’t have changed my mind.”
Enemy or not, seeing her hurting was too much to bear. He wanted to comfort her and take away all her pain. He even took a step toward her to do just that but stopped. The connection between them was so strong that he had to clench his hands to keep from wrapping his arm around her.
He knew what it felt like to hold her, to have her against his body.
Yet he also knew how deeply her hatred ran.
Nothing he had said would change her mind, and the truth of her past would only worsen things.
Their time together was coming to an end, and they both knew it.
There was no need to make things harder on himself than they already were.
“If there’s more, just say it.”
He had come this far, he might as well divulge the rest. Marcus stared at her profile as snow began to fall. “The pod was designed to last for hundreds of thousands of years.”
She barked a laugh while a tear trailed down her cheek. “I was told I’d awaken when the Dragon Kings arrived.”
“Exactly. How did they know the Kings would come?”
“I don’t know.” A frown marred her brow as she shook her head. “I didn’t ask. I was too set on vengeance, and everything was laid out perfectly for me. All the pieces fit together so nicely.”
Someone had meticulously planned for Fedra to encounter the Kings.
This wasn’t the first time someone had played the long game with them.
And only one race of beings could put something like this together and wait eons.
Villette had tried to kill them on Earth and tried again on Zora.
Everything pointed to her being the mastermind, but it seemed too obvious.
Besides, Fedra had said it was a man who aided them.
There could be more than one Star Person involved.
The more he thought about it, the more he knew that Villette wasn’t involved.
If she had been, she would’ve taken the opportunity to strike at them along with Eurielle.
It wasn’t Eurielle either, because she had been confined to Zora for much longer than Fedra had been in stasis.
But Eurielle might know who was behind everything.
“The pieces fit too nicely,” he said.
She swung her head toward him. “If you’re saying I was used, I knew that going in.”
“You didna know all of it.”
“What else is there to know? I wanted to eradicate the dragons at any cost.”
The knife in his heart twisted with each word. Her vengeance overshadowed any truth he attempted to say, and her hatred was too great for her to see past it. If he didn’t need her to deal with Eurielle, he would walk away. But he did need her.
“What?” she pressed. “Aren’t you going to defend the dragons again?”
He took a step back. “We have a long wait ahead of us. You should rest.”
When she continued to watch him, he walked past her and into the palace.
He sank into a chair and stared unseeing out a window as he went over everything Lotti had told him.
It had been Rhi’s idea to reach out to Erith.
The Kings and Erith, also known as Death, shared a long history.
None of them had realized until recently that she was, in fact, a Star Person.
Erith had never had contact with any of them.
She had forged her own path with the Fae, creating the Reapers.
She judged the Fae, and the Reapers carried out her sentencing.
Erith had also aided the dragons and created Zora as their new home.
Erith had even visited Con not long after the Kings walked among the humans again.
The two had developed a deep friendship that had extended throughout the Kings and the Reapers.
It had been Erith and her mate, Cael, who had uncovered the timeline of Tyren and when the dragon attacked.
There were no humans on the planet any longer, so the pair couldn’t gather any information about the event.
But someone, somewhere knew something. Marcus would find out the truth one way or another.
Not just for Fedra, but also for the dragons. It was time for the slander to stop.
It was time for the hatred to cease.
If the Star People wouldn’t let the dragons go, then it was time for the Kings to find a way to make it end.
Marcus blinked and became aware of Fedra standing before him.
He lifted his gaze to her face. The wind grabbed the long tresses of her hair and softly lifted them around her while her cloak billowed behind her.
Outside, the snow fell steadily. The location had been set.
The players were in position. They were just waiting for one last participant.
“You know who the man was who came to my home world, don’t you?” Fedra asked.
Marcus shook his head. “I doona know his name, but I believe he was a Star Person.”
“You said some of them were decent. Was he helping us?”
He hated that she was struggling to find the answers, but he couldn’t help her get there this time. She had to do it on her own. “Deep down, you already know the answer.”
“He must have been helping. Why would he come otherwise?”
“You know the answer to that, too.”
She huffed as she turned away, her breath billowing around her like smoke. “Everything always comes back to the dragons. Why is it always the dragons?”
“Because they dared to live well in their freedom.”
Her face lifted to the ceiling before she spun back to him. “Tell me how you’ve connected all of this.”
“Villette instigated bringing the humans to Earth, remember? She used others like pawns throughout the millennia to hide that she was controlling everything. And all of it was for the destruction of the Dragon Kings.”
“But she didn’t win.”
“It was close, but the Kings prevailed. Even when they finally found the dragons on Zora, Villette had already been here for thousands of years, maneuvering and manipulating everyone without their knowledge to take out the dragons. The Kings blocked her at every turn.”
Fedra rubbed her cheek against the fur. “Why would a Star Person get involved with our planet?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself. There has to be a reason, but I’ve no’ found it yet.”
“I can tell you,” said a voice.
Marcus jerked his head to the side to see Eurielle sauntering in from the balcony. Her long, flowing white gown had strips of royal blue in the skirt, visible each time she took a step. He got to his feet and pulled Fedra up, moving her behind him.
“Always the protector,” Eurielle said, tsking. “If I wanted to hurt her, I could’ve done it after you left her out on the terrace.”
He kept a hand on Fedra as he met Eurielle’s gaze. “You must have been listening for some time.”
“Well, of course,” she replied in a too-sweet voice. “I was curious why Lotti was searching for Villette. Imagine my surprise when Lotti came here. Then you showed up with her,” Eurielle said, pointing to Fedra.
Fedra fisted her hand in his cloak. Eurielle walked to the side to get a better view of her, and Marcus turned both of them so he could continue shielding Fedra.
“What’s wrong? I thought you came here for me?” Eurielle asked.
Marcus dipped his head. “We were hoping you could tell us which of your brothers was involved in the incident on Tyren.”
Eurielle laughed as she held out her arms, showing the white sleeves with royal blue lining as she spun in two circles. Then she stopped and smiled at him. “Why would I tell you that?”
“No one but the Star People have that kind of power or patience,” he said, hoping to stroke her ego. “Villette came close. Now, you want a chance. You’ll have to wait, though, since one of your brothers has set up something.”
Eurielle adjusted the fabric of her sleeve and then ran her fingers down a length of hair that rested over her chest. “Many of us want the dragons back doing our bidding.”
“No’ Villette, though. She wanted to kill them. So do you.”
Her smile widened. “You’re very careful with your words, Marcus. I wonder why that is?” Her gaze shifted to Fedra again.
“Do you know what happened on Tyren?” he asked once more, this time in a firmer tone.
“Are you sure you want all the juicy details? I’m not sure she can take it.”
Fedra stepped out and said, “I need to know.”
Marcus dragged her behind him again and shot her a look over his shoulder, but her gaze was on Eurielle.
“You might want to rethink that,” Eurielle told her. “Especially after seeing how you fell apart hearing about the stasis pod.”
Fedra’s hold on his cloak tightened as her fury grew.
“Just tell us,” Marcus said.
Eurielle twirled around again. “It’s going to cost you.”
“What do you want?” He braced himself. The Eurielle from before never would’ve said such a thing, and as ruthless as she had been lately, he wasn’t sure what to expect.
“You, on your knees.”
He frowned, wondering what her game was. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I want you on your knees. You’re going to pledge your life to me. You will do what I say, when I say it.”
“Don’t do it,” Fedra whispered.
Eurielle cackled, the sound bouncing off the walls. “What do you think, Marcus? Will you submit and give the human the answers she desires? Or are you afraid of what the truth will reveal?”
“It seems you’ve been keeping tabs on me,” he replied.
Eurielle’s grin widened. “I wouldn’t have known to watch, except someone whispered into my ear. Once I knew,”—she paused and glanced at Fedra—“how could I pass up such a delicious show in the making?”