Chapter 39 There’s a Difference #2
“This doesn’t concern you, fae.” The warning rumble of Tarrin’s voice had me up on my feet and taking a few steps back.
I glanced over to where the brothers were seated.
Sidrick caught my attention and gave one definitive shake of his head, the message clear.
They need to sort this out on their own.
Stars above I hated that he was right, and now was a much better time than before we stepped into enemy territory.
I took a few more steps away, putting me closer to Kaelun than the two hot-heads.
“It concerns, Nyleeria. So, it concerns me.” Artton’s tone was cold. Factual. Predatory.
“What are you, her little watchdog?”
Artton moved in, the two of them so close that their misting breaths competed for space.
“I’d be very, very careful,” the summer fae said, accentuating each word with a finger pressing hard into Tarrin’s leathers, “how you speak to me, human. The only reason I tolerate you is out of respect for her, and if she ever wants your pathetic existence to come to an end, I won’t hesitate to oblige. ”
“What’s your fucken problem? Huh?” Tarrin said, then pushed Artton away with both hands, the summer commander forced to concede a step back to keep his balance, and the fact that he hadn’t been on solid footing in the first place was testament to just how much Tarrin crawled under his skin.
Kaelun had stepped around me, and on the other side of the fire, stood Sidrick. Both were readying to intervene if things went too far.
“You’re a coward,” Artton roared, pushing Tarrin back, then pointed an accusing finger at him. “Tell me, asshole, was it that you couldn’t disobey your precious king, or were you just too much of a coward?”
“Fuck you,” Tarrin spat. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Artton’s cold, measured glare sent prickles down my spine, and I knew that Tarrin had stepped into whatever snare had been laid, and that the summer fae would delight in watching it rip his quarry apart.
I sent a pleading look at Sidrick, who shook his head once.
Nope. They weren’t going to intervene; we were playing this through.
“You’re right,” Artton said, his tone as lethal as his glare.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, but you damn well do have to explain yourself to her—not some half-assed apology.
” They both stole a glance in my direction, and I swallowed, suddenly feeling like this wasn’t going to end well for me.
“And believe me when I say this, human, if you fucken dare spout some bullshit about how you were at the mercy of Thaddeus’ will, I’ll valen you to the middle of the Winter Court myself and leave you there. ”
“It’s not bullshit,” Tarrin roared.
Artton crossed his arms. “Isn’t it? Because seeing the memory for myself—dozens of times, I might add—I seem to recall that it was you that stopped Thaddeus from ripping the spark away from her before he could forfeit her life in the process.
So”—Artton stepped a little closer and leaned forward—"I’d be very careful when discerning the difference between can’t and won’t, if I were you. "
His words hit like they’d been intended for me, and I staggered back.
“Ny,” Tarrin called, moving toward me.
Artton was right. Tarrin had claimed he couldn’t go against Thaddeus’ will. But he had. We weren’t talking about Tarrin disobeying something minor—he’d gone against Thaddeus’ life mission to claim the spark. And he’d rescued me before I’d severed the link.
My hand was resting against my chest as if it could hold me together. “He’s right,” I whispered, stopping Tarrin in his tracks a pace before Kaelun, who now stood between us. “He’s right, Tarrin,” I said again.
His look was pained, if not pleading, and tiny fissures slicing through my heart.
“Tarrin?” My voice cracked on the single word.
He winced, and something in that movement filled those fissures with fire, igniting my ire. One way or another, we weren’t leaving this camp without the truth.
I wasn’t sure what Kaelun’s unara shared with him, but he stepped aside, allowing me to approach Tarrin.
I glared up at the man I once called my friend. The man I had saved. The man I’d defended. Steeling myself, I said, “Were. You. Physically. Capable. Of. Defying. Thaddeus’ will?”
His mouth opened, then shut.
“Answer me,” I shrieked, making everyone but Kaelun jump.
He just stared at me with deep sorrow.
“Answer”—I pushed him—"me!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, and it wasn’t lost on me that our companions had shifted their stances so that they could jump in—to protect him from me.
“I swear to the seven hells below, Tarrin, if you don’t answer—”
“I don’t know,” Tarrin screamed like a man undone, face red, forehead veins bulging.
He grabbed his hair with both hands so hard that it looked as if he was trying to hold onto his sanity before he threw them to the side.
“I don’t fucken know. Is that what you want to hear?
” he bellowed, our faces to close spittle fell on my leathers from his outburst.
“No, Tarrin. I want the truth!” I yelled back.
“I-don’t-know-Ny.” His words were so fast they blended together.
“Until that day I hadn’t thought it possible.
I couldn’t physically defy him, not at first—I’d stopped trying after fifty-two years, okay?
But now looking back at it, maybe that changed.
I don’t know. And when he was killing you—I don’t know, Ny.
Maybe I could’ve told you about your parents.
The twins. The bond. I don’t know. Then when you left, Thaddeus ripped my title away.
Made Nevander his second. He said he couldn’t trust me. That I’d given Luca to you.”
“Stop.” I held a hand up, unwilling to let him diminish my trauma with his.
“Ny, please.”
“You don’t have the right to call me that. In fact, you no longer have the right to talk to me; do I make myself clear?”
He reached for me. “Ny, you don’t mean that. Please.”
I had a blade to his throat faster than he could blink. His eyes went wide, and I could sense everyone freeze. Undiluted rage coursed through me. At him. At what had been done to me. At all of it. My chest heaved with heavy breaths, and all I saw was red as I stared into his lying, cowardly soul.
Lifting up on my tiptoes so I was closer to his ear, I whispered, “I should have let you bleed to death in the Autumn Court.”
The venomous words tasted bitter on my tongue, but that didn’t stop the primal magic nestled deep within from delighting at the wave of shock it elicited from Tarrin.
She purred from the hurt now radiating off him.
A distant part of me regretted the words, begged me to take them back.
But the anger that coursed through my veins was deliciously heady.
Besides, it was his turn to feel a fraction of the hurt he’d put me through.
“Commander,” Kaelun said, his voice sounding muffled—or was it distant? “She needs to stop. We’re all at risk.”
I didn’t know what his words meant. Why he was being so formal. Hells, I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him right. All I knew is that my pain called for vengeance. For blood. For Tarrin’s blood.
“Spark, I’m going to need you to give me the blade. Okay?”
“Leave me alone,” I screamed, slashing the blade against Artton’s leathers, instantly annoyed I hadn’t cut all the way through.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
Crouching into my fighter’s stance, fixated on the male before me. One moment I was preparing to strike, the next someone plucked the dagger from my hand. Screaming, I swung around, power bursting from my hand at the culprit. Then, strong arms wrapped around me, gripping me like a vise.
I thrashed. Screaming and kicking.
I was going to die. They were going to kill me. This couldn’t be happening. Thaddeus had found us.
Panicked, I placed my hands on the strong arms binding me and let my powers flow.
“Fucken stop her,” my captor yelled in pain.
In a flash, the sides of my face were cradled with a firm grip. Lost to my anger and fear, I couldn’t see who was touching me, but the instant their hand settled on my skin I felt heavy—drowsy even—and my grip falters, hands falling to my sides.
I blinked, trying to focus. Sidrick’s kind face held an apology as he stared back at me.
“What are you doing?” I rasped, my head lulling into his grasp.
“I’m sorry, Nyleeria,” he said, and I finally understood what was happening.
It took everything in me to look him in the eyes. “You’re stealing my powers,” I breathed, and then the remaining strength in my body vanished and blackness claimed me.