Chapter 18 #2
My best friend, who was mated to a fae prince, wasn’t half of his people like she thought. Instead, Liam’s mate was half of his worst enemy. Half of Audrey’s DNA was from a people who betrayed Liam in the worst possible way.
“…That’s why you didn’t recognize Liam for so long,” I murmured, rubbing the side of my neck as I held eye contact with her.
“You wouldn’t feel his heartbeat when you recognized your mate.
You would recognize his sound.” I recalled Audrey stopping mid-sentence when she heard Liam approaching the condo a few days ago.
It was why Liam felt their connection in his heart immediately, but Audrey didn’t. It was why Liam waited years to tell Audrey what he knew. How much longer would he have waited had I not accidentally revealed their bond to Audrey?
Hush dropped her head and cursed, rubbing her brow with pinched fingers.
Liam tilted his head toward Hush. “Did you suspect this?”
Hush lifted her gaze to stare at the ceiling. “Yes. This confirms my suspicions.”
I gaped at her. “You suspected that Audrey was half-siren and not fae this whole time?”
Hush lifted a shoulder. “Not initially. But it makes more sense that Audrey is a siren.”
“How?” I questioned.
“Not recognizing her mate the standard fae way, for one, implied that she is something else—” She turned to Liam, who stiffened.
“Yes, I recognized your heart desperately trying to time itself with hers every time we were in the same room. Siren ears are better at picking up patterns like that.” Liam squeezed Audrey’s shoulder, tucking her closer to his body.
I was side eyeing him, knowing he had disdain toward sirens in general because of what Drustan did to his parents, but he seemed to be taking Audrey’s new identity in stride, from the way he didn’t hesitate to hold her through this.
Perhaps the mating bond between them put things into perspective for him. I studied Audrey’s dark red hair, so similar to…
“If that’s Drustan’s mother’s journal, are you and Drustan related?” I raised my eyebrows. Hush and Audrey nodded while Liam frowned. “Wow…” I scraped a hand on my cheek in thought. “You’re siblings with Drustan?”
“Half-siblings,” Liam muttered.
“Blood related all the same,” Hush added before stepping forward to face Liam head-on. “It’s time for you to learn more about your parents, fae.”
Liam immediately stiffened with defensiveness. “What about my parents? What do they have to do with this?”
“The question you should be asking is why Ilia sent us to rob your parents’ private journals a week ago.
” Hush shifted her weight to one hip as she crossed her arms to address Liam, authority and dominance straightening her spine.
Liam didn’t cower but instead held her gaze with his.
Hush just revealed what they stole that night.
Something Ada and her guard hadn’t been able to figure out, yet.
“What do you mean?” Audrey asked as she rubbed Liam’s chest, right over his heart. Hush reached into the inside pocket of her cloak before pulling out another worn journal. Liam’s eyes widened in recognition. She tossed it to him, and he snatched it out of the air with ease.
“This was the goal of our mission,” Hush explained. “While the teenagers distracted the queen and prince.”
“This was my mother’s?” Liam asked as he held the new journal in his hands. Hush simply nodded. “This page?” Liam asked, finding where the bookmark was.
“Yes,” Hush confirmed. She gave Liam a few moments to start reading, but when his eyes widened and color started to drain from his face, she spoke up again, “You recognize your own mother’s handwriting, yes?” Liam nodded. “Do you get it now?”
I raised my hand, still sitting on my little loveseat.
“Can someone explain what you’re all reading for the human in the room?
” Liam slumped, never turning the page. His eyes frantically kept rereading the passage over and over again.
Audrey, reading over his shoulder, also looked crushed.
She kept rubbing his arm and back, attempting to soothe him.
I’d never seen Liam so distressed.
Hush took it upon herself to answer my question.
“Sometimes the answers we seek don’t bring the comfort we expected.
” Hush sighed, leaning against the wall and propping one foot against it.
“Why did Drustan kill the former Fae King and Queen? Why would the Siren Prince of Lyndoruun even consider fulfilling such a heinous, morbid act of war?” Silence filled the room while Hush let her words settle over us. “It must have been something personal.”
“This says—” Audrey cleared her throat, distress soaking her voice. “Liam’s mother’s journal is documenting when—when—”
“They killed Queen Astrid. Drustan’s mother.” Liam said in a flat tone of disbelief.
My jaw dropped.
“But…why?” Another question popped into my head. “Why kill the Siren Queen?”
Hush simply replied, “The unnatural death of one’s mate can have a negative effect on the living partner.”
“But why would Liam’s parents kill the Siren Queen?” I asked.
“Because Ilia asked them to…” Liam whispered. I froze as Audrey lifted her gaze to look at the former Siren Queen’s leather journal now resting on my desk, whispering as it clicked for her, “…Because she had me.”
I gasped.
“Oh my god.” I tucked my legs underneath me. “Oh my god.” That’s how Audrey and Drustan were half-siblings.
“Ilia is a prideful male,” Hush continued.
“Once Queen Astrid gave birth to Audrey, he smelled the human in her immediately. Discovered his queen’s disloyalty.
Ilia realized that even though killing the solvyrn earned him the right to marry Astrid, without a formal mating bond, Queen Astrid may have a mate of her own—in the human realm.
Which would be another threat to one of his titles.
He bought Astrid’s hand through the act of fulfilling a part of an ancient prophecy, but if word got out that Astrid had a human mate, that would negate the legitimacy of his rule beside her.
According to her journal, Ilia ordered Astrid to get rid of Audrey.
However.” Hush lifted a shoulder. “Ilia underestimated the devotion a mother can have to her child.”
Cold dread seeped into my gut. Audrey was close to death since the day she was born.
“How is Audrey alive right now?” I asked.
Audrey wrapped her arms around Liam’s waist, who eventually dropped the journal and tucked her into his chest. He dropped his nose, inhaling her hair as they sought comfort in each other’s embrace.
“Losing a child at birth is not uncommon, especially due to the fertility issues our realm had struggled with up until about thirty years ago,” Hush said with reverence.
“It was easy for the people of Lyndoruun to believe their queen experienced the same tragedy so many others have. Eventually, though, Ilia must have learned that his queen simply sent Audrey away…to the human realm.”
“And that wasn’t enough for him?” I asked, letting my hatred for Ilia coat my words.
“No,” Hush sighed. “A pompous male like him couldn’t continue living his days knowing that the evidence of his queen’s affair was walking around.
But he couldn’t find Audrey, and Astrid wouldn’t help him.
The queen probably grew more distant. He couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t seek out her human mate again, so… ” Hush nodded toward Liam.
“…Ilia asked my parents to kill Astrid,” Liam finished, before shaking his head. “No. Ilia probably forced my parents’ hand. My parents were good fae. They wouldn’t just blindly do Ilia’s bidding unless they were put in an impossible position—"
“Do their words read like fae who were forced against their will to take a life?” Hush countered, and when Liam stayed silent, she muttered, “Precisely.”
“But—but that means that Drustan killed my parents for nothing more than petty revenge.” Liam’s face was turning red now. “Despicable.”
Hush took a moment to let Liam mourn the image he’d held of his parents his entire life, before saying, “If a male like Ilia is willing to harm an innocent child, why wouldn’t he be just as willing to harm his own queen?
An alliance easily formed between Ilia and the former fae royals, because your parents thought removing one siren royal would make the other look weaker. ”
“…If Ilia and Astrid were mates, he would have grown weaker over time, but they weren’t…” Audrey whispered.
“The nereids had two kings and a queen, the fae had both a king and a queen, but then there was just the Siren King. Only having one siren royal was a strategy your parents would directly benefit from,” Hush sighed to a glaring Liam.
“They probably assumed they could manipulate him to agree to their trade deals more easily. Based on how they describe sirens in their own private words, they didn’t consider us to be held to the same air as fae and nereids. ”
Something didn’t make sense in my head, even after the four of us sat in silence over this revelation. “Why didn’t Ilia send someone to, um, take care of Audrey?” Audrey lifted her gaze to stare at Hush, as if she were wondering the same thing.
“He did.” Hush stared at the ground. “But Queen Astrid was smart. She knew he wasn’t above murdering a child born out of a marital bond.
” Something soft flickered across her expression, but difficult for me to clock behind her mask.
“However, I believe the former queen reached out to a powerful witch to cast a protection over Audrey.”
Liam lifted his head, his brows furrowed in thought. “But protection spells wear off. They’re not permanent. The fact that this one seemed to last three decades was already an impressive feat.”
“Which is exactly why you were suddenly able to track her and the other halflings down in this realm a couple of years ago,” Hush stated matter-of-factly. All our eyes widened at that. It was all starting to make sense.
“Drustan’s mom didn’t just protect her daughter.” I pressed a hand to my chest, a simmering of hope burning my heart. “…She protected all the half-human children.”
Hush nodded in agreement. Audrey’s lips parted.
Liam frowned. “And her mate had her killed for it, because he couldn’t get to Audrey.
” He released one of his arms around Audrey to scrape down his face.
“And then my parents even documented what they considered their…alliance. Because even though Ilia thought he was strong enough to combat the long-term effects of losing a mate, they probably assumed what it would do to him.” He released Audrey to slump against the wall, sliding down until his ass hit the ground.
Folding his arms over his knees, he rested his head on them.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Drustan discovered all this, then? You think that’s why he killed Liam’s parents?”
Hush lifted a shoulder. “It would make the most sense.”
“Does your sister know?” Audrey asked Liam, crouching down on the floor with him.
Hush shook her head. “I doubt Queen Ada is aware. I stole this from a corner of your archives that had many artifacts and keepsakes that hold no value. Masterfully hidden by the formal fae royals, where no one would think to keep something so important, but they could easily access it whenever they needed. I would be surprised if Ada ever got her hands on this specific journal of theirs.”
Liam released a loud exhale as he nodded against his arms, feeling relief, but probably not enough of it.
“We should tell Drustan about Ilia’s kill order,” I muttered.
All three of them lifted their eyes to look at me, so I elaborated.
“We have to tell him.” I nodded. “If he knew what his father did, that would be a game changer. No man can stomach the fact that his father killed his mother. It would get Drustan completely on our side.”
Hush lifted a shoulder. “It wouldn’t suck to have the Mad Siren Prince supporting us.”
Liam grumbled, “Dammit. Drustan is a murderer.”
“Apparently, so were your parents,” I retorted.
“We need some time,” Audrey muttered as she glared at me. “I don’t think that Liam and I are in the mental space to make any major decisions right now.”
Hush’s blonde brows furrowed. “I’m not so sure you have the time you want.”
“I don’t care,” Audrey snapped at her. “You just dumped a lot of information on us. Our entire view of ourselves just got thwarted. We need time to process. To regroup how we approach Ilia, the nereids, and even Ada.”
Hush and I exchanged a look. It was like we were both saying, …
really? Not to be insensitive, but Audrey had only considered herself to be half-fae for about two years.
Adjusting to learn that she’s half-siren shouldn’t be that crazy.
But maybe that was a privileged, full-blooded human take for me to have.
“I must take these back,” Hush sighed as she stood from the wall and collected the journals.
“I was barely able to leave the Shaw Estate with them. I need to return them, so I don’t reveal my cover.
” She locked her eyes on all of us. “I’ll be checking in.
We can plan more specifically another time. I can only give you a day or so.”
Audrey and Liam didn’t say anything to her, so I chimed in, “Sounds good.” Hush nodded at me before studying Liam and Audrey with a look I couldn’t decipher behind her mask. Within a blink, she lyskifted and she was gone.