Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Z
“ A tta’s really okay?” Mali’s voice sounded small, rife with pain.
“She is,” I assured her, wondering if I should reach across the table and grab her hands in mine. Comfort her.
I would’ve done that only a year ago, but…a lot had changed since then. Mali had betrayed me, and that betrayal had cost our other friend, Diego, his life. But she had proven herself time and time again, even allowing herself to be tortured by Aaliyah to fix things between us. I forgave her.
But she had yet to forgive herself.
We sat in the largest tent that served as the base of operations. It was empty, currently, save for the two of us.
Mali wiped at her face with the back of her hand and offered me a wobbly smile. “Thank you for letting me know. I mean it.”
“Of course?—”
“Seriously, Z.” Mali finally breached the distance between us, reaching across the table to grab my hands in hers. She gave them a squeeze. “You have no reason to be nice to me. I know what I’ve done.” She barked out a laugh, the noise dry and humorless. “God only knows that I’ll regret my decisions for the rest of my life.”
“Have you talked to HH yet?” I asked tentatively, thinking of the quiet man in glasses.
Diego’s mate. He often ping-ponged between camps, depending on where he was needed. I had no idea if he was still here or if he’d been sent elsewhere. With everything going on, it was hard for me to keep track of my friends. I needed to do better. Be better. I wasn’t fit to rule if I lost myself in the quest for the crown.
Mali licked her lips and glanced away. “He won’t even look at me, let alone have a conversation. He hates my guts.”
“He’s grieving.” I swallowed. “He’s not the only one who lost a mate…”
I allowed my words to taper off, to settle in the air between us.
Mali’s head snapped up, and her eyes widened. Then she expelled a harsh breath and focused back on our interlocked hands. “You’re the only one who has ever mentioned Zack.”
“He was your mate,” I pointed out, thinking of the assassin who killed Diego.
“He was a murderer,” Mali retorted. Her fingers flexed around my own.
“He was still your mate.” I gave her hands one last squeeze before releasing her. “You’re allowed to grieve him.”
“Am I, though?” She arched an eyebrow.
I could tell she genuinely wanted my opinion on the matter.
Was she allowed to be upset over the death of a murderer? Someone who’d killed her best friend and tried to kill me? I didn’t have an answer for her.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said simply. “But I do know you’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling.”
“Z! What just happened? Did you— Oh. Sorry, Mali. Didn’t know you were here.” Bash paused in the doorway of the tent, seeming unsure.
Mali waved his words away and stood gracefully. “It’s fine. I was just leaving.” She turned back towards me. “Thank you for listening, Z. I mean it.”
She didn’t wait for a response as she hurried out of the tent, awkwardly nodding a greeting at Bash as she passed.
Bash watched her go with a furrow between his brows before turning towards me. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I stood as well, attempting to stretch out a kink in my neck. “What’s up?”
I really, really hoped Bash didn’t want to discuss what we’d learned from Atta and Axel. I wasn’t ready to deal with that. I much preferred to lock it in a steel box and throw away the key. Maybe later I would have the strength to dig it back up. But not now. Not just yet.
“You just completed the greed trial, didn’t you?” Bash’s eyes raked over me, as if searching for injuries.
I frowned. “No, I didn’t. I’ve been with Mali.”
“This entire time?”
“I definitely think I would notice if I’ve been in a trial.” Fear jolted through me, cold as ice water, and I peered over his shoulder. “Where’s Devlin?”
“He just…appeared at the edge of the forest, muttered that the genies will join us, and then ran away.” Bash scrubbed at his ash-blond hair. “I have no idea what the fuck’s going on.”
“I’m going to find him.” I determinedly moved towards the tent flap, but Bash stopped me, placing his hands on my shoulders.
His touch wasn’t restricting or punishing by any means, but I still stopped, arching an eyebrow at him expectantly.
“Why did he enter a trial on his own? Without you?” Bash’s eyes flicked back and forth across my own, as if he could find an answer in the cerulean depths.
“Are you sure he did?” I countered, but he ignored me.
“What if we got this all wrong?” Bash’s voice turned low, and I half wondered if he was speaking to himself more than to me. He released me and began to pace, repeatedly forking his fingers through the already messy strands of his hair. “What if you’re not the one being tested to rule?”
“We’re all being tested to rule,” I told him, confused. “Everybody who joins looks to us as the leaders.”
A revelation that still made me immensely uncomfortable.
“I thought this before,” Bash confessed, pivoting on his heel to face me. “During my trial, I had to save you, remember?”
“Nooo. Not at all,” I drawled sarcastically.
He ignored me. “I could choose to hurt you, use my magic, and rescue you quickly. But I chose to do it by hand instead.”
“I was there, if you don’t recall.” Subconsciously, I rubbed at my wrist, where I swore I could still feel phantom pain reverberating down the length of my arms.
“And with Jax, he was driven by bloodlust and had to choose whether his love for you was stronger than his need for blood.”
“Okay?” I arched a brow, wondering where he was going with this.
“And Killian had to choose whether or not he would cheat on you with a beautiful woman.”
My right eye began to twitch. “Are you trying to make me stabby?”
“Look…what I’m trying to say is…” He expelled a harsh breath and took a step closer to me. “What if these trials aren’t designed to see if we’re fit rulers? What if they’re designed to see if we’re fit…mates?”
I stared at him in disbelief, even as a flurry of goose bumps skittered across my skin.
“ What ?”
“Think about it, Z. You’re not being tested. We are. And our tests always revolve around you. What if Lilith is creating these trials to see if we’re good enough to be your mates? To rule beside you?”
His earnest eyes held mine captive. I couldn’t look away.
His words made sense in a strange, demented way.
But I didn’t want to believe it.
What would be the point?
It wasn’t as if my so-called “mother” gave a shit about me. Why would she want to test my mates?
Something dark and insidious clawed at my insides. I tried to put a name to the emotion sinking its talons into me but couldn’t come up with one.
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
But it was true, wasn’t it? I’d never actually been tested. I was just a pawn in all of the previous trials.
Did that mean I wasn’t meant to rule? I should’ve felt relief over the prospect, but instead, the weight in my chest grew heavier, making it hard to breathe.
Bash gave my shoulders one last squeeze before releasing me, spinning me around, and slapping my butt. I gave him a mock-offended look over my shoulder, but he simply smiled cheekily—a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Go find Devlin. See what happened.”
Without another word, I hurried out of the tent.
Where, oh where, would I find a genie who wanted to be left alone?
It didn’t take me too long.
When I concluded Devlin wasn’t in the camp, I hurried into the forest. Devlin wouldn’t be too far—he knew how dangerous it was out there—but he would want to be away from the hustle and bustle of the camp.
Darkness had just begun to blanket the world when I spotted a familiar shock of brown, curly hair.
Devlin stood with his back to me at the very edge of the stream. He looked out of place in the forest, like some primordial being had plucked him out of a business meeting and into a landscape he couldn’t hope to survive in. He wasn’t wearing his suit—I wasn’t sure he had any with him—but his clothes were much nicer than any I’d seen here so far. His white dress shirt clung to skin and looked striking against his olive complexion.
“How did I know you would find me?” Devlin didn’t turn around to look at me.
“Because you know I’m a nosy bitch.” I hurried forward and jumped on a rock beside him, keeping my attention riveted on the guzzling water.
We were now the exact same height. The tendons strained in his neck, the tension radiating in his shoulders, the power hammering off of him in an almost malevolent wave. There was something…unsettling about Devlin. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
Maybe it was the fact that I’d never seen him so tense before, like he was a rubber band pulled taut, just waiting to be released on the world.
Even still, standing beside him brought about a familiar sense of warmth and tranquility, though trepidation quickly eclipsed it. Something had happened. Something bad.
“Devlin—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He ground his teeth together.
“You completed your trial, didn’t you?” I phrased it as a question, but I knew it wasn’t.
“Lilith is one fucked-up bitch,” Devlin whispered hoarsely. His gaze flicked to me before he refocused on the stream once more. “You weren’t… You weren’t there, were you?”
“No.” I shook my head solemnly. “Bash seems to believe that we were wrong about the trials. That Lilith is testing you guys more than me. That I’m just a pawn.”
“That would make sense,” Devlin agreed, and then silence settled between us once more.
It wasn’t the uncomfortable kind, despite the tension. I didn’t think I could ever feel that way around Devlin.
For the longest time, I didn’t think he was going to speak. And I would be okay with that. He was allowed to have his secrets. I trusted him.
“She showed me what life would’ve been like if I’d never left you,” he whispered. His voice was so low, I had to strain to hear him. “We had a life together, Z. A house. A family.” He squeezed his eyelids shut. “We had a kid.”
His words stabbed at my brain like a flaming blade.
I sucked in a sharp gasp but didn’t dare interrupt. I had a thousand questions, but I knew I couldn’t voice them yet. This wasn’t about me, after all.
“I had to leave my own goddamn kid behind,” he rasped out. He whirled on me, his eyes blackened and flashing with fury. “My own goddamn kid.”
“Devlin.” His pain pried a piece of my soul apart.
So when he collapsed into me, I held him, creating soothing circles on his back with my hand. He sobbed in my embrace, and my own tears wetted my cheeks.
Grief sank its teeth into me, though I didn’t know why. Logically, I knew that nothing Devlin had seen was true. Yet…
That didn’t stop the pain.
I held Devlin long into the night, as the stars trickled out one at a time, blinking into existence, and the moon hovered at the edge of my periphery. I held him even when Ryland came to check on us, his features grave. I held him when we walked back to camp and settled in our tent, where my other mates waited for us.
All I could do was hold him…and pray that it would be enough.