Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
The words echoed in the air and through Luka’s body, reverberating in his soul. Shane knew. Shane had known all this time. Rayan didn’t leave the guards because he wanted to feel closer to his father, or even to quietly investigate something. He hadn’t left the guards at all.
Luka’s beast surged within him with a roar of fury.
Scales settled over his skin in a sheet of solid armor, and his hands trembled with the effort it took to force his battle rage back.
Bloodlust whispered in his ear, but he held it in check.
Just. He could not attack his prince, and—more importantly—he would never risk Izzy.
He strode forward to stand in front of Shane.
His vision sharpened into almost painful clarity as his beast found its prey.
Awareness flooded through him—of Shane, of the room.
Light glistened through crystal. The scent of oatcake and honey mingled with weapon oil.
Izzy’s heartbeat thudded loudly—and in the periphery of his vision, he saw Cori flinch.
And that was when he realized the full depth of the deception.
“You all knew!” His words sounded mangled.
Half human, half beast, entirely filled with betrayal and rage.
A soft gasp behind him had him spinning back to Izzy. Her face was ashen, and her hand had flown up to her throat, where gleaming sapphire scales formed a solid collar, protecting her. “You all knew,” she echoed, sounding as devastated as he felt.
“I’m sorry, Izzy.” Cori pushed forward. “I wanted to tell you. I always thought you should know. You too, Luka.”
Izzy flinched back from her friend, and Cori’s arm fell to her side as she threw a venomous glare across the room at Shane. God of Chaos. Luka was watching everything he knew unraveling.
Go to Izzy! She needs us!
He couldn’t. He’d forced space between them. He wanted her to go home, especially now!
Izzy took a small step back, away from everyone. Away from him. It was what he wanted. And yet, he hated it. He was more alone than on the day his grandfather dropped him at the castle door and walked away.
I’ll fix this. I’ll go to Izzy. His beast rustled its wings, testing the boundaries, pushing to shift. And he held it back with a grinding, shuddering effort.
Shane stood slowly, looking more tired than Luka had ever seen him, and stepped toward Izzy.
Luka’s beast didn’t care that Shane was distressed. He took a meaningful step forward, moving between Shane and Izzy, watching Shane through hooded eyes. His beast roiled beneath his skin, ready for any sign of a threat. There was no question who he would stand beside if it came to it.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Shane held up his hands. “I’m not going to hurt her! You know that!”
“How can I know that?” Luka roared. “You did hurt her. You’re hurting her now!”
Shane drew his shoulders back, and Luka knew the next words out of his mouth were going to be both arrogant and infuriating.
The prince had never been good at apologies or conceding.
If there was one thing King Soshan taught his son before he died, it was to always attack first. Shane would come out swinging.
Luka’s beast rippled through him, ready. It wanted Shane to say something hostile so that it could shove the words back into his mouth with a fist full of claws, whether he was the prince or not.
But Luka still had control, and he couldn’t let this spiral. “Don’t say it,” he hissed.
Izzy stepped up to his side, and his beast swung all its focus onto her. Pick her up and fly her to the mountain, his beast suggested. Before this gets worse.
Izzy didn’t even look at him. She focused on Shane. “I want to know everything. Right now.”
“There isn’t much to tell—” Cori started, but Izabel cut her off with a frown.
“Not from you.” She tipped her head toward Shane. “From him.”
Cori blanched, but she didn’t argue as Shane lowered himself back into his chair and rested his hands on the desk, fingers splayed. “There honestly isn’t—”
“Stop lying to me.” Izzy stalked forward, cutting him off with a growl. Luka’s beast nearly lost its mind as she neared what it saw as the greatest danger in the room.
Shane leaned forward. “There isn’t much to tell.
We thought there was a smuggling ring working from within the physik’s team.
We didn’t know what they were carrying. It could be anything—mead, whiskey, dried skeleton-fig leaves for smoking, possibly weapons…
anything. But trouble seemed to follow the border health checks.
People died in suspicious circumstances.
Others got rich. There were some strange deaths here in the city too.
” He let out a tired sigh. “Rayan joined the team to investigate, but he never found anything. Since then, Cori, Aiden, and Kai have been investigating at the border. But it’s been completely quiet.
No more deaths. No more sudden wealth thrown around.
It’s like they shut down completely after Rayan died. ”
Izabel shook her head. “That’s not true though, is it? Rayan told you something. You knew he went to the clinic in Naos.”
“He told me he was going there, not what he’d found, and we tore that place apart!
I personally watched the physiks team for months.
I spent hours in the clinic for nothing.
I realized that whatever it was must have come from the city.
Captain Lydia’s been looking into it for months, but there’s nothing there either,” Shane argued.
“Why not just tell us the truth? Why play this whole game?” Luka demanded.
“Because then Shane would have had to admit that there was an investigation,” Izzy replied. “He would have had to explain that he was the one who sent Rayan to spy on the physiks. He would have to look us in our eyes and tell us he sent Rayan to his death.”
Shane’s jaw clenched—one tiny flicker of movement—but it was enough.
Luka knew she was right. Izzy’s words sank through him like a rusty dagger thrown into a well, scraping and rattling all the way down.
It made complete sense. God of Chaos. He’d trusted Shane.
His prince. His friend. Or so he’d thought. But he’d been wrong about everything.
Shane decided to run an investigation behind his back, and Rayan died because of it.
Cori, Aiden, and Kai knew all along. They were all working against Luka, cutting him out, making decisions about his life without speaking to him.
Making him vulnerable. “Why would you do this?” His voice had dropped to a wounded rasp, and he hated it.
“We wanted to investigate it quietly,” Shane admitted. “We couldn’t have castle guards rattling cages in the castle or the city. It would have been immediately obvious and risked the whole operation shutting down and moving, which is exactly what they did do.”
“No,” Luka growled. “I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”
Shane cleared his throat, eyes shifting away.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before, Shane?” Luka asked again.
“Rayan asked me not to. He wanted you out of it.”
“I’m the commander of the guard! That doesn’t make any sense!”
Shane growled back. “You report to me. As did he.”
Blood roared in Luka’s ears. “And when he died, even then, you couldn’t have told me the truth?”
“You would have gone after them, and I needed you here, focused on protecting the castle.” Shane’s jaw clenched. “Rayan died for this. He died for me. The least I could do was honor his last wish.”
Izzy’s words came back to him, her suspicion that Rayan had wanted them both kept out of it. Her hinted idea that Rayan thought Luka was close to choosing her. That Rayan had expected them to be together. Gods.
He glared at Shane. “Is this why you’ve pushed me at Izabel? So I could play nursemaid like Rayan wanted?”
Play nursemaid? What stupidity is this? Holy God of Chaos. Are you mad? Izzy can hear you!
His beast flung itself at his mind, his skin, his belly, trying to break free.
But he wasn’t listening. This wasn’t about his feelings for Izzy; he would have given anything to be with her.
It was about trust. It was about having decisions made for him like he was a child.
And not one of the people he trusted had even bothered to tell him.
In his heart, he was still standing alone, clutching a battered trunk.
They didn’t tell her either, his beast snapped, but it was too late.
“Nursemaid?” Izzy repeated quietly, breaking through the rage screaming in his head, and he spun to meet her stricken gaze.
For the first time, his beast’s warning penetrated, and his chest ached. “That’s not what I meant. I was talking about Shane, not you.”
Izzy nodded slowly. The scales on her throat glittered as she took a shaky breath and then looked meaningfully at each of them, finishing with Luka. “Fuck you all,” she said quietly, and then she turned and walked away.
Gods. No. This is wrong! Stop her!
Luka turned to follow, already striding toward the door, when Cori flung herself in front of him and grabbed his arm. “How dare you? Haven’t you hurt her enough?”
He had, so many times, but he could fix this. He would fix it. But first, he had to reach Izzy. It took every last remaining fragment of his self-control not to throw Cori off him. “Get out of my way!”
Shane stood, his chair scraping roughly on the stone. “Cori, stand back. His beast will lose it if he doesn’t go to her.”
“No. I won’t let him—”
“Cori!” Shane spat. “That was an order!”
Cori lifted her hand, two fingers up in the air, bent at the knuckles. The broken sword. The rudest insult a soldier could give.
“Please, Cori,” Luka pleaded, ignoring Shane.
They stayed locked together, both their beasts roaring and spitting until Cori slowly stepped back, whispering, “Don’t hurt her again.”
Luka pulled his arm back, flung open the door, and strode into the corridor. But he was too late. Izzy was gone.