Chapter 9 | Anna
I crossed the grass back toward the manor, leaving the Fae behind. I’d hoped he would put my mind at ease, but he didn’t. In fact, I felt more out of sorts than I did before I talked to him.
Should have stayed put.
And imagining telling Kincade to talk to Killian was laughable. Like he’d ever listen to the Fae king about anything strategic.
Though, now that I thought about it, they were likely close to the same age.
Which was hilarious.
At least the wards around the manor were still intact.
As far as I could tell.
Back inside the manor, I paused in the foyer and listened.
There was the normal hum of activity. Voices floating from upstairs.
My mother and Grace. And then in the kitchen, a clank of dishes.
Piers was off doing whatever it was he did when he wasn’t needed.
Kincade was nowhere to be found. Typical.
And Ophelia? Where was she?
She’d looked like she had something on her mind during breakfast.
I charged up the stairs, but her room was vacant. Still messy, though. Girl could use a maid. Perhaps it was her yoga time. I interrupted her yesterday. I’d go for a repeat today.
Through the kitchen—there was something simmering in a pot on the stove that smelled like heaven—and out the side door.
I halted.
The damp grass toward the back of the manor was smashed like someone had walked through it.
Perhaps Natasha checking on her garden. I blew it off and headed for the workout room.
Sure enough, there was Ophelia doing Downward Facing Dog.
“I wondered when I’d see you,” she said, like she expected me.
“Are you psychic now?” I asked.
“You stomp around when you’re anxious,” she said. She shifted to Mountain with the fluid grace of a cat.
“Do not.”
“You do,” she countered. She held Mountain for a long moment, then said, “You went to see Killian.”
“How did you know that?”
“I saw you cross the front lawn. Seemed obvious.” She moved into Chair Pose. “What’d he tell you?”
“Nothing useful.” I frowned.
“You mean nothing useful to you,” she countered.
How did she know? “He said the wards are fancy warning signs.”
“His wards,” she said. “He’s not wrong.” She moved back into Mountain, not meeting my gaze.
“You know something,” I said. It was a shot in the dark, but I took it.
She did a Standing Forward Bend. I figured so she wouldn’t have to look at me. “I’m Jon Snow. I know nothing.” Her voice was muffled against her knees.
“Ophelia—”
“Okay, yes. I know something.”
She said nothing for a long moment. I huffed.
“Well, what is it?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice yet.”
“Yet? You kept eyeballing me at breakfast,” I said.
“I know. I couldn’t help myself. Grace said he brought you coffee.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I think it’s sweet,” she said, ignoring me. Then she moved into Runner’s Lunge.
“There is nothing sweet about Kincade,” I snapped. Although, last night—
“Uh, huh.”
“Are you going to tell me or not?” There was an edge to my voice I didn’t recognize.
Because she was needling me about Kincade or because I knew she had some intel she didn’t want to share.
It was both.
She moved into Side Angle Pose and met my gaze. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Where’s Silas?” I blurted.
Her face blanched. For a moment, she didn’t answer.
“You know, don’t you?” I pressed.
“He left,” she said, refusing to look at me.
“Let me guess. Kincade knew,” I said.
“He did. Silas came looking for him when he was in here yesterday.”
And she was here, too. A coldness slid into my gut. “They decided. Together.”
“They decided to act first,” she corrected. “Which is on brand for them.”
My hands clenched. Anger sparked. I paced. “When did he leave?”
“Last night,” she said. She moved into Low Plank. “Around dusk.”
I stopped and looked back at her. “Is Silas in danger?”
Ophelia hesitated a fraction.
“Yes,” she said honestly. “But he volunteered.”
That didn’t help. At all. My chest constricted like something had wrapped tight around my ribs.
I blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand down my face. “So that’s it. They go to war, and I pretend to reinforce wards and drink coffee?”
“No,” she said firmly. “That’s not it.”
I looked at her as she lifted to Upward Facing Dog.
“You’re not the one being left behind,” Ophelia said. “You’re the reason they’re moving.”
That should have been comforting.
It wasn’t.
I went looking for him immediately. I didn’t find him inside.
That should have been my first clue.
I crossed the back lawn, my boots damp with dew, the manor rising behind me like a false promise of safety. The wards shimmered faintly at the edges of my vision. There if you knew how to look, invisible if you didn’t.
He stood near the tree line.
One hand braced on a tree. The other on the hilt of the knife at his waist. Standing there.
Watching the perimeter. Like a man on guard.
He didn’t turn when I approached but I knew—knew—he sensed I was there. He always did.
His sightline was up the edge of the forest. Which meant he saw me walk through it to talk to Killian.
I didn’t greet him with a hello or calling his name. When I closed the gap between us, I said, “You sent Silas away.”
He looked at me then, the sun catching in his eyes and making the color change from gold to green. Sometimes warm like honey. Other times a cold muted green. Those were the times I avoided him like the plague.
They were muted green today.
And I was about to pick a fight.
“Yes.” Flat. Honest.
Anger flared, cutting through the dread that dogged me all morning. “Without telling me.”
“I don’t need permission.” His expression was closed, guarded. Wrath, tightly leashed.
I sucked in a breath, sharp. “Permission?” The word leaked out on a heated hiss. “You let me sleep next to you, drink coffee you brought me, and then walk out the door thinking everything was fine.”
His hand flexed on the knife hilt. Not drawing it. Never that. Grounding himself.
“Everything is not fine,” he said.
“I know that,” I snapped. “That’s why we talk. That’s why we plan. Together.”
His gaze cut back to the forest. “Silas volunteered.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is,” he said. Final. “He understood the risks.”
“And I didn’t?” I stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him. “Or did you decide for me again?”
That got his attention.
He turned then, shoulders squared, presence snapping into place like a shield raised between me and the world. For a moment, I wanted to flinch. Step back. But I held my ground. This was like our old arguments, with tension so thick between us you could cut it with a knife.
The difference from then to now was he looked more lethal, more deadly, more… everything. Like something switched on inside him.
“I decided they wouldn’t get to you,” he said.
He decided. Without me. The words landed heavy. Dangerous.
“You don’t get to make that call,” I said. My voice was shaking now, and I hated that. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle.”
“I get to decide what I will allow,” he shot back.
There was the line.
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “You sound like them.”
That did it. I’d crossed it. I said them anyway.
For one long moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. When he stepped toward me, stopping short of touching, something in his eyes had gone cold and ancient—the part of him that had been forged in the Brotherhood’s fires.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Then stop acting like the Brotherhood with better intentions,” I said. “Because that’s what this is. You taking control because you’re scared.”
His voice went dangerously soft. “I’m not scared.”
“Lie.”
That one word slashed, razor sharp, between us. For once, it wasn’t him saying it to me.
Silence crashed between us.
When he spoke again, his voice was low. Restrained. Careful.
“I’ve already lost you once,” he said. “I will not let it happen again.”
My chest ached at the raw truth of it. The mountain rose up between us once again.
“I didn’t die to be protected,” I said. My hands curled into fists. “I died because I chose to.”
His eyes burned. “And that choice nearly destroyed everyone who loved you.”
Everyone. Including him. Though he’d never say it outright.
We stood there, the forest watching, the wards humming, the world narrowing to the space between us.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us won.
Neither of us would back down.
Both stubborn as the day is long. And that might end us.
I huffed out a breath, spun, and left him standing there guarding a war I hadn’t agreed to.