Chapter 31
Talon
I hurried through the corridors of the Divine Residence toward the High Priestess’s private garden, my shadow writhing beneath my skin, jerking and twisting.
Leaving Sage alone with those suitors hadn’t been the plan, but refusing a direct command from the High Priestess wasn’t an option. Not if I wanted to keep breathing.
When we’d first entered the throne room, I’d given Sage a look, tried to reassure her with it, but I hadn’t known what the High Priestess wanted and I didn’t want Sage to not be on guard.
Except from Sage’s confused and hurt expression, I hadn’t accomplished anything with that look. And while I’d really wanted to stay by her side, I knew that would have drawn more attention to her, something I wanted to avoid at all costs.
It was bad enough I’d been so distracted by having sex with her that I didn’t think about standing back when we’d arrived at the throne room doors.
That would have been the smart thing to do.
My shadow heaved with fury and frustration, intensifying my own feelings of inadequacy. What a fucking mess. I’d wanted to reassure her, but I also wanted to keep her at a distance. If I didn’t figure my shit out, she was only going to get more confused and hurt, and she didn’t deserve that.
Up until a few moments ago when I’d broken down and fucked her in that alcove, everything had been going to plan. I’d been overly flirtatious and she’d reacted exactly as I’d expected with hesitation and wariness. She hadn’t wanted me and certainly didn’t trust me.
But tonight, she’d been desperate and she hadn’t been able to hide it. Hell, even the slightly too-wide-eyed look from West had confirmed something was wrong, and I hadn’t been able to let her face the High Priestess like that.
Except helping her, seeing her that vulnerable with someone she wasn’t sure she trusted, twisted my insides. She was sweet and shy, the kind of woman Quill would love with his whole heart, the kind of woman I’d wanted to protect before I’d become infected with my shadow.
But I couldn’t. Not now, not ever. And it had torn me to shreds to see the pain in her expression when she realized I couldn’t give her the emotional support she needed.
All I was good for was a good fuck. And if her mating marks hadn’t been put to sleep I wouldn’t have even been good for that.
As it was, Her Brilliance had been pleased when I’d arrived with Sage.
Sure, the High Priestess had acted as if she were pleasantly surprised, but she’d made her pleasure quite clear after she’d dismissed Sage to face what I was sure the shy woman thought of as a gauntlet of men.
The whole “interview” after Sage had left had been a drama staged for her courtiers, but I couldn’t figure out to what end.
She’d been angry Rider and Quill hadn’t obeyed her command to focus on the Black Guard and had been attending to Sage in her suite — and I wasn’t sure if she’d gotten that information from West or not.
She’d also played up my accompanying Sage, implying that I was finally interested in mating, giving no indication — of course — that she’d ordered me to court the new redhaired arrival.
That news would go through court like wildfire, and I had no doubt Sage would soon face the ire of the other women still looking for their mates.
And I still hadn’t found a way out of the High Priestess’s command to mate her. I’d hunted for a loophole, a weakness in her wording, a plan that would get me out of forming a bond, but the best I had was to ensure Sage didn’t like me and we never bonded.
Except that solution, in the eyes of Her Brilliance, would look like failure, and I feared I wasn’t useful enough to survive her disappointment.
My shadow twisted and jerked, desperate to escape the High Priestess’s trap as I was, desperate to protect her from that horrible woman’s machinations.
I reached the archway leading to the High Priestess’s private garden. Inside were nine men, some standing, some pacing, some sitting, all displaying frustrated, angry body language. But no West and no Sage.
I pulled back into the corridor, out of sight. Where the hell were they?
“—barely said anything. Just sat there,” one of the men huffed.
“She was too quiet,” another voice cut in. “I want a woman who’ll actually talk to me, not one who looks ready to run.”
“She wasn’t just quiet,” a third man said. “She was shaking. Pale. Could barely catch her breath. She was nervous.”
“I thought she might faint,” someone else added.
“Nervous?” Someone else barked a hard laugh. “I don’t have time for a woman who can’t handle a simple conversation.”
“She was attacked a few days ago,” another voice replied, quieter than the others. “In the Sacred Grove. Give her some time.”
“Attacked or not, she could’ve at least tried,” the insulted voice shot back. “We’re here because Her Brilliance invited us. The least she could do is make an effort.”
“Right. We were hand chosen by Her Brilliance.” That voice was tight and angry. “We deserve respect.”
“Especially from that knight,” another voice huffed. “He just grabbed her and ran. Didn’t even listen to us.”
“He can’t just ignore us like that!”
“Apparently he can,” the quiet voice said. “He was assigned to protect her.”
“But from us?”
A pause, then someone sighed
“I’m done. She’s not worth the effort.”
“Her Brilliance seems to think she is.”
“Which is the only reason I’m still interested,” another replied. “If the High Priestess wants her matched, there must be something valuable about her.”
My shadow heaved at that, swirling and sharp inside me.
What a bunch of idiots. Women were rare.
They should have been bending over backwards to figure Sage out and give her what she needed.
But half of them were insulted she hadn’t played the typical female flirtatious games for them, and the other half were only interested because the High Priestess was.
Sage had been attacked in the Sacred Grove. And instead of letting her recover in her own time, the High Priestess had thrown her into a room full of strangers.
Shaking, pale, and couldn’t breathe was more than just nerves.
I’d seen her nervous. Hell, she was always nervous with me, but not to the point of fainting.
That was panic, and clearly West had thought the same if he’d pulled her out of there.
He knew as well as everyone else that the High Priestess wanted Sage mated, and he wasn’t a man who overreacted.
Something had happened, and I needed to figure out what.
I pushed off the wall and hurried back through the corridors of the Divine Residence and up the stairs to the guest suites, my shadow’s anger bleeding black across my vision.
If West had carried Sage out of that garden, he’d have taken her back to the suite.
That was the most secure place for her in the Divine Residence.
I knocked on the suite door and waited.
Was she even all right? West wouldn’t have let her get hurt, but that didn’t mean something hadn’t happened. Something had rattled her enough to make her leave that garden in West’s arms.
Heavy footsteps approached, then the door cracked open.
My shadow wrenched tight, suddenly becoming as small as possible, and my vision cleared. West filled the doorway, his sapphire eyes hard, the muscles in his jaw tight, and his posture giving no indication that he was going to let me in.
“I know something happened,” I said, keeping my voice low so no one could overhear us.
West’s eyes narrowed, clearly considering if he should let me in or not, then he stepped back and opened the door wider.
I stepped past him into the suite, and he closed the door behind me with a soft click, the lock sliding into place.
My gaze jumped to Sage who stood close to the hearth, the fire stoked and blazing.
She shivered as if she couldn’t get warm, her complexion pale, and her arms wrapped tight around herself.
My shadow twisted tighter, furious and desperate to not reveal itself. What the hell had happened?
Whatever it was, it hadn’t been nerves. She was terrified.
“What happened?” I asked.
My first instinct was to charm away that fear.
A few flirtatious comments, maybe tease her into forgetting whatever had upset her.
It worked with most women. But I already knew Sage wasn’t like most women.
And after having sex with her in the alcove, seeing her vulnerable and desperate, she’d probably think I was an insensitive asshole or panic further, and I didn’t want either.
“Nothing.” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “It was nothing.”
Yeah, that was the posture of someone who believed it was nothing. Just more proof that Sage wasn’t like most women. If she were, she’d have told me exactly what the problem was and demanded I fix it… although perhaps a typical woman wouldn’t have been upset in the first place.
Except Sage wasn’t just upset. She was scared.
And both my shadow and I needed to know why.
But she wasn’t going to tell me. I’d screwed that up with my plan to flirt with her and make her wary of me. Now she didn’t trust me and I was the only one here who could help.
And I needed to help.
Goddess, how did I convince her? She trusted me enough to ease her desire spike, maybe it was in how I phrased it.
“If you can’t tell me, then tell West. I’ll leave if you want me to.”
Her gaze lifted, met mine, and held it. Like she was weighing my words, deciding if I meant them or if this was just another game.
The fire crackled loudly in the silence, a log shifting and sending sparks up the chimney.
West still stood by the door, arms crossed, his face carved from stone.
Then something shifted in Sage’s expression.
Not quite surrender. More like… resigned acceptance, and she drew in a breath.
“I thought I saw Crane.”
“Crane?”
Blinding rage roared through me, my shadow’s overwhelming fury that she hadn’t been safe, stealing my breath, and sending fear freezing through my veins that it was going to reveal itself to her.
Shadow shit. I was going to lose control. I had to stop reacting and start thinking.
But the core of its essence coiled even tighter, its anger still bleeding through, but its writhing smoke fully contained.
“You saw Crane?” I forced out, my voice dark and raw.
I thought he’d be smart, leave the fae realm and avoid the Garden. The Order of the Sacred Grove was searching for him so why would he risk sneaking into the High Priestess’s private garden?
If Sage had seen him then he’d gotten close, too close.
The edges of the High Priestess’s private garden fell into deep shadows at night, but that garden wasn’t that large.
That was a serious risk he’d taken which meant he had more plans for Sage or whoever was the mastermind behind her attack wasn’t finished with her — because neither of us had ruled out someone else above Crane being responsible for targeting Sage.
“But I don’t know if he was really there or if I just…” Her voice dropped lower. “Or if I just…” She looked away, her jaw tight. Like she thought I wouldn’t believe her. Like admitting she might have been wrong was somehow worse than staying quiet.
I turned to West. “Did you see him?”
“No.”
Sage shrank in on herself, her arms tightening around her body as her gaze dropped back to the floor.
Did she think she’d imagined him? That her fear had played tricks on her? And now she was convincing herself she was wrong, that she hadn’t seen him.
It didn’t matter if she had or not. The safest assumption for her, was that Crane had been there.
“Just because West didn’t see him, doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.” I glanced at West. “The garden was crowded, right? You couldn’t see everyone?”
West’s gaze shifted to Sage. “The garden was crowded.”
I raised my eyebrows at him, willing him to not be an asshole and reassure her that we didn’t think she was crazy and we believed her.
“There were shadows near the other entrance,” he said, his voice gruff.
She pursed her lips, but I couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep in words or tears or both. It was as if she couldn’t bring herself to trust that West or I would believe her.
Which only made me wonder more who she was and where she came from.
“And I believe you. I believe you saw him and we should take precautions,” I said.
“Agreed,” West grunted.
“Except I can’t just hide in my suite.” A stray tear broke loose, trailing down her cheek, and she furiously brushed it away with the back of her hand. “The High Priestess won’t let me.”
She wasn’t wrong. The High Priestess wanted to see Sage mated, whether for the good of the fae, Sage, or just to entertain herself. She would parade Sage in front of those men again and she wouldn’t be able to say no.
My shadow’s rage turned frigid, chilling my insides so deeply I feared the next time I breathed out everyone would be able to see my breath.
“I’m going to have to figure out a way to see Her Brilliance’s suitors without being surrounded.” She drew in a breath, her shoulders relaxing a bit. “I don’t want so many of them in the room at once. And I don’t want them to touch me.”
Pride warmed through some of my shadow’s fury. She knew she couldn’t refuse the High Priestess out right, but she might be able to control the situation.
Except even if she controlled when, where, and how, it still didn’t completely protect her. Not if Crane was still skulking around.