Chapter 20 #2
“Do I hate him?” He mused, leaning in the doorway as he absently pushed up his sleeves, revealing corded forearms. “I used to love him like a brother. But there’s something you should know about Fieran.”
“I’m listening.”
“Ah, but will you hear me?” His lips quirked, as if he expected to be ignored. “He’s a manipulative, cunning, charming shit. Don’t forget it for a moment. Don’t be blinded by the people around you, Cara. Because they’ll make you think you should love him too.”
“No chance of that.”
His answering look was distinctly skeptical. But he decided to move on. “Whatever the dragon prince plans for you, I doubt very much that you’ll like being his pawn. Well, you might enjoy it for a while, but in the end, he will make you suffer for his plots.”
Fieran did seem to fancy himself a prince. Or more likely, a king.
“Wait here,” he told me, swinging open the door.
Clearly, he expected to be obeyed. I wasn’t sure just how different he and Fieran truly were in the end. Ander seemed to wear command and power with just as much deceptive ease.
Ander returned a moment later with a bracelet of amber beads, which he held out toward me. “Break a bead if you need to talk to me. If you need help with your brother. If you’re in trouble. Anything.”
I took it from him reluctantly, feeling as if I were making a mistake, but also that it would be a mistake to reject him. I needed allies. “Thank you.”
The beaded bracelet was heavier in my fingers than I’d expected. I rolled the beads between my thumb and forefinger, feeling faint patterning. They were etched with some kind of spell. “It doesn’t matter that I don’t have magic? It’ll still work?”
The relics the Fae handed to mortals for their use worked one way, but I’d heard the Fae and the shifters had different relics to suit their magic.
“Who says you don’t have magic, Cara? None of us know what you are. Least of all you.”
Well, that was a comforting speech. I felt more off balance than I did when I walked in, and I tucked the amber bracelet into my pocket, not daring to wear it openly.
He moved past me to the doorway. “Tell Fieran I pulled you in here to talk and you felt like you had no choice. Tell him I called him an untrustworthy bastard. I’d say it to his face too.”
I stumbled over that imagined confrontation. “If Fieran finds out…”
“It’s Fieran. He’ll find out.” He opened the door, leaned against the side of it. “Be careful. Fieran will keep you safe until he’s used you, so I’m not worried about your life. But your heart is another story.”
“I’m not going to fall in love with the man who has ruined my life, tore my sister’s magic away, and held my brother hostage.” I wanted to ask him if he thought mortals were that stupid, but given how most of us groveled before the Fae, we clearly were. “Goodnight, Ander.”
He tilted his head slightly, his lips pursing as if he were holding back his amusement at my denial. “Good luck, Cara.”
I climbed that last damned set of stairs, my thighs burning. Just a few more steps, just make it through two doorways, and I could have some peace and quiet to try to unravel my complicated thoughts.
In the common room, Fieran leaned back comfortably in one of the chairs, one booted foot crossed over his knee. I stuttered to a stop. He looked relaxed, but I had the feeling Fieran always had a carefully maintained countenance.
As his golden eyes met mine, my pulse skittered like prey that just locked eyes with a predator. He offered me a faint smile that was utterly unsoothing. “Glad you made it. I worried you were lost on your way back from dinner.”
“Maybe someone was confused and forced me to clean up after them,” I said lightly, hoping to distract him.
“You don’t need to be stubborn. If you sit at our table, everyone will assume you are a mortal servant, but no one will toy with you. That subterfuge would keep you from drawing attention as a mortal recruit or…” His lips tightened. “Irritating me as I watch people treat you like a servant.”
“I’m not a member of your clan. I don’t have any right to sit by your side. And servants don’t dine at your tables.”
His frown deepened, and I knew I’d hit true. There were rules that governed this place, and Fieran might try to bend them, but he wasn’t king. I’d be protected…by everyone’s assumption that I was his little fuck-pet.
I’d rather play the servant.
“It’s my table. No one will say a word about my choice to have you present.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to be my only friend,” I shot back, and then immediately regretted the use of the word friend.
I headed across the room, Ander’s bracelet feeling as if it weighed down my pocket.
“I’m going to my servants’ quarters. So stop pretending everyone else treats me as beneath them, but you’re the exception. ”
He scoffed. “I’ve never treated you as less-than. I see your potential.”
I stopped in the doorway to my room. “Is that so? Then why did you force me here, Fieran? Shouldn’t my potential have brought me here?”
He rubbed his hand across his jaw, covered in dark stubble. “I couldn’t risk you choosing wrong.”
I knew he wouldn’t tell me, I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I still burst out, “Why?”
“Shifters have to present themselves for the Trials. Or burn. That’s the curse.”
“So? Whether I went up in flames in the ruins of my village hardly matters to anyone who doesn’t share my last name. Tell me what you really want.”
He rose to his feet and advanced toward me. I took a step back into my room to put some distance between us; I didn’t want to be too close to his arrogant, handsome face.
“I don’t know what I want from you yet,” he told me. “Because I’m not sure what you’re capable of. And you know even less than I do.”
“Is that so?” I sounded snarky, but I was still backing up to avoid him.
“It is. Stay in your room.” He set his hand on the doorknob as if he were going to close the door between us and lock me in.
I bristled. “Am I trapped here?”
“Do you need to be?” He studied me, and his evident amusement at my anger was exasperating. “You know what, I can tell from your face that you need to be.”
I scoffed but felt a real rush of panic at the thought of being trapped, and I brushed past him back into the common room. He twisted so I could pass without touching him, raising his hands sardonically.
The dark rug under the table rose and suddenly I realized it was a dog. An enormous dog.
I let out a yelp as the dog shot out toward me.
Fieran whistled.
The dog almost reached me, lips back and snarling. But hearing Fieran’s whistle, the dog came to a stop. He cocked his head to one side, looking between me and Fieran with big, adorable eyes that I could notice now that I wasn’t so focused on his big teeth.
I’d taken a step behind Fieran, and he turned, giving me a grin. “Sure, use me as a shield. I don’t mind.”
“What is that?”
“This is Rees.” To the dog, he said, “Rees, this is our sneaky new mortal roommate.”
“I’m not sneaky,” I said.
“Mm.” He leaned against the wall, absently petting his dog, who raised his head under his hand. “Now you know why I told you to stay in your room.”
“Is your dog going to kill me if I step out of my room again?”
“It depends on if Rees thinks we’re friends.”
“Well then. I’ll be in my room for the foreseeable future.” I turned to head back.
“Goodnight, Cara. Sleep well. Tomorrow, we have work to do before you begin the Trials.” When I didn’t turn, he added, “And tomorrow your brother arrives. You could visit him when you’re done training.”
His words and their implications prickled on my skin. The bastard, reminding me what was at stake, suggesting that I could see my brother only once I pleased him.
I turned. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“Well, Cara. I’m going to be training you for the Trials. Preparing you to stay alive. Guiding you through them. So trust me or don’t, I don’t give a fuck. I’ll make sure you survive anyway.”
He gave me a sunny smile. “But if you manage to trust me, you’re going to sleep better.”
The dog growled faintly at his side. I was not impressing Rees.
I wasn’t asking him any more questions and listening to any more glib answers. Not tonight, when I already had to sort quite a pile of lies and half-truths and cursed realities. “Thanks for looking after Tay.”
His cocky attitude seemed to soften. “Of course.”
I closed the door between us. Then I leaned against the cool wood, trying to catch my breath.
My cheeks were embarrassingly hot. I was afraid of the dog, humiliated by my fear, unsettled by the way he genuinely seemed to soften at my gratitude, worried I was foolish to trust any expression that crossed his lying lips.
He was right about one thing.
I couldn’t sleep that night.