Chapter 23 #3
His nose flared, his glance darting to my fingers wrapped around Warwick’s arm, Farkas’s hand absently rubbing my leg. Caden’s head wagged before he shot up and strode away, heading into the darkness, his energy grim and fuming.
Automatically I started to rise; the urge to run after him was instinctual.
“No.” Warwick’s hand clamped down on my thigh.
My head snapped to him, bristling from his order. “No?”
“Caden is not . . .” Warwick crunched down on his molars. “He’s not stable.”
“What does that mean? Caden would never hurt me.”
“He’s not in control of himself right now.” Warwick stared at the fire.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He rubbed his face, exhaling through his nose. “It worked.”
“What worked?”
“The experiment.” He turned his head to me. “Caden has some of my essence.”
“What?” I jolted, blinking rapidly.
“Yeah, daddy did a number on us both,” Warwick grumbled. “It took me a while to admit, but I felt it almost from day one. And now I can’t get rid of captain one-pump. We have a bond.”
“Bond?” I stared at Warwick in shock. Istvan’s experiment worked? That meant Caden was not only fae, but was like Warwick? “What kind of bond?”
“Not like ours. I just know things he knows. I can sense him, his moods, if he’s in trouble. I guess it would be like having a twin brother. I feel it. And right now, he’s jealous and angry. So stay the fuck away from him.”
“No.” I stood up. “Caden is my oldest friend in the world. If he’s hurt, I want to be there for him.”
“Even if that hurt is because of you?”
“Me?”
“He thinks he’s still in love with you.”
In love with me? At one time, those were the only words I wanted to hear from him. Now they were the last. My love for him was young and pure. That was no longer me, and it was definitely no longer him either.
Without a second thought, I spun in the direction Caden walked off.
“Princess.” Warwick’s shadow stepped in front of me, growling deeply.
Ignoring him, I walked through him. His magic penetrated every nerve in my body, almost causing me to stumble to the ground, buzzing my veins with energy.
Inhaling deeply, I pushed on, following my instincts toward my old friend.
Warwick didn’t follow, nor did his shadow, but I knew he’d be right there if I needed.
The darkness engulfed me the moment I stepped away from the bonfire.
Heading the opposite way of the circus, I slipped into the trees, feeling his pull.
We had been so in sync for so long that I would always find Caden.
I was drawn to the boy I knew better than anyone and the man who carried the same magic as my mate.
Seeing his figure, his back to me, my new awareness picked up on his frame.
Caden had always been in shape and ripped from training, but now I noticed there was more to him. Like Warwick, he seemed to expand in his rage. Magic crackled off him so much that I wondered how I had never noticed before.
The boy raised to despise fae had been made one by his own father. The man who had dumped him and Rebeka to start a new family, tossing them away like trash. All Caden wanted was to grow up to please Istvan. To gain his father’s approval. To be the son Istvan always wanted.
Caden was now all the things Istvan required, and it still wasn’t enough. Istvan only wanted a mini version of himself, and Caden had always been better.
“Caden.”
“Go away.” A growl vibrated back to me.
“Think you know me better than that.” I folded my arms, easing closer to him. “Did I ever go when you told me to?”
He huffed, his head going back and forth. “No. You’d annoy me until I gave up.”
“Exactly.” I came up behind him, nudging him with my elbow excessively like I used to. Drove him up the wall because he’d want to stay mad, but I would see a smile break over his mouth the more I did it. Badgering him until he cracked, turning his sour mood.
“Brex. Stop.” He shifted away, turning to me, his mouth clenching. “We aren’t kids anymore. Things are different now. I’m not the boy you used to know. That kid is gone.”
“No, he’s not.” I tilted my head. “He’s still there.”
“He’s gone.” Caden snapped, ire glinting in his eyes.
“You may feel lost right now. Hurt, angry, betrayed . . . but Caden, magic doesn’t change who you are inside.
You’re still the guy who wiped my tears away when I missed my dad, who jumped into the river to save my stuffed dog when I dropped it.
Who pranked our teachers and filled the pool with foam?
Who got me ice cream when I first started my period?
That guy is the real you. The man Istvan wanted wasn’t real. ”
“None of me is real anymore.” Caden stabbed at his chest, his shoulders heaving.
“I’m not even a true fae. I’m just a knockoff of your man.
A pathetic, watered-down version of the great Warwick Farkas.
I can’t even be my own in that. I wasn’t enough for my father as a human, but I’m an even greater disappointment as a fae.
” Grief and pain weaved thickly through his rant.
I could say nothing to take away what Istvan did to Caden.
I couldn’t imagine the pain he had to feel, but I wanted him to see past Istvan. To see the man I always knew.
“How do you think it makes me feel seeing the girl I’ve loved all my life choose the true Legend?
To be bonded to him. To not only watch you two together but to sense how he feels about you.
To look at your face and know how much you love him.
” He pinched his nose. “I was the one you wanted once, and not only have I lost you, but I’ve lost everything . . .”
“You haven’t lost me.” I held up my palm when his head jerked to me.
“Maybe you don’t have me in the way you imagined, but I will always be in your life.
Will always love you.” I tucked my hair behind my ear.
“But be honest with me, Caden. Do you really love me or the idea of me? The security and the safety of what I represent to you?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Your whole world has just flipped over. Hanna is gone. HDF has fallen. Your father is not the hero you thought. He turned you into the very thing he conditioned you to despise and left you and your mother to die in that ring.” I took a breath.
“All the things we were taught to hate, the version of the world we were conditioned to think was the only right way. It’s all wrong.
Look around us. Almost all our friends and allies are fae.
I can understand if a part of you wants to hold on to something familiar. Safe.”
“You think I’m lying? That I don’t love you?” He glared at me.
“I didn’t say that. But I want you to really think if it’s love. You never loved me enough before, Caden. You never chose me when you had me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Am I wrong?” I tossed out my arms. “You were going to marry Olena. I was nothing more than a future mistress to you.”
“That was not what I wanted.”
“Yes, it was!” I yelled. “I was right in front of you for years. And now you think I’m the one.
I call bullshit. I think you are just scared to let go of who you used to be, that life, and let yourself be what you are now.
You are not a watered-down version of Warwick.
You are not less than. You may have some of Warwick’s powers, but you are not him.
You are you, and I think that man is not in love with me, but with someone else if he just got his head out of his ass.
Someone who has challenged and provoked and frustrated the hell out of you—but I’ve never seen you more alive. ”
He stepped back, his chest rising in defense, already knowing where this was going. To a petite blonde who could kick both our asses.
Before Caden could respond, a branch snapped in the distance, jerking us to the noise.
An eerie sensation washed over me, pricking alarm bells at the base of my neck, my skin rising with goosebumps.
Caden’s body stiffened, his shoulders rolling into a defensive stance, clearly picking up the same vibe running through the still forest.
I felt it grow near with every beat of my heart, the silent woods ringing with warning, telling us danger was coming. Silent. Deadly. Not even a cricket dared to make a sound.
We were being hunted.
My shade stretched out for Warwick right as gunfire cracked like fireworks across the night sky. The sound ricocheted from behind me, whirling me toward the camp.
Shouts boomed; shots blasted.
“Kovacs!” Warwick’s shadow bellowed in my ear, and for a second, I was with him, seeing dozens and dozens of Istvan’s soldiers march down the hill and out of the darkness, rushing for the campsite. And leading the pack was . . .
“Tracker,” I muttered, Caden’s head jerking to me.
“Stay where you are,” Warwick growled in my ear, but my legs were already cutting across the terrain, heading toward the real man as more gunfire popped off.
There was no way I would stay put. My fight was with them.
Yanking out the gun I carried on my hip, with Caden right next to me, we ran straight into the fire.