Chapter 53
SAPHIRA
Icould only stare at the male before me, into blue eyes that seemed to be a mirror of mine the more I looked at them, struggling for air as my throat closed and my mind shut down.
Daughter of Sylas?
Heir of the Summer Court?
I slowly swung my head towards Kaeleron, confusion swarming within me.
Horror shone in his crimson eyes as he stared at me. Horror edged with razor-sharp pain. Horror that told me everything.
He might not have told me the name of the one who had killed his parents and taken his brother, but that look in his eyes confirmed it for me. Sylas was the one he held responsible for their deaths, and for the abduction, torture and possible death of his older brother.
And if what this seelie was saying was true, I was not only seelie—his sworn enemy—but the child of the man who had taken so much from him.
Who he had sworn vengeance upon.
I shook my head as a thousand thoughts clamoured in it, a brittle laugh bursting from my lips at how ridiculous this all was.
“Liar,” I spat at the seelie as I shot to my feet, sure now that I was overcoming the shock of what he had said that it was an attempt to strike a blow at Kaeleron, to separate us even when I wasn’t sure he even knew we were together.
“I’m a wolf shifter. A wolf. I’m not seelie.
I’m not fae. Wolf blood runs in these veins. ”
I flashed my wrists at him, white fur rippling over my skin, before I brandished my dagger before me, aiming it at him.
“It is good to finally see you again,” the seelie said, as if I hadn’t spoken a word, as if I wasn’t standing here ready to strike at him. As if I wasn’t a threat to him at all.
“I don’t know you,” I snarled as I bravely faced him, keeping my gaze narrowed on him in case he tried anything other than driving a wedge between me and Kaeleron by continuing this bullshit.
I denied the urge to glance back at Kael as his gaze darted to me, searing my back, even when I wanted to tell him this male was lying and I didn’t know him. I really didn’t know him. I was telling the truth.
I feared he might not believe that.
That he might now think I had been sent to his court as some kind of spy, that it had all been a game to me, that I had betrayed and lied to him.
The seelie’s lips tilted into the semblance of a smile.
“I am not surprised you do not remember me. You were only a child when we met at that animal prison mortals call a zoo, but I knew who you were. I scented it on you.” He took a step towards me and I backed off one, keeping the distance between us steady as his words rattled me and my eyes darted between his, fearing finding the truth in them.
“The secret daughter of a fallen king. An heir to a kingdom, concealed from the dangers of a crumbling court.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I shook my head, refusing to believe him. “I’m not fae. I’m a wolf shifter.”
My voice broke.
I threw a glance at Kaeleron, desperate for him to say something, to call this bastard a liar as I had.
But he only stared at me, his now-silver eyes filled with shock, his cool mask completely stripped from him.
“You are a wolf shifter,” the seelie said, his tone still irritatingly calm, as if he wasn’t tearing apart my world piece by piece, ripping me apart with it.
“Your mother’s blood saw to that side of your lineage.
But you are also seelie, and your blood is strong enough that there are those among the Summer Court who would place you on the throne. ”
I tried to suck down a breath, my head spinning, sure I was about to pass out.
Too many things dawned on me at once.
The zoo.
The trip I had gone on with my parents. A trip they had cut short. And then they had shut down any attempt I made to leave the pack lands, caging me there for my own safety.
Because of this seelie.
The spell.
Magic Kaeleron had felt on my pack lands that had been there a long time.
A protective spell.
One that had felt like love.
One that must have been put there by a witch, fuelled by my parents desire to keep me safe and keep me hidden from the seelie.
The last words of my mother.
My father loved me and had been happy to be my father.
Because he hadn’t been my biological one.
I stared blankly at the seelie.
Numb.
Hollow.
“No,” I whispered, my voice a fragile and broken thing, barely loud enough for me to hear as my hands fell limp at my sides. “I’m a wolf. A wolf. I’m not fae. I’m not like you.”
I couldn’t be like him.
I looked back at Kaeleron again.
I couldn’t be the sworn enemy of the man I loved.
His fingers twitched at his side, his hand lifting slightly, as if he wanted to reach for me as I wanted to reach for him.
As if there was still hope for us.
I began to lift my hand to reach for him.
We could make it through this together.
I hesitated.
But if I was seelie, and that information became public, I would cause him nothing but trouble.
Rhyn the Winter King had been fated to a seelie, and his people hadn’t turned against him for choosing to be with her, but what if the Shadow Court wasn’t so understanding?
What if they turned against him? He might lose the throne he had sacrificed so much to hold on to. He might lose everything he had left.
His silver gaze implored me to move away from the seelie.
To run to him.
“I would have been here sooner to claim you from Luthryn, but I was delayed.”
The seelie sounded as bored as he looked as my gaze leaped back to him.
He stared at Kaeleron.
“Your sister was certainly trained well in the art of resisting torture, but my men can be very persuasive. All it took was them turning their blades on the vampire and she was spilling her guts, giving us the direction you had gone.”
Kaeleron didn’t react.
Not in a way the seelie noticed anyway.
Shadows twined around my ankles, holding me in place, invisible in the night.
My blood thundered so fast I was sure they could all hear my wild heartbeat as Kaeleron and the seelie, Sylvan I now realised, stared each other down in a silent battle.
“What did you do with my commanders?” Kaeleron asked calmly.
Not his sister.
His commander.
No trace of warmth or love touched his cold voice. Nothing to give away his feelings.
“They will be released upon receiving word from me.” Sylvan gracefully dipped his head. “I swear it.”
“I accept no promises from traitorous vipers.” Kaeleron’s expression remained cold and hard, unyielding.
Sylvan smiled, a wretched one that resembled the serpent Kaeleron had compared him to, and I could see that everything he had told me about the seelie was true.
They were as vicious, cunning and cruel as any unseelie.
Only the masks they wore were better, gilded with gold and light to blind the world to the truth of them.
The seelie flicked a speck of dirt off his arm, affecting a bored and uninterested air that rang in his voice too.
“I will also withdraw the armada stationed off the coast of the Shadow Court, waiting in open waters for my command to attack.”
Kaeleron growled, his skin whitening as shadows formed around his eyes and his lips darkening as the refined trappings fell away to reveal the truth masked beneath. It was still startling to see that transformation from beautiful, elegant king to vicious, unearthly beast.
Something flickered in Sylvan’s eyes, something that raked cold claws down my spine and made me see that Kaeleron hadn’t been lying.
There was an answering beast there, a mirror to Kaeleron’s darker side, and it wanted out.
The seelie were no more civilised than the unseelie when their rage was stoked.
But Kaeleron didn’t attack him.
I locked my senses onto him, feeling the hesitation in him, the source of it clear to me.
He had a choice—surrender me to the seelie or risk his people.
Let me go or get his sister killed. He had already lost too much to the seelie.
I wouldn’t let him sacrifice the only family he had left for my sake.
I knew what I had to do.
I did it without hesitation, my love for him fuelling me together with my belief that he shouldn’t be the only one who had to make the difficult choices. He shouldn’t be the only one who was willing to sacrifice everything to protect his people and the Shadow Court.
It wasn’t only his home to protect.
It was mine too.
I looked at him, heart heavy, weighed down by the decision I cast in iron, forging it into something unbreakable.
And stepped away from him.
Towards Sylvan.
The seelie watched me approach, a predator openly stalking his prey, and Kaeleron’s gaze drilled into me. Burning. Demanding I look at him. I couldn’t. If I did, I wouldn’t have the courage to do this.
I had to do it.
For Danica.
For his lost brother.
For the Shadow Court.
And most of all for him.
I would save them all.