Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
The pounding in her head reverberated all around her, filling every fiber of her being until she couldn’t ignore it any longer.
Jade’s eyes cracked open, blinded by bright light streaming through cracks in the curtains, and she tried to place where she was.
She’d been inside the manor at Lesseine.
No, wait, she was at the bunker. But the bunker didn’t have windows.
Then the recollection came back to her. Nicolas had ridden her over halfway back to base on his horse.
Jade’s world tilted at the sudden burst of memory that bombarded her.
She shut her eyes again, burying her face in her pillow as images flashed through her mind.
Nicolas finding her. Saving her. Stitching her up.
Kissing her. She gripped handfuls of bedsheet as she remembered the feel of him in her hands: his hair, his arms, his chest. And then there was the look in his eyes—the look of insatiable desire. She had fawned under it, fallen for it.
What in the absolute hell had she done? To nearly give it all to Nicolas when she was with Theo. Her lovely, caring Theo didn’t deserve that in the slightest. She didn’t deserve him in the slightest.
But in the sharpness of day with her senses returned to her, Jade saw the utter foolishness of the previous night in surprising clarity.
She couldn’t deny the magnetism around Nicolas.
Something about him always drew her in, and he was so damn hard to resist whenever she was around him.
But what did she know about him, really?
Aside from the traitorous feelings completely disregarding her love for Theo, Jade had plenty of reasons why the previous night should never have happened in the first place.
The wicked pounding never ceased, and Jade covered her ears with her hands. Her hair was still done up in its wraparound braid, though several chunks had fallen loose and it barely held together at all anymore.
“Jade, come on, you’re starting to scare me.”
That voice.
The hammering wasn’t just coming from her head. Theo was at her bedroom door.
Jade managed to sit up in bed, which only worsened the stabbing pain in her head.
She inhaled deeply a few times to try to regain her bearings and bring herself a modicum of relief.
She stood and crossed to the door, opening it to reveal a frantic-looking Theo on the other side, his arm still raised.
“Blazing hell, Jade, where have you been? What happened?” Theo’s crystal blue eyes took her in, and the worry in his expression only compounded. “You missed morning announcements and physicals. And Prince Reynauld was attacked last night.”
Jade’s eyelids squeezed shut for a moment before she gripped Theo’s hand and pulled him into the room.
“You were there,” he said in a sudden realization, his brows raising. “Were you tracking the assassin?”
Jade sighed. “I was the assassin.”
Alarm flooded Theo’s face, but Jade shook her head. “I mean, Reynauld thought I was there to kill him. I was afraid he was being targeted, but he caught me.”
“Jade.” Theo angled his face toward her, his unanswered questions written all over his face. “What happened?”
Before she could answer, Theo dipped his head further, and the panic in his eyes as he met hers again told her he saw the cut under her chin. “Did Reynauld do this?”
Jade nodded, her lips pressed into a tight line. She’d have to go to the beginning, she supposed, and tell Theo everything. It was the least he deserved.
“Sit down. Matherson can wait a few more minutes.” She turned toward the bed to take a seat and dive into her explanation, but Theo caught her left hand and tugged her back toward him.
“What is this?”
The hint of accusation in his tone was enough for Jade’s stomach to plummet down to her toes. She was still in her undershirt, and she’d momentarily forgotten about the very real evidence of the night before on her left arm.
“Who stitched you up?”
Everything. She wouldn’t lie. The time for keeping secrets from Theo had long since passed.
“Come sit with me.” Jade pulled him to the bed with her. “I’ll tell you the whole story.”
Jade sat on the bed, bringing her legs up into a crisscrossed position, while Theo kept his feet planted on the floor.
She reminded him of the first note she received from the man she’d only known then as her informant, admitting to Theo that there was much more to the story than she had confessed.
When Jade got to the part where her informant had requested to meet and she realized he was the mysterious man she had danced with at the masquerade ball, Theo noticeably stiffened.
Jade continued past his obvious distaste, hoping to get through as much of her tale as possible before he interrogated her about him, an imminent and unavoidable part of this conversation.
At the disclosure of the deal Jade had made with Nicolas, Theo opened his mouth to speak, but Jade begged him to let her continue.
She told him about Nicolas’s request of her for the dinner party, about the true reason behind her trip to Lord Arthur’s estate, and about the information she had learned there.
Jade produced the letter from Arthur to Arabella for Theo’s perusal.
“I found this in Arthur’s jacket pocket after he died,” she said as Theo’s eyes scanned the page.
“And you have no clue what it could be about?” Theo asked. His gaze lingered on one portion of the page. “‘You’ve been deceived, my dear. I’m afraid we all have.’ Who is ‘we all’? The contenders for the throne?”
“That was my assumption. I don’t know what else it could mean,” Jade answered with a shrug.
“So someone’s playing them. But who? And why?”
Jade shook her head. “It must have something to do with the murders, though.”
Theo hummed. “Maybe so.”
Jade’s mouth went dry, and she tried to swallow. She wasn’t eager to tell Theo the next part. “That wasn’t all, though. I found a letter with a threat to kill Arthur. It wasn’t signed, but it was easy to infer that it had come from Lord Grannam.”
Theo’s eyes flashed around Jade, as though expecting her to produce that letter just as she had shown him the first. “Where is it?”
Jade wetted her parched lips. “I gave it to Nicolas.”
Theo stared at Jade with round, unblinking eyes. “You gave it to that man instead of your commanding officer?”
“It was part of our deal. I had to,” Jade answered, her voice small.
Confusion creased Theo’s brow. “You had to? You know it’s exactly what Matherson and Devereaux need to take Grannam into custody, but you gave it to him instead?”
Jade’s eyes fell to the plain gray bedspread. “It’s hard to explain. I’ve never thought I couldn’t trust him. He’s never steered me wrong. He wants the same things we do, and he said if I gave him this information, he could bring an end to the conflict faster than the military could.”
“I know you said that, but Jade—” Theo stood from the bed, pacing away a few steps and running a hand through his hair.
“It’s not like you to trust someone so implicitly.
And why wouldn’t he come to one of the commanders?
A general? If he wants to work with you on ending the conflict, why wouldn’t he bring his information to the military?
Why is he doing it in secret, and only with you? ”
They were good questions, ones that had skittered through Jade’s mind on occasion, but she’d always found reasons to dispel them.
Theo was right—it wasn’t like her, but in truth, she hadn’t much been acting like her usual self ever since Theo arrived on base.
“He can’t go to the military,” Jade replied, giving Theo the same answers Nicolas had given her.
“He was a private guard to the king who failed in his duty and was dismissed.”
Theo whirled around to face Jade. “I’m pretty damn sure they would listen to him if he was providing this many substantial leads about The Claim and procuring the evidence you have found for him. Why wouldn’t he try? It would be a way to get back in their good graces. Redeem himself.”
Jade couldn’t deny the truth in Theo’s words.
Her stomach squirmed with the uneasiness that typically arose when she questioned Nicolas’s motives yet always pushed away.
Away from Nicolas, it all made sense. Shame blanketed Jade for getting in so deep.
And Theo still didn’t know the full extent . . .
“I don’t trust this guy.” Theo leveled his gaze with Jade. “And you shouldn’t either.”
A lump caught in Jade’s throat, and she attempted to swallow around it. Nicolas hadn’t proven himself untrustworthy yet. She wasn’t quite ready to give him up, but she had less faith in him in this moment with Theo than she had before.
Jade nodded, more to give Theo some kind of reply than anything else, and he came back to lean against the bed.
“Did you ever know of him?” she asked. Up until a couple of months ago, Theo had been stationed in the castle. Surely he would have been aware of all the king’s guards, military or privatized. “He was a private hire as a personal guard to the king, but he was separate from the military.”
Theo frowned and shook his head. “I never heard of the king having a private guard. Unless it was a secret private guard. And I never came across someone with his name there.”
Heavy unease settled in Jade’s gut. Just because Theo didn’t know of him didn’t mean Nicolas had been untruthful. He could have been secret, as Theo said. But still. Something wrong about it weaseled its way into the back of Jade’s mind.
Theo continued, breaking Jade from her thoughts. “I guess you’re going to say you went to Lesseine last night on his orders, as well.”
“Not exactly.” Jade shifted on the bed toward Theo. She wanted his warmth to reach her, wanted to remain close to him. He was upset, but hopefully not enough to be angry with her. Yet.