Chapter 34 #2
“I was looking for evidence of what Arabella discovered.” While Jade had already told Theo of everything she’d learned during her meeting with Marguerite, she hadn’t told him she had planned to go investigate it on her own.
“It’s clearly part of the issue between her and Grannam, and it makes me wonder if there’s something about Reynauld we should know before he’s crowned king. ”
Theo watched Jade intently as she spoke, some of the severity gone from his expression. “How did you end up in Reynauld’s rooms? You said you were afraid he was being targeted.”
“I noticed a window open,” Jade said, keeping the story as succinct as she could.
“I thought the assassin had broken in. I checked on Arabella first, then Reynauld, but he was awake. He thought I was the assassin, so he grabbed a knife and attacked me. I hit my head, and it threw me off my game. It’s how I got these.
” She pointed to the wounds Reynauld had inflicted.
“So how did you get away?” The genuine pain for her in Theo’s eyes was so apparent that it cut Jade open anew.
Jade’s heart accelerated as she got to the part she’d been dreading. “It wasn’t the assassin who’d come in after me at all. It was Nicolas.”
Too much time passed in which Theo said nothing. He stared at Jade, his frown deepening, as if he could see through her to the truth she had yet to reveal.
“And what exactly was he doing there?”
It was clear enough that Theo held suspicions about Nicolas. Jade had to walk the razor thin line of keeping those suspicions in check while telling Theo the whole truth of what happened the previous night.
“He came after me, apparently.” Jade shrugged, hoping the movement appeared more casual than it felt. “He realized I was going solo and wanted to make sure I didn’t get in over my head.”
Theo’s hands clenched into fists at his side, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “You should have asked me to go with you.” The words came out strained but not unkind. “We talked about this Jade, after the last time you got into a mess on a mission alone.”
Jade dropped her eyes with the weighty shame that settled on the backs of her shoulders. “I know. I should have. I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t form the words to say that Nicolas had threatened Theo. Had warned Jade to stay away from him.
Theo briefly closed his eyes and shook his head, as if pushing them past the topic. “So he followed you out there and saved you from Reynauld?”
“In a nutshell.”
“And then what?” Theo’s gaze landed on the line of stitches on the puffy, raised skin. He angled his head toward it. “He did that?”
Jade nodded, wishing for something to ease the pain of what she was about to tell him. She wouldn’t keep it from Theo, and she already hated what she knew it would do to him.
Her lips parted to speak, her mouth cotton as she tried to form the words.
“He took me back to the bunker and stitched me up. And . . . I don’t know what came over me.
Maybe part of it was the head injury. I guess .
. . I guess it was relief and . . . gratitude.
” Jade couldn’t bear to look at Theo, but she felt his gaze on her, searing and unwavering.
She wrung her hands in her lap, twisting the skin till it hurt. “We kissed.”
Like being drawn to the sight of something gruesome that one doesn’t want to see but can’t tear their eyes away from, Jade flicked her eyes up to Theo in a moment of self-deprecation.
The tendons of his neck protruded as he tensed, his pain and anger palpable.
He turned his face from Jade as he ground his teeth.
With his lack of response, Jade had to fill the suffocating silence.
“I’m so sorry, Theo.” Her words came out as little more than a whisper, unexpected emotion catching in her throat. She hated seeing Theo hurt. She hated how her own foolish actions caused him so much pain.
Theo shot away from the bed, taking several steps away and running both hands hard through his hair, gripping either side of his head. He kept his back to Jade as a huff left his lips. “You kissed him?” The incredulity in his voice lodged another barb of pain in her heart.
Tears welled in Jade’s eyes, and she gripped the bed on either side of her as her body began to tremble. “I never wanted to hurt you. Ever.”
“What does that make me to you, Jade?” A cool steel edged his words, attempting to hide the hurt.
“Theo, I love you.”
“Do you love him?” Theo spun on his heel to face Jade. Their gazes locked, and Jade’s heart broke all over again at the pain in his magnificent blue eyes.
“What? No, I—” Jade let out an astonished breath, shaking her head. “It was a mistake. I only told you because I don’t want to keep anything from you anymore.”
Fuming waves rolled off Theo as Jade watched him for a beat, then two, then three. He said nothing in reply, dropping his eyes from her again, and he pressed his lips into a thin line. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths as he clearly attempted to keep his anger from getting the best of him.
Jade’s heart clenched. Was this it for them?
Had she lost Theo because of this? Nausea swirled in her stomach at the thought.
How could she have been so stupid? She never should have kissed Nicolas.
Looking back, she wasn’t exactly sure why she had.
Jade didn’t remotely care for Nicolas like she cared for Theo.
And to potentially lose him over such a horrible, foolish decision . . . Jade almost crumbled with regret.
Some of Theo’s fury seemed to abate as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. Only anguish remained. “I thought there was something special between us. I thought—” Theo choked on his next words. “I thought we had a future.”
“Oh, Theo—”
“But I want you to be happy. And if he is who you want—”
“No, he’s not.” Jade jumped up from the bed and strode to Theo, stopping right in front of him.
Her eyes searched his, and she tentatively lifted her hands to his face.
Theo didn’t pull away when she rested them on either side of his jaw.
“You are. I love you. I want that future with you, if you can forgive me.”
The lines of Theo’s face softened before his eyelids fluttered closed and he dipped his head to lean his forehead against Jade’s.
They stood there in silence for a moment, breathing the same air, before Theo’s arms wound around Jade’s waist. He pulled her close to him, tipping his chin to place a gentle kiss on her lips.
“Of course I do.”
Jade’s hands dropped from his face to meet behind his neck, a sense of relief overwhelming her. She hadn’t lost him. She hadn’t lost him.
“You shouldn’t go back to him,” Theo murmured as his lips left hers.
Jade angled her head up to look him in the eyes. “But I might have to.”
“Then don’t go without me. Please.” Theo didn’t hide the desperation in his voice. “I don’t trust him. I don’t know what he stands to gain out of all this.”
He’d made a fair point. A few of them, actually. Jade sighed and nodded. “Okay.”
Theo tugged Jade into an embrace, dipping his face to where her shoulder met her neck.
Jade melted into him, allowing his arms to shield her from everything surrounding her—Nicolas, the conflict, and even her own expectations for herself.
None of it mattered here, in this fleeting moment.
She nestled into the cocoon, protected from the outside world.
Theo’s scent flooded her senses, setting her at ease.
Jade squeezed her eyes shut, surprised to find a slight wetness brimming against her eyelashes. She was safe with Theo. She was home.
A rap at Jade’s door raised both of their heads. It was quick and sharp, unlike Theo’s repetitive pounding from earlier. A voice called from the other side of the door.
“Captain Ni’ihm, are you present?”
Jade placed the voice as that of Trooper Haan. She untangled herself from Theo’s embrace and crossed to the door, making herself as captain-like as she could with her messy hair and wearing nothing but an undershirt and her espionage uniform pants.
“Yes, Trooper, what is it?” Jade asked as she opened the door.
Trooper Haan’s eyes remained on Jade for only a second before she noticed Theo beside the bed, her gaze extending past Jade’s shoulder.
She gave nothing away of her thoughts of the scene, which gave a starkly different impression than the reality.
“Commander Matherson has requested you both at once. It’s extremely urgent. ”
Jade thanked the trooper before shutting the door and flinging her gaze back at Theo, her brows drawn low over her eyes.
“No, this has got to be something new,” he answered her unspoken question. “Let’s go.”
Jade threw on her ripped and bloodied jacket—she’d be telling Matherson all about it, anyway—and she and Theo all but jogged to Command.
Jade’s heart was in her throat as they covered the distance across base.
Had they found out about Nicolas? Did Matherson already know what Jade had been doing the past few weeks?
Theo knocked quickly at Matherson’s door before hearing the call to enter.
He and Jade had barely gotten in the office before Matherson told them to shut the door and sit down.
The telephone on his desk rang, but he didn’t answer.
Papers were strewn about the desk’s surface in an apparent disarray.
He didn’t take a seat, bringing his gaze up to them from where he leaned over his desk.
Tight lines creased his forehead, and a grimness had settled over his mouth.
“The Duke of Evenshold is dead.”