Page 38 of A War of Three Kings

“It was too late. Far too late.”

She pounds my chest with a fist and tries to pull away. I tighten my clutch on her, holding her in place. I won’t let her run away from this. Not when I finally have her. She means too fucking much to me.

“By the Soul Ripper, Keira, you haven’t exactly been forthcoming yourself! Why don’t we talk aboutyoursecrets?”

She extends onto the tips of her toes to get into my space. It is so hard not to be distracted by her closeness and kiss her instead. “What secrets? What did they tell you?” she growls, and I don’t know if the fury that suddenly morphs her features is for me and my accusation, or for her family.

“They told me about the great fae hunts, Keira,” I say in a low voice, and she rears away from me. It tells me everything. “Allthose tears you shed while witnessing a Living Memory Scroll about the black-market trade of fae flesh, only for me to come to this realm and discover that not only is it very much still alive, butyouare one of its most skilled hunters! Was any of that real? They said you killednymphs, Keira. Nymphs!”

My arms shake from my contained rage. The gods damn it. I didn’t want to have this conversation like this. We cannot sift through all our hurts and begin to heal the wounds if our tempers get in the way. They will only rip them wider.

The color drains from her face and tears spill down her cheeks. I regret being the one who put them there. Everything in me wants to wipe them away, but I know she doesn’t want my touch anymore. Not in a gesture that intimate.

Keira’s huge eyes pin mine. “Never nymphs, Aldrin. It was always fae beasts who would kill villages if we didn’t deal with them. Why waste the meat after that? Once, I had to kill a sprite who tried to drown us, and sometimes goblins would attack us first. Gods, it broke my heart when they would beg for mercy, but those were always the same creatures that tried to kill us the moment our guards were down when we tried to find a way home for them. But never peaceful fae like nymphs. The fae with intelligence or good intentions don’t get lost. They find their way back to the rift they entered through.”

I stare at her. A heavy fatigue blankets my thoughts. They are twisted in so many knots, I can’t work out the truth from the deception.

She barks out a laugh that has no humor in it. “My father and grandmother have done a good job at sowing discord between us, Aldrin.” She takes wobbly step toward me, and I hold my arms out.

Something broken within me mends when she thrusts herself into my embrace and presses her cheek to my chest. Notmy heart. That is still in a thousand pieces, but perhaps a small part of my soul. The part that still carries hope for us.

I wrap her tightly in my arms and press a light kiss to her hair. “I will make a blood oath of truth to you, Keira, I promise you that. We just need a few hours to talk. Then we can clear up everything.”

“We have both failed each other.” Her words are muffled against my chest. “I couldn’t even protect you from my own family.”

My heart sinks at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“KEIRA!” Edmund calls from the top of the balcony, shattering our moment. She stiffens and backs away from me like she was burned. “You’re needed in the war room,”her father growls.

Her entire face changes, eyes darkening and narrowing to slits, lips curling. Her fists clench and unclench multiple times. “The gods help me not to murder my own father.” She turns from me and stalks up the stairs, every muscle in her body rigid and ready to pounce.

I hold a hand at the back of my head as I watch her go. If I thought she was angry with me, it pales in comparison to her resentment toward her father.

They bicker at the top of the staircase, Keira snapping and snarling. Edmund turns accusing eyes down at me, as though I purposely poisoned his relationship with his daughter, and not the other way around. The display would be satisfying if I didn’t know how important that relationship is to her, and the pain she feels at his betrayal.

I force a smirk onto my face. “Edmund, you should be training with us.” I tsk. “Of all your people, you have the most untapped potential.”

He leans over the railing, his thick eyebrows crashing down in a deep scowl. “I will not make myself vulnerable to the likes of you. To be humiliated in front of my people, as you do to them.”

“With your power, you could turn the tide of a battle.” I throw the words at him as though they are an insult. “Or is securing your daughter’s freedom and preventing the chaos of a civil war within your protectorate not enough to risk your pride?”

“How can I trust you?” he says between gritted teeth.

“After what you have done to me and my people, you shouldn’t be able to, but youknowmy dedication to Keira. That should be enough for you. She will never forgive you for the way you have harmed me, and I will not make that same mistake by harming you.”

Edmund blinks at me, but he doesn’t say a thing, just continues that withering, feral stare. It makes me wonder if he is imagining every way he would like to kill me. Too late. He should have done it while I was his prisoner.

“I don’t want to further empower the man who was my captor and torturer. It would suit me if you remained ignorant, but Keira needs you, so here we are.”

I shrug, but immediately regret my words as the color drains from Keira’s face instead of her father’s. Right there is yet another issue between us that we still need to address: where was she while I was being tortured?

“The guards will not take their training with Aldrin seriously if you don’t do the same,” Keira hisses at her father.

A long breath huffs out of Edmund’s flared nostrils. He takes the stairs down to the courtyard, never removing those unnerving eyes from me. “I have people waiting in a meeting for me.”

“You are the Lord Protector, are you not? Let them wait,” I toss back, taking up a defensive stance.

Edmund steps onto the pavers of the courtyard and positions himself opposite me. “You have my attention.”

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