Page 45 of A War of Three Kings

He holds up his hands. “Tell me, Keira, at which point in the last months should I have told you?”

“The moment you realized who I was.” I elbow him in the ribs hard enough to get a satisfying grunt out of him.

“Yeah. Okay. You would have run screaming in the opposite direction, then I would have had a path of dead low fae to clean up behind you.”

I cringe at the memory of the Cú Sídhe he stopped me from killing. “I’m serious, Aldrin.”

“So am I!” His voice pitches high. “You had just accused me of being a monster for calling in the bargain between us and asking you questions about your realm. What should I have said?By the way, I had a massive feud with your father because I asked for your hand in marriage? I had just finished convincing you that I was not your evil high fae slaver.”

Gods-dammit, he speaks too much sense. My chin rises and my back goes ramrod straight. “What about when we were in your palace? Or before I left through the portal?”

“Do you mean when I was trying to convince you to stay at my side? Because telling you about a prophecy that predicted you would be my life companion, my queen, would have been very manipulative. I couldn’t make you stay because fate suggested it. I want you tochooseme, Keira.”

I could toss him off this warhorse right now, to test if he falls as gracefully as he mounts. Every word he says burrows under my skin, piecing bits of my heart back together.

“No other arguments? Are you speechless, Keira?” He pokes me in the ribs. “Are you going to forgive me now?”

“Gods, I hate it when you’re right!” I half sob, half laugh. “You get so damned smug.” I turn burning eyes on him as a turmoil of emotions crashes through me. “The reason I was so hurt was because you were supposed to be better, Aldrin.Everyone else used me, took from me and slotted me into positions in life that benefited them. My family. My kingdom. The prince I was supposed to marry. No one saw me for who I was until you came along. Before that, I was expected to wait patiently while everyone else made decisions for me. I was told only half the truth.

“Gods, I was the last to know that Finan had his eye on Caitlin as well, and that the king would have made him marry her if she returned from your world pregnant. I had no agency until I met you. You were meant to be better, but then I found out that you kept things from me. Important things.” Tears sting my eyes. “I thought you lied and used and withheld from me just as much as Finan, and it was the most horrible realization of my life.”

“But none of it was true, Keira.” He grips my shoulder tightly, reaching around for my chin to force me to look at him. “You know that, right?”

I feel like I will choke on the lump forming in my throat. “I know it in the depths of my soul, but they were so damned convincing. I thought I could trust my father and grandmother, then I thought I could trust no one.”

“You can trust me,” he says, so softly. “Tell me you know that.”

“It takes time, Aldrin, for that kind of hurt to heal.”

“I am trying to bridge the gap between us, and I need you to meet me halfway.” All the warmth leaches out of his tone. “I have questions for you.”

A sudden spike of fear and dread ripples through me. I know exactly what he is going to ask, and I brace myself for it as every muscle in his body tenses.

I failed him.

It doesn’t matter how many times I searched every cell of the dungeons. All the yelling arguments I had with my father to tryto find him don’t count. The fact remains that he was tortured by my family and I couldn’t save him.

It took me far too long to find him and his people and pry them from my father’s grasp. I made too many damned mistakes, the greatest being the fact that I couldn’t conceive of my loving father being a cruel man.

I turn slowly to Aldrin. I have to see his expression as he accuses me of being a weak, powerless child who couldn’t protect him in my own home, even if it kills me.

“Where were you, Keira?” He searches my face with a narrow-eyed glare. “Where were you when I was being imprisoned and tortured in your home?” The downward curl of his lips reveals exactly what he thinks of me. “They told me you didn’t want to see me. That you refused.”

My lips fall open, but no words come out. It feels like my chest will burst with agony. Of course they told him lies. “Aldrin, no,” I whisper. “I would never turn my back on you. I tried—the gods know I tried.”

He stares and stares at me like he is trying to see into my soul, while my throat closes painfully. I never should have trusted that he was safe with my family. A hundred explanations whirl through my head and I desperately attempt to grab just one. I need to fix this, no matter the shame that floods me at my inadequacies.

Trumpets bellow suddenly up ahead of us, the shrill notes cutting through the still air, and more respond to the call from our number. I whirl around to see our first destination looming ahead: the small fortress of Riversdale Watch, with its lord and contingent of soldiers funneling out in preparation to meet our procession.

Aldrin’s grip on my hips tightens, as though he is afraid to lose me again. Over the muttering of our soldiers, I can hear myfather calling my name. Caitlin pulls away from the head of our column and gallops toward us.

I turn back to Aldrin with wide, desperate eyes. “Please trust in me, Aldrin. We will have this conversation, I will explain everything, but…”

“But this expedition has a purpose,” he grumbles, finally taking his hands from me. “And you need to arrive at the front of the procession to greet and appeal to this minor lord, or risk offending him.”

Caitlin arrives in a storm of dust, pulling up her mount up short while it whinnies in protest. “Keira, get on your own horse now. You need to be at Father’s side.”

I glance at Aldrin, soaking up every line of his face as a deep longing fills my chest. I don’t care about politics or mustering troops or warfare right now. I only want to remove the frown pinching his features, and to have a chance of redemption in his eyes.

---