Page 59 of A War of Three Kings

He withdraws from me instead, the drag of it bittersweet. “I will not be caught here, like this, by your father.”

There is such longing in his eyes as they dance over my naked body, spread out for him and willing. They catch on my breasts, then my core.

He shakes his head, then bends down to grab my pants and tosses them to me. “Get up, Keira. I just got your father to stop wanting me dead.”

My hands shake from all that unsatiated lust as I dress. It doesn’t help that the ripple of Aldrin’s back muscles keeps drawing me in as he tugs on his pants.

I leave first, while he watches over me from the shadows of the cottage as I stalk back to the camp. He will steal back the long way around. It pains me that we must sneak around in the shadows, but what we have between us is too dangerous to the war effort to be revealed.

I head straight for my father, who has multiple guards gathered around him at the edge of camp. He barks orders for them to search for me in the forest and meadow, and lights dozens of fire orbs with a flick of his wrist to illuminate their way.

“You can stop all this drama, Father,” I snap. “I’m right here.”

He whirls around, grabbing me by the shoulders and forcing me back a few steps out of the soldiers’ hearing. “Where did you go? Were you withhim?” he hisses.

“I felt sick and needed air that didn’t reek of blood. I wanted to be alone.” Shame fills me as the lie rolls off my tongue.

He gives me a long, hard look. “We were just ambushed by an angry mob that hid in the scrub, and you walked off in it alone? That doesn’t sound like you.”

I don’t have a good answer to that, so I become the juvenile daughter he is treating me like, and turn on my heel and walk away. His glare burns into my back.

I wake the next morning to the chorus of my father’s snoring with a black fury in my heart. I rip the covers back from my pallet and get dressed, banging the lid of mychest as I pull clothing out and throw my boots across the ground in frustration.

It is time I grew up. I need to stop playing the victim and become the hero in my story. To take charge, instead of hiding behind my father and grandmother, then grumbling at their methods.

“Keira. Is the sun even up yet?” my father grumbles, a hand on his forehead.

I stomp over to the tent flaps and duck my head out, noting the silvery glow upon the horizon. “Yes,” I snap. “We should leave Lord Tomas’ lands before any more of his people decide to assassinate Aldrin and Silvan.”

“Or the slimy bastard sets his personal guard on us.” My father drags himself out of bed, pulling boiled leather armor over his tunic and pants. I glance at Caitlin, and he gives me a hard look. “Leave her to sleep until the last moments. She gets bad sickness and vomits often. Your sister is too stubborn to admit it, but I have followed her a few times when she suddenly disappears.”

“She struggles to show any weakness,” I agree.

He lets out a huff of air as he tightens his buckles. “It is a hard line to toe, not taking away her agency and authority, but also protecting her and the unborn baby.”

My father gives me a long, searching look, eyebrows creasing. He wants to know about the fae parent of his first grandchild. He will have to get past his prejudices enough to ask, if he wants anyanswers. But I cannot tell him, and neither can Caitlin. We are still bound to our oaths to the temple and cannot speak of our pilgrimage.

Aldrin has no such restrictions.

“I am coming to see that I was wrong about Aldrin. I shouldn’t have listened to my mother in our questioning of him.” His words shock me into stillness, and all I can do is gape at him. “He fought last night not for his own protection, but for yours. I saw the gaps he left in his defenses so he could shield you. The way he was more concerned about the soldiers who had their eye on you instead of him.”

He rolls his head when I don’t respond.

“I am no monster, Keira, just a man out of his depths.”

I take a step closer to him. “Why did you do it? Youtorturedhim. Why show such cruelty when it is nothing like you?”

My father sits heavily on the edge of his cot and pats the spot beside him for me to join him. “Sit, Keira. I want to tell you a story.”

My eyes narrow. I remain standing, hands on my hips.

He presses his fingers to one temple and closes his eyes for a long moment. “The fae hurt my mother. Then my wife. And now…now I thought they had hurt my daughter.Huntedher, while she still bore the ring of bruises around her throat put there by the man I sent her off to.”

His eyes snap open, and his gaze is glassy.

“It broke something within me, Keira, when I learned Finan struck you. It brought out a feral, murderous beast I haven’t been able to tame. I blame myself. It is a father’s duty to make sure his daughter is safe, andI sent you to him.”

I take a shaky step toward my father, the blood draining from my head until the world spins around me. “What do you mean, the fae hurt my mother?”

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