Page 70 of Solstice

“It hurts when she’s gone.” I let myself sink into despair for a moment, here in the dark with Carter where I was safe. “She made me swear to never let her stay away for too long, and now she’s acting like none of this matters. I don’t understand what went wrong.”

“She misses you just as much.” Carter pressed his lips to the side of my temple and held me tighter. “I’m sure of that.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“No, but…I know her well. So do you. This is her grandparents, nothing more.”

The affection in his tone made me look up at him, balancing my chin on his sternum. “I would burn it all down for either of you.”

“I know.”

“I’m teetering on the brink of doing that,” I whispered, terrified saying the words any louder would cause my utter collapse.

“What do you mean?” Carter looked between my eyes, perhaps searching for the truth. “Are you gonna stalk into Kensington Palace and demand to see her?”

I searched his gaze for sincerity. “Do you think that would work?”

“No.” He furrowed his brows like he couldn’t believe I was serious.

“Carter, it’s more than her family. There’s something else going on, I can feel it.” I’d been feeling it ever since I went inside her mind to find the truth about the king. Something had been kept from her, just like the car accident. Something that was slowly eating its way through her soul. Despite the distance between us, whatever it was had infected me, too.

When we made that vow in the woods, the four of us had been linked on more than a physical level. Each of their souls echoed in my bones, in my molecules. I had been inside their minds. We were soul mates in a million different ways. The fact she was hiding from me meant something, and it didn’t have to do with what those cunts in the media printed about us.

I believed Miri would let hell freeze over before she’d willingly be separated from us, the ones who loved her the most. She’d made me swear never to let this happen again. So whatever was keeping her away this time, it was bigger than her family, bigger than all of this.

“They’re keeping her prisoner or she’s sick or”—my voice shook at the possibility—“something, Carter. It’s something.”

“Shh.” He leaned down to kiss me, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. “She’s okay, Weeds. She’s okay.”

I stopped to pull back and look at him. “Would she tell you if she wasn’t?”

He nodded and answered without hesitation. “Yes. She would.”

He hummed and put his finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him. Indigo eyes shined with that eternal light Carter always emanated. It had been the thing that attracted Lex to him in the first place. I’d seen that memory so many times that it had sort of become my own, almost as if I was there with them that night.

“What’s going on with you?” Carter whispered, leaning down to kiss my lips.

I sighed and sat up, pulling away from him. “What do you mean?”

“Lex thinks you’re hiding something.” He raised an eyebrow. “I told him that couldn’t possibly be true. We don’t keep secrets from each other anymore. Isn’t that right, Weeds?”

I bit my bottom lip as heat blossomed up my body. Leave it to Carter to sneak past my defenses. All he had to do was make me limp and pliant with oxytocin.

“He’s hiding something, too.” I narrowed my eyes at my husband. “I see him and Poppy sneaking around, whispering to each other in dark corners.”

“Aren’t you happy they’re getting along?”

No, something wasn’t right. The king’s voice echoed from the depths of my subconscious.Suffer in silence, suffer in solitude. Then you will know the pain you have caused.

That had been the curse he used on the queen. I’d had my chance to tell Siobhan and the others, but when the time came, I sat there like nothing was wrong. I went along with this idiotic plan because, for some reason, the thought of telling them the truth terrified me more.

Suffer in silence, suffer in solitude.

Earlier, I had opened my mouth to say something when Carter asked Poppy if she’d seen the queen. Poppy said she hadn’t, and Lex gave her a look that seared itself into my memory. She was lying and he knew it; I saw it in his eyes. Yet, he hadn’t said anything. Not then, and not since then.

Why?

The only reason I could think of was that he had an ulterior motive. He’d proposed we lure Alberich out at the wedding in an attempt to get him on our turf, under our control. Out of all the other scenarios, why that one? And why had he been so sure of it? The answer, of course, was obvious. Lex had been plotting and schemingon his ownwhile appearing to go along with ours.

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