Page 75 of Never Run from an Immortal

“Then why did she run so quickly after the funeral?”

Running is what I do best, Rae had told him. The princess was only seventeen years old when she disappeared. Seventeen, and already covered in more scars than Aidan had amassed in almost two hundred years. “That’s not my concern. The hybrids are getting stronger, Maddock. Do I have your backing or not?”

The Witch made a show of looking bored, silence stretching out between them. “Perhaps I’ll leave it to the Royalists,” he said at last. “Find her, and I’ll consider it.”

“I’ve no interest in working with someone seeking retribution from a ghost. We’re done here.” He’d already called on Shaw, the steward eagerly approaching his study. The door opened just as Orion hauled Rae up the stairs, all but dragging her back to Aidan’s room.

Maddock shot Aidan a look of disdain, downing the contents of his glass before handing it to Shaw and leaving the study without a word.

Working with Maddock had always been an attempt to mend the rift with the Witches. The rift that he was, in part, to blame for, but this… Aidan’s fingers tightened around his glass. Theinformation he’d provided Scarlett had been meant as an olive branch, a step towards mending what had been broken between Vampires and Witches over a decade prior, not fuel to murder their fucking king, not something to fuck things up further between him and Rae.

Aidan rolled a joint and pocketed it, waiting until Maddock’s driver pulled out of the compound before pouring himself another glass of visk. He drained the contents in one, reaching for the bottle to pour himself a third, but grabbed a second glass instead, the bottle with his other hand. Something told him it wouldn’t be nearly enough to get him through the conversation he was about to have.

It was time to talk with the princess.

Chapter thirty-seven

Rae paced Aidan’s room, fingers curling and flexing at her sides. She’d pulled on one of his shirts, the fabric barely hitting her thighs, but it had been the first thing she could find. Orion stood guard outside, and she knew there was no shaking him off. The Vampire was loyal, she’d give him that. Ru, not so much. The rutok had bolted at some point during their whispered argument on the stairs, most likely in search of Quinn.

With the shutters down over the windows, there was no way out of her predicament. Somewhere beneath her feet, her brother’s murderer walked free, and Rae wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze the air from his lungs. She should’ve known the bastard would try something like this, should’ve seen it coming all those years ago when her cousin had died. When Rae had killed her.

She dragged her hands through her hair, fighting back the tears pressing at the corners of her eyes. Seylan had been the promise of something new for the Witches. For Demesia too,Rae was certain of it. She hadn’t seen him for ten years, but he’d always given her hope that she’d made the right decision. That leaving had been the only course of action. Now, every choice felt like a mistake, a thousand missteps stacked on top of each other with no clear path, no direction to take next, and her chest tightened with the weight of it all.

Rae felt Aidan’s presence on the other side of the door before it opened, his power so great it was impossible to ignore. He shouldered the door shut, two glasses in his hand and a bottle of visk in the other, pausing when he laid eyes on her.

“You let him leave?” Rae asked, already knowing her cousin was gone.

Aidan stalked past her, placed the glasses on the bedside table, and poured a double measure in each of them. “Sit.” His hair was unbound, dark waves falling across his eyes, a dark, notched shirt highlighting the contours of his muscles and a glimpse of the tattoo on his chest.

He handed her a glass, and Rae tried not to snatch it from him, forcing herself not to down the whole thing in one. She remained standing, just to piss him off.

“How long?” Aidan asked, his eyes never leaving hers.

“What?”

“How long since you stole my magic?”

Rae hid her scoff in her glass as she took a sip, focusing on the burn as it slid down her throat. “You’re the all-powerful Provident, Vale. You should know how long it’s been missing.” Still, his silver eyes remained on hers, and she knew he wasn’t going to let this go without a full explanation.

“Fifteen years,” he breathed.

She knew what he was getting at. Rae was only thirteen years old when his magic had been taken from him, the all-powerful Provident, as she’d put it.

“I didn’t steal it.” Despite herself, she downed the contents of her glass.

Silence dragged on as Aidan watched her, emptying his glass slowly before he placed it on the dresser behind him. “You stole my magic from another Witch, presumably? Went into hiding. Came back here with a plan to what, destroy me? For what? Surely you knew I had an Ascendant?”

The visk fuelled her anger, driving her into his space. “I didn’t steal it.” She all but slammed her glass down next to his before tilting her chin up to glare at him, pressing a hand to her chest. “It was forced into me, against my will.”

A beat of silence and then, “By your mother.”

Rae hated the way he softened at that, had to turn away from the look she didn’t want to see in his eyes. She reached for her thumb ring before remembering she’d given it to him, glancing over her shoulder to see him toying with it instead. “By my mother. She knew it was only a matter of time before you took your uncle’s position. So she stole it from you, and put it in me.” Rae swallowed. Stared at her hands and willed them not to tremble, her voice not to break. “But I couldn’t control it. She tried…”

“To make you,” he said, his voice rough. “Fifteen years. And it was inside of you the entire time.”

Anger lined his words, and it flipped a switch in Rae. “I hated you for it,” she said, facing him again. “With every beating. Every time I almost drowned. I hated you.” Her chest heaved with the admission. It wasn’t just his silver flame. There had been something else right from the start that she hadn’t understood at first. Something, that once she did, she’d been far more afraid of facing.

“Emlyn died because I couldn’t control it. Maddock’s sister. She was—” Rae’s voice cracked, and she swallowed the lump in her throat. She wouldn’t give him the fucking satisfaction ofher tears. “My best friend. And my people deserve better than a ruler who can’t control what they are.” They deserved Seylan. Rae leaned against the wall, mirroring Aidan’s stance, arms folded across her chest, his shirt riding up her thigh, aware that the Vampire tracked her every movement. “My mother tried to drown me as punishment the day after the funeral, and when she couldn’t, she shoved me into our basement and left me there. It took me four days to escape, and once I did, I ran and never looked back.”

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