Page 114 of Enchanted Heir
Easton flinched and looked directly at Krew. “You already know. Because you know exactly why I became a disloyal.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I thought this had been a meeting for Krew to ask them to find out more information. I thought I’d be the one giving details about my father’s death... not this. I was wholely unprepared for this.
Easton ran a hand across his forehead, and I noted his hand was shaking. Then his eyes finally went to mine. “I became a disloyal because I was tired of being forced to kill people who didn’t deserve it. Your father was one of those people, Jorah. Your father was the reason I got myself removed from wall duty.”
I didn’t know I had moved until Owen’s arms were around me and I heard his voice asking me to breathe as I continued backing away from Easton until I felt the coolness of a wall at my back.
“How could you?” Krew boomed, his magic flaring to life, leaving his hand and snaking toward Easton without so much as a flick of a finger. “How could you stay on her security detail knowing what you’d done to her? What you’d taken from her?” More magic poured from his hands, Krew in no rush to stop it.“How. Dare. You.”
Easton winced in pain as the magic hit him but made no move to use his magic back or even defend himself in any manner at all. “I didn’t think she’d stay in the Assemblages long since she was from Nerede.”
More magic came flying across the room at Easton. Krew grabbed ahold of his own magic strands and somehow yanked, sending Easton to his knees.
I didn’t know that could be done with magic.
“Krew,” Emric said calmly from where he still sat, like this was normal and Easton wasn’t minutes from death. “Are you hearing him? He didn’t want to do it. I’ve done it too. Been forced to kill people I didn’t want to. So have you. We all have, man.”
Easton was now on his knees getting encased in magic, similar to how Krew had done with Michael Noyer. Krew switched his attention to Emric, but the magic still flowing from his hands went nowhere. “That’s true. We all have. But this jackass had the audacity to stand outside her door every night while she slept knowing that he’d been the one to kill her father? Knowinghewas the very reason she hated all Enchanted? The reason for her nightmares?”
Keir added, “He has a valid point.”
“I’m sorry, Krew,” Easton said, voice strained and taking rapid breaths, from either his fear or whatever pain the magic was making him feel. “I wanted to say something, but I didn’t think she’d stay. And then I was in too deep to come clean.”
Another wave of magic hit Easton as Krew rounded the table to get closer to him. “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize toher.”
“And then when I realized that not just one of you, but both of you had feelings for her,” Easton added, looking toward Keir, “it was too late to come clean. I figured I’d be a dead man if either of you ever found out.”
“Works for me,” Keir said tensely. “I trusted you to keep her safe.”
“Which technically he did,” Hatcher said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Easton rasped. “I’msosorry, Jorah.”
I was looking at my father’s murderer in the face. I wanted to kill him myself with my bare hands. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill something of Easton’s that he loved dearly,slowly, just so he understood what it felt like to have something you cared about that much ripped away. And in all the times I had imagined this moment, I hadn’t ever imagined my father’s murderer to lookremorseful. But did it even matter?
Whatever Krew was doing with his magic intensified because Easton cried out in pain. We had a sound barrier up, as The Six always did for meetings, but I wasn’t sure it was enough. Surely guards would be streaming in here at any moment.
“You know how messed up I was when I started asking around about information on the disloyal,” Easton gasped out as he talked to Krew. “I still regret it. I took fourteen lives that summer. Her father was number nine. I regret every single one.”
I was going to vomit. I felt nauseous and dizzy. Easton had always been quiet around me too. I had assumed it was just because he was quiet. Now I wondered if it was me. If it was what I reminded him of. My father.
“Krew,” I gasped out, still in Owen’s arms.
“Yes, love?” His magic was in the middle of torturing Easton while he was speaking to me as gently as ever.
“Stop,” I commanded.
Keir at some point had apparently moved next to Krew for backup because his voice came from next to Krew. “Easton knows too much now, Jorah. And we can never trust him again after this stunt.”
So they were just going to kill him, right here and now, on the floor of Krew’s wing?
Wasn’t that what I had wanted all these years in my hatred of the Enchanted? To find my father’s murderer and even the score? I’d wanted justice. And vengeance.
I finally had the opportunity for both, but the truth of the matter was that neither would be bringing my father back to me. He was gone, and he was never coming back. So would this just be swapping one nightmare out for another? Making me the bringer of nightmares?
What did I want?
“Stop.” Tears were now coursing down my face and pooling at my chin.
