Page 45 of A Touch of Iron
He rolled his eyes, ragged despair in his expression. “Oh, and I suppose you’re going to claim you’re a saint all of a sudden. I might not be from the Unseelie Court, but everyone knows about the countless females who frequent your bed. Or have you already forgotten about Sage?”
I knew my past would come back to haunt me. Luckily, Violet hadn’t mentioned anything.
I snorted and narrowed my eyes. “And you think you’re a saint? You’re not an innocent babe in the woods, brother. Should I air out your dirty laundry as well?”
“This isn’t about me,” Ansel growled.
“Of course it’s about you!” I shouted. “Everythingis about you! For fae’s sake, Ansel, do you even know why I joined the Unseelie Court? Did you ever think to ask?” I blurted. “Because ofyou! Because I was protectingyou.”
Ansel jerked back as if I’d slapped him. “What?”
I ran my hands through my hair, instantly regretting the words but unable to reel them back in. “I’ve done everything in my power to protect you from your darkest secret, which you don’t even know about.”
He rolled his eyes, convinced I was speaking nonsense. “What, so now I should bethankingyou for your noble sacrifice? Get real.”
“You’re damn right you should be thanking me!” I yelled. “Because of me, no one knows the unsavory secret of who yourrealfather is!”
His mouth gaped and he stumbled back. “What did you say?”
I sighed and steeled myself to deliver the truth he should have learned years ago. “Uncle Manny is your real father, Ansel.”
His face turned white. “But he’s Unseelie …”
“Exactly. Mom had an affair with an Unseelie. Do you understand what that would mean if anyone found out? What would happen to Mom? What would happen to you?”
“You’re lying,” he accused, looking more lost than ever. “You’re lying!” With a ferocious yell, he charged toward me and punched my jaw with a resounding crack that knocked my head back.
I took it, knowing he needed to get it out of his system. I’d had years to get used to the betrayal. I stumbled and raised a hand to my bloody lip.
“Believe what you want, Ansel, but I’ve never hated you. Far from that. All I’ve ever done is try to protect you at all costs.”
“No …” he whispered as if everything he’d ever believed was a lie.
Which it was.
19
VIOLET
The next morning, I walked down to the dining hall for breakfast. I craned my neck, searching for Alec in the massive room, but didn’t see him anywhere. I finally gave up, selecting my plate of food and securing an empty spot at a table.
I ate quietly, intensely aware how awkward it was not to have someone to talk to, especially when everyone was staring at me like I had three heads. Although in the Fae realm, that probably wouldn’t be as outlandish for them as it would to me.
“Hey, can I join you?” Jon approached my table with an eager grin. I nodded and he sat across from me with his tray of food. “I looked for you yesterday, but you weren’t in your room.”
“Yeah, I was a bit busy,” I mumbled, not wanting to go into specifics.
He leaned forward and whispered, “I have a proposition for you.”Here we go. “I know you don’t want to join us, but honestly, we need you. Many fae look at you and see a chance at freedom. That’s what you symbolize for us.”
“Who isus?” I asked. No one besides Jon had ever approached me. For all I knew, his band of rebels consisted of no more than five people.
“I’m the primary point of contact, but if you glance around the room, you’ll see that the ones staring at you are part of my fellowship. And that doesn’t include the ones in the Seelie Court.”
They had rebels in the Seelie Court? How interesting.
“What do you want? I’m not sure what I can do for you,” I whispered back.
“We want to end the Court system,” he revealed. “We are fae, no matter what element we wield. We want to return to how we existed before the war. We don’t want a King or Queen, we want—”
