Page 31 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“You tell me.”
“Me?” I let out a laugh that was anything but happy.
“Yes. It’s your Clan. Your family.”
“Nobodyfrom my side would have hurt uncle Alaric,” I hissed.
The Protectorate wasn’t perfect, but we defended our own. With our very essence, living or dead.
“Then one of your enemies.” He began circling me. But it wasn't the slow, calculated look of someone sizing up an opponent. He looked like he was stalking his prey. Power and control radiated off him with every even step, and goosebumps erupted all over my skin.
Screw that.
Courteous and cautious didn’t mean I had to cower. Not anymore. I hadn’t exchanged one miserable existence to come here and be gawked at by my enemy.
No, you came here to marry him.
“You’re our only remaining rivals,” I said.
“The only official ones, yes. Just because the rest are too frightened to challenge the mighty Protectorate publicly doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” His voice slipped right into my veins,rattling against my bones. What was this? “Alaric wasn’t killed by an arrow. A dagger, straight to the heart.”
So it hadn’t been a lucky shot. “Did anyone see anything?”
“Only his dead body.”
“Don’t.” I squinted my eyes shut. First my parents, now uncle Alaric. The pain in my chest intensified, as if it was trying to slash me in two to get out. “Don’t talk about him like that.”
Like uncle Alaric was nothing. He’d meant so much to so many. We hadn’t been close, but he’d always been kind to me. He’d led the Protectorate and he’d loved Allie like his very life depended on it.
I took deep, harsh breaths. “How’s Allie supposed to marry one of you right now when she has a Clan to lead through this mess?”
The prince stopped walking behind me. It felt worse to feel him and not see him. The soft hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“She’s not the new leader,” he said slowly.
“Impossible.” The title went to the first born of the last leader. No exceptions–unless the heir vanished from Clan life, like my father. “She’s his only child.”
“Be that as it may, the Protectorate is now run by Silas.”
A sinking feeling constricted my lungs.Silas?
With Alaric dead, Clara’s father was the only one of grandpa Constantine’s children who still lived, but…not only was he the Fourth Son, even I could tell Silas had not been born to rule. Between my return and the wedding massacre, all I’d seen Silas do was eat, sit in the corner with a book while eating, and shut himself in the library when he didn’t feel like sharing the same air as us. Clara had to go there to persuade him to come to bed. He hadn’t even been careful enough to hide his name from other Clans, convinced nobody would want him dead.
I shook my head, whether against the news or that whisper of a doubt that something had gone terribly wrong to have Silas on our throne, I didn’t know. “That’s not possible.”
“Yet it has happened,” the prince said, devoid of emotion. “Discuss it with your Clan.”
I circled my arms around my belly, feeling sick and tired. This wasn’t happening.
Parents and uncle dead.
Cousins forced to marry.
Silas leading the Protectorate.
A sickening thought burrowed into my brain. “You planned this,” I hissed.
“Trust me, if I’d had it my way, you wouldn’t have been here and none of my Clan members would be sleeping with one eye open for the rest of their lives.”
