Page 55 of Claim Me
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Which is precisely the problem.”
“Either you trust us to guard her or you don’t,” he says, folding his arms. “What’s it going to be, mate?”
I stare at him. “You can’t be serious. If I didn’t trust you to guard her, I wouldn’t have given you this post.”
“Then let me choose how to guard her,” he counters. “Otherwise, I’m really just a fancy babysitter in charge of watching a witch inside an already well-protected estate. That’s not very challenging, Your Majesty.”
“Sarcasm aside, Nox has a point,” Bane interjects. “We’re both more than equipped to properly guard her off-site. Especially at somewhere like the lagoon, where we can close it down for an afternoon and make it just the three of us.”
“It’s not like we’re asking to go play in a cemetery,” Nox adds. “We just want to take her for a swim.”
“Then escort her up to Vesperus’s pool on the roof,” I suggest. “It’s technically out of her room, which is what you’re requesting, right?”
Nox gives me a look that says he’s disappointed. “That’s not going to work, Kas. We promised her a day out of the palace.”
“It’s not my problem that you made a promise you had no right to voice,” I tell him. “Fallon is not allowed off the palace grounds. Period.”
Bane places a hand on Nox’s chest, pausing whatever the other man was about to say.
“All right,” Bane starts. “You want her to talk. You want her secrets. But so far, none of us have been able to acquire her trust.”
“I’m aware,” I deadpan.
“Well, she’s never going to confide in any of us while she’s being held captive, and given that she just fate-bonded four of us, I think it’s time we start exploring alternatives. All we’re asking for is one afternoon. Give us extra guards if you need to. But let us at least try to appease Fallon. Maybe she’ll surprise us.”
“It’s thesurprisepart that I’m worried about,” I remind him.
“And I understand that, but none of us can know what she’s going to do until she does it,” he replies softly. “So why not give her a chance? Perhaps she’ll give us one in return. We are fate-bonded to her now, after all.”
“We’ve been trying the same approach for over a year without much success,” Nox adds. “We need a new approach, Kas. Let us try this.Trustus to guard her. Please.”
I run a hand over my face and shake my head. “It’s not about my faith in the two of you. It’s about the uncertainty of what she can do.”
“But we know what she can do,” Bane stresses. “We’ve all felt it. And she hasn’t done anything like that since Nyx freed her from Klas’s compulsory hold.”
“Right. And now he’s dead, so we know he can’t somehow reignite that spell again.” Nox lifts one muscular shoulder in a shrug. “I won’t say she’s harmless, but I will say that I don’t believe she’ll intentionally hurt anyone.”
“I think even you can agree with Nox’s assessment, Kaspian.” Bane’s dark eyes flash. “She may talk back to you, but she’s never once expressed ill will. Hell, she even relayed messages from Slater last year when he accidentally portalled into her room instead of yours.”
“Albeit grudgingly,” Nox muses. “But she made sure you got the message.”
“She’s also been polite to all your staff, hasn’t truly kicked up a fuss apart from her arguments with you, and has generally respected all your wishes despite disliking her circumstances.” Bane’s expression isn’t quite imploring so much as calculating, yet his tone is simply informative.
“I’ll repeat that it’s time for an alternative approach,” Nox says. “Let us try. Trust us to protect herandour House. You know we’re loyal to you. You know what we’re capable of. All we’re asking for is a little faith.”
My jaw clenches.
This has nothing to do with faith or trust in Bane and Nox. They proved themselves to me early on, earning themselves a place on my personal staff within weeks of us meeting one another. I quite literally trust them with my life.
How do I make them understand that it’s Fallon I’m struggling to—
A scream interrupts my focus, the source of it sending an icy jolt through my veins.Fallon.
“What is it?” Nox asks, immediately alert.
A shiny metal blade falls into Bane’s palm as he glances around, searching for the threat.
“Fallon,” I say, not bothering to elaborate. My vampiric senses are superior to the phantoms’, allowing me to hear her shrieks coming from the other room.
