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Chapter3
My knees shook as I gripped my hands together to stop their trembling.
Assemble to leave.
Those were Phillip’s words. But assemble to leave where? And who?
My stomach sank into such a deep place inside of me that I thought I might vomit.
Loneliness was something I’d grown accustomed to when I lived in the system, especially living with my arrogant, abusive foster dad, Daryl. His vicious punishments and threats that I believed he might carry out, had it not been for the check he got for me each month, made it so that I was a loner.
After all, who would I want coming over?
My only escape was to the park. The park where the homeless welcomed me like one of their own. Looking back at who I had been, the life I’d been reduced to, it was as though a different person had existed on Earth. Or in the realm of Earth.
But loneliness meant I was never afraid of what I might lose.
Now?
I had everything to lose. Friends, family. A home. As improbable as it was, Faerie was my home now. The Unseelie were my people. Mine to love and protect. The royal family was mine to protect too, and I’d made sure to do that. Because going from having nothing to having what I did, even if it was a sort of gross servitude, was more than I ever thought my life would be.
And I wasn’t ready to lose it. Not any part of it.
So knowing war was here was one thing. Hell, Noah and I had been on the front lines and had to get backup from Nicole and Aron just a few short weeks ago at the border.
But hearing Phillip tell the king that someone, or more than one, needed to assemble to leave had me shaking.
I was the prince’s feeder, so rules dictated I’d go with him, should he be sent off to war. But with Noah’s fears lately, I worried he’d try to pull something to keep me safely behind.
Without knowing, my feet had taken me back to my room. I stared down at the handle to my door. To sit idly and wait for answers would feel worse.
Looking over my shoulder, I wondered if I should find Noah.
I knew he was in his private meetings somewhere below. I shivered at the thought. Another place I knew all too well from when magic had driven the castle mad. The dungeons and cavernous depths the castle held were more than most knew about. And while I didn’t know exactly where Noah and his closest confidants gathered, I knew it wouldn’t be somewhere in the open.
Or easily accessible.
I took a few steps away from my door, debating if I should try to find him.
No.
The less scared part of my inner self shouted at me. The prince had his own worries, and his meetings with his chosen few were important. I raised up on my tiptoes, then fell back to my heels, rocking as if that would steady myself enough to find some comfort.
I didn’t want to be alone, that much was certain.
A slow smile spread over my face. And I didn’t have to be.
Gabriel was one of Noah’s confidants, and so was Captain Coltrain. Which meant, Nicole would also be alone.
And she knew enough secrets around this place that she might have a better idea of what was happening.
Nicole’s living quarters were farther away than I’d like, and in heading toward her area of the castle, I passed plenty of staff hustling around. Whatever message the king received hadn’t changed the pace.
I turned the corner down one of the eastern corridor wings and passed by a door that I hadn’t blown by since it was last occupied.
Last occupied by Vanessa, the princess who had been in an arranged marriage with Noah with the sole intent of taking over the crown for her family.
Her treachery was obvious in the end, but the hell she was able to inflict in the meantime had been detrimental to all of the staff here. When they saw the immediate way the king and queen took care of her once made aware of her negative qualities, they were rejuvenated in their tasks and place here within the Unseelie castle.
