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My jaw tightened. Words piled on my lips but couldn’t make it past my clenched teeth. Little did he know, I refused to be a queen. When time came, I would run. I would find a way to escape the duty that fate wanted to put upon me.
“I’m not perfect,” I said, instead. “I’ll never be the queen you used to know. That woman died.”
“You mean your mother?”
I cringed. “She might have given birth to me, but she’s not my mother.”
The look Rhoan gave me was pained. He didn’t push it, though. This conversation was getting old, and even he knew it. There were bigger things at hand, anyway.
Set me free. I’m not a princess. And I’m certainly not a queen. I don’t want this. Let me escape while I’m still breathing.
I didn’t say any of that, though. I kept my mouth shut as I pulled my knees up to my chest and studied the canopy above me. It was perfect proof that I was, in fact, exactly who he thought I was. There was no denying it.
Accepting the truth of my situation had been the easiest part. I’d always felt wrong, like I didn’t belong. To learn that I was the daughter of a fae family hadn’t really come as any big surprise. It was the rest of it that I didn’t want.
But people needed help. Taliesin was suffering. Delphine was afraid of her own future. The pixies were being eaten like snacks. I couldn’t leave them all on their own.
“I’m going to try to free Taliesin,” Rhoan said, interrupting my spiraling thoughts. “Stay here for a while. Keep the windows and doors locked down. I won’t be long.”
I shot out of my seat, hands clenched into tight fists at my sides. “You’re leaving me again?”
Rhoan rose to tower over me. He didn’t push into my space, though. The man held his ground and kept a firm set to his determined shoulders. “He needs help, and we need him.”
The fight bled out of me. Rhoan wasn’t wrong.
“Then…” Was I really about to offer help? Could I do anything? Or would I be a liability? “Do you want me to go with you? You said you weren’t going to leave my side…like barely a handful of minutes ago.”
He shook his head, his jaw clenched tight.
“Let me go with you!” I fought the urge to stamp my feet like a child.
He promised he wouldn’t leave.
But my impending tantrum was proof that I didn’t have it in me tonight. Knowing what Tal was going through right now, how Beryl was using him as a warning, he couldn’t stay there another night.
I couldn’t help, and Tal couldn’t wait.
I rocked back, annoyed. I didn’t want to be alone, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I was too proud to grab ahold of him and hold him close. Despite his promise, I begrudgingly accepted the time alone. I needed to make another potion to protect my heart from these feelings I had for his stupid ass…
Okay, so his ass was really nice. It was round and perfect and—I needed to stop.
“Call one of your friends. Have them come over. As much as I hate to make this decision, we need Tal, and I can’t bring you into harms way tonight. You’ve been through enough.”
Rhoan stepped forward and cupped my cheek. His lavender eyes turned soft. When his lips parted, I thought he might have something else to say. Instead, he pulled back as if burned. He closed his fist at his side and kept it that way as he stalked back to the door.
21
RHOAN
The need to make this mission as quick as possible made me as sloppy as possible. When I stepped in-between and found myself in Beryl’s underground court, I knew this would be a trap. There was no going back, though.
Before me, Taliesin hung, suspended from the ceiling by swaths of silk. The ribbons were hastily tied around his wrists, waist, and ankles. Blood dripped from his hands and throat, staining the silk with Taliesin’s perceived sins.
The puddle beneath him gleamed in the light trickling in from the lake window. Beryl hadn’t bothered to have anyone clean up the mess left behind from those she’d forced to kneel in the puddle. There were footprints leading away from Taliesin in all directions.
I held my breath and waited for Beryl to step out of the shadows. Hell, Delphine had been deposited earlier in the day, meaning the assassin was likely free and running about already. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she stepped out to greet me. It would have been better than looking Beryl in her cold, red eyes.
Hand out, I summoned my blade. With a flick of my wrist, I threw it up and sliced through one of the silk ribbons holding Taliesin aloft. His wrist flopped down at his side. Though he didn’t react, I knew he was alive simply because he was still here. Fae didn’t linger after death.
