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And I want to be able to figure this out on my own. Ihaveto.
For all her talk of wanting to help, I haven’t seen V since the attack on the Locklear estate. Not that I trust her enough to put my faith in her hands, but if I can’t manage to teach myself, there’s no one else I can ask. None that I know of. Practicing dark magic isn’t exactly something you advertise.
“Maybe you’re just tired,” Connor offers. “We’ve been at this for hours.”
“You don’t have to stay out here with me.”
“That’s not what I meant. Idon’t need a break.Youdo.”
The tug in the bond comes first, then the crunch of footsteps in the distance. Connor must hear them too, because he sighs and hands the book back to me.
“I’ll give you two some space,” he says, turning to go, but I grab his sleeve before he can get far.
“Thanks for your help, Connor. Really.” Not that I’d ended up needing him. We’d thought by now I’d need a vampire around to practice controlling, but it’s been days of struggling—and failing—to even summon the damn magic. But the company has kept me from completely losing my mind.
“You’ll get it, Val. I know you will.” He gives me a small smile before ducking through the trees and heading back toward the estate.
The stress in my chest amplifies as Reid comes into view, like the bond is syphoning and combining from us both. He loosens his tie as he paces into the garden.
“Thought I might find you out here,” he says, though it doesn’t sound nearly as light as I think he intended it.
“How is everything?” I ask, clutching the book to my chest.
“No response from Westcott about the attack, so all the estates are preparing for retaliation, just in case. Auclair wants to move ahead and strike again before Westcott has the chance. And my mother let a lot of things fall through the cracks after Westcott seized our estate. We have emergency protocols, but it looks like they didn’t go far beyond the ones meant for estate inhabitants—nothing to help our people living in the regionoutsideof the estates. We’re supposed to have safe houses, shelters, for them to go to while we deal with the emergency—make sure they have enough supplies, that kind of thing. And no one has been overseeing it. I don’t know how—” He stops short, his jaw flexing, and shakes his head. “If Auclair doesn’t approve my request to send a team out there, I’m going myself.”
The words make my stomach drop, but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out. Because how could I possibly argue? Those are his people, his responsibility now, even if the coronation hasn’t made things official yet. And it’s about time the people of the first region had someone to stand up for them.
“What do you need from me?” I ask. “How can I help?”
“Nothing right now. There’s nothing any of us can do. We’re trying to get in contact with the shelters first to see if anyone even survived.” He swallows hard and busies himself by rolling his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. “Any luck with the training?”
“Not so much.”
“And any sign of—?”
“Not since the attack.” I hesitate, not missing the way he’s barely looked me in the eye since he stepped out here, how the tension in his shoulders only increases the longer we stand here. “Reid…do you… I’ve been meaning to talk to you for the past few days. How are you? About your mom? I know it’s complicated, but I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
His eyes snap to mine, his expression smoothing out as if he’s surprised by the question. As if I honestly wouldn’t ask how he’s doing after getting attacked by his own mother and watching her die right in front of him. He blinks once, twice. “I haven’t given it much thought,” he admits.
I chew on my lip, knowing there’s more to it but not wanting to push him. Even when she was alive, their relationship was a topic we rarely broached.
“I guess—I guess I never really believed the day would come.” His shoulders relax by a few degrees as if the words released some of the weight clinging to him. “That she’d die and I’d have to take over. I guess I believed that one way or another, I’d die before she did.” He shifts his focus to the mountains in the distance. Quieter, he says, “I can’t think of a good memory with her. Not one.”
“Have you spoken to any of your siblings?”
He gives a stiff nod. “Jared called. He’ll be at the coronation. I know Auclair invited some of the others, but I haven’t spoken with them.”
I inch closer, my fingers aching with how badly I want to reach for him, but I don’t know if it would make things better or worse. I’m the one who put him in this position.
“We just killed thousands of people in that compound,” he whispers.
My heart drops at the anguish in his voice, the low volume somehow making it cut even deeper.
“I know,” I say softly.
“We just killed thousands of people, and I helped. That was the first thing I did as the king of the first region.”
“Reid—”
