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“She tried to escape. She nearly made it to me. I was waiting just outside the palace walls. We were going to run away together. But”—his hands flex into fists—“her father discovered her moments before she made it out the gates. And he killed her right there while I watched through the bars. He murdered his own daughter to keep her powers away from my court.”

A sob bubbles up my throat and I barely swallow it down. I can’t imagine a father killing his daughter. I can’t imagine any of this.

“She was an Evermore, but the king refused to let a soulmancer perform the proper rites. He knew every court would track her new soul down for the power it harbors. But her mother snuck into the burial chamber and performed the rites in secret. She was interrupted before she could fully complete the act.”

I glance up at the girl again. “So, her soul is just . . . out there wandering around?”

He shakes his head slowly. “No, Princess. Her soul found a body. A human baby who had just died in childbirth.”

“Where? Who?”

Only, at this very moment, I hear his nickname for me, Princess. Really hear it.

Like it slaps me upside my oblivious face.

Princess. How many times has he called me that? I thought he was just being cruel.

He lifts a hand to my face, seems to think better of it, and then curls his fingers into a fist at his side. “All the courts have been searching for her ever since then. I have spies in every court, and when I learned one of the Darken’s followers had dispatched tracker wolves to a small town in the Tainted Zone . . .”

My heart skips a beat.

“I didn’t know it was her, not for sure. Imagine loving someone and then they become someone else overnight. A stranger. They look different, their laugh has changed. Their nose crinkles when they’re amused. They eat with their fingers instead of using utensils, and smile when they’re sleeping, and cry when they’re mad. They’re starving, yet their heart is too kind to kill what they hunt. And anything they do bring home, stolen or otherwise, they selflessly give to their family.”

Me. There’s no doubt now he’s talking about me. For some reason, I recall how he had my picture. How he had obviously stared at it for hours at a time.

Now I know why.

“I watched her for over a year. When I couldn’t be there I had my familiar stay to protect her.”

The owl.

“But then, the wolves found her farm. I knew any day they would discover her and inform their master.”

The animal tracks around our house.

“So I made an excuse to send her to the academy, knowing the wards there would hide her from the tracker wolves. But I didn’t realize the mating bond had already been activated by that one chance encounter.”

I take a step back. I can’t breathe. Can’t think of a single thing to say.

“If anyone realized we were mates, they would know her secret. So I had to be cruel to her. Had to fight off my feelings every second of every day. I didn’t expect her to feel the bond too. I hoped she would hate me, but when she didn’t . . . I was too weak to fight the bond anymore.

“And then something happened that changed everything. By then, the tracker wolves had moved on and she was safe again in her farmhouse. I knew going to her would only put her in danger, so I let her hate me . . . despite how it hurt me.”

I remember the night we spent together. That was a moment of weakness for him, I see now. And in his mind, when Inara and Bane tricked me into hating him once again, he let me feel that way.

To protect me no matter the price.

“She did hate you,” I whisper. “She burned with it.”

“And now?” he asks. He watches me without blinking. He’s so very, very still.

“Now, I don’t know. I need time to process this. What you’re saying . . .” I blow out a breath, sending blonde hair flying from my face.

How does one go about convincing oneself she’s a murdered Fae princess?

“You can have all the time you need,” he answers softly. “I’ll be here, waiting.”

I swallow. “I do know one thing.”

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