Because Lysander shakes his way free of the shadows, his head whipping around him in a rage. And then he stares at me as though he can see right through the illusion.
“Now!” Eris jumps on top of him, trying to tackle his sheer bulk to the ground.
Finn snaps a golden chain onto the collar he wears.
And it might have worked, if he wasn’t so big and strong.
He tows them toward me, shaking Eris free.
Baylor steps forward, driving his sword straight through Lysander’s chest as his brother hurls himself at me. The bane collides with him, and while the enormous warrior staggers back several steps, he doesn’t yield.
“Forgive me,” Baylor whispers, as Lysander roars with pain.
He twists the sword, skewering his brother’s heart.
And they both go to their knees as I stagger into the safety of Thiago’s arms.
Chapter Five
I manage to hold it all inside me on our trip through the Hallow, and it’s not until we’re standing safely in the tower at Ceres and the guards have filed out that I turn to my husband.
“You can’t last too much longer?” My voice is so steady I’m almost proud of it.
Thiago tears off his gloves as the Hallow powers down. “Really? We’re going to do this here?”
“Where would you prefer?”
He gives me a look that scorches me all the way from my ears to my toes. “In our chambers.”
I remember what he said to me once.
“We kiss. We argue. We fall into bed. We fuck.”
But right now, I’m too angry to kiss him. If we go upstairs, then he’s probably right. We will end up in bed, but I won’t be distracted. Not this time. “Here is fine.”
He turns to me, all powerful, dangerous grace. “Vi—"
“I held my tongue while Edain taunted me about all the secrets he knows that I don’t. I held my tongue while we were handling Lysander. And I held my tongue in front of my sister and her Asturian guards, because the last thing I want is for my mother to know Edain’s little arrow struck home about your little secret.” I turn to the others, who are hastily scrambling for the door. “Unless, of course, everyone else knows what Edain was talking about and I’m the last to find out? Is this common knowledge?”
Eris pauses. “Not to me, it’s not. I’m as curious as you are, considering that smirking little prick seems to be aware of a threat to our national security, and I’m directly responsible for said security. Baylor?”
He grunts and shakes his head, though his attention is entirely on his brother’s lifeless form.
All three of us stare at Finn.
Finn sighs at Thiago, tugging his blood-spattered vest open. “I told you this was going to bite you on the ass.”
“Finn knows?” It explodes out of me.
“Finn happened to catch his Most Haughtiness at a particularly vulnerable moment,” Finn corrects. “And Finn was sworn to secrecy, despite his objections. Thiago made me swear a blood oath to him before he would tell me what was going on.”
“It’s not a threat to national security,” Thiago says.
“She. Cursed. You. Didn’t she?” Eris leans toward him, a little hint of fire flickering in her dark irises. “Tell me how this is not a threat to national security?”
“I’ve got it under control.”
“How much stress can your wards handle?” Eris’s voice shifts up a level. “Are they still intact? Are those fucking creatures still contained?”
“Yes.”
“What creatures?” I demand, though I know she’s speaking of his tattoos.
He set them free in order to save me once, and I’ll never forget their malicious whispers—or the way they tore a pack of banes into little, bleeding chunks. And he swore he’d tell me what they were, though somehow, we’ve been so busy dealing with the hunt for the crown and my mother, that it never came up.
I hate not knowing. All of a sudden I’m five months into the past, not certain who the enemy is or what secret everyone is trying to hide from me. I broke Mother’s curse, but I don’t think I’ll ever escape the way it made me feel.
Alone.
“Leave us,” Thiago says, cutting them all a sharp glance from beneath his lashes.
Nobody says a word.
Finn helps Baylor lift his brother’s breathless body, and Eris offers me a hint of a kick his ass smile before she closes the doors behind them with a telling little slam.
Footsteps ring on the marble outside the chamber, slowly growing quieter with distance.
I wait.
And as I wait, the tension in the room builds.
I have no right to be angry. Maia knows I’ve kept my own secrets from him—and I’m still keeping the most dangerous one of all—but Edain knew.
Thiago watches me silently, though I’m reminded of a caged wolf. There’s no sign of the charming prince I fell in love with. No sign of his usual charismatic cloak. No, this is the warlord I’m dealing with. One with his guard fully up, as if he knows exactly where I’m going to strike and he’s prepared.
“Well?” He throws the gauntlet down the second they’re out of hearing distance.
Where to start?
“What was Edain talking about? A curse? Mother cursed you?”
Thiago crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s nothing.”
“You let me walk into a political nightmare where my stepbrother sneered down his nose about a secret the pair of you were keeping—”
“Don’t make it sound as though we were conspiring together,” Thiago’s voice grows a little harder. “I wasn’t aware that he knew. I wasn’t aware that anyone knew. Your mother must have told him—”
“Told him what?”
For a second I don’t think he’s going to answer. He paces back and forth like a caged wolf, violence coiled like a lash within him. “I couldn’t kill her.”
“What?” It’s not what I expected.
“When I went after your mother at the Queensmoot, I intended to kill her. I tried, Vi. I threw everything I had at her—everything I could afford to throw—and
