Saven Defiance (The Saven Series Book 4)

by Siobhan Davis

  I rush forward and clamp a hand over her mouth. “Are you crazy? You can’t holler that at the top of your lungs. Anyone could’ve heard you.”

  “I’m a little pissed here, Sadie. Shocked, and happy for you, too”—she graces me with a smile—“but still pissed. I thought we were friends? This is the type of thing friends tell each other.”

  “I get that, but this isn’t about you, Neve.”

  “Ouch,” she deadpans.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I reach out and take her hands in mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but we thought it best to keep it a secret for now.”

  “Because of Ax?” She threads her fingers in mine.

  “Partly, but also because of the situation on Saven. Who knows how people are going to react to the news? If Haydn’s attitude is typical—”

  “He’s a stubborn idiot!”

  “I’m not going to disagree.” We share a knowing look. “But my heritage is not going to make this easy for a lot of people to accept. I”—I look down at my feet—“I don’t want to make things any harder for Logan.”

  She sweeps me into a hug. “How can you be so delusional? You make his life easier. Have you not seen the way he looks at you?” She holds me at arm’s length. “Everybody can see it. He frigging adores you! Worships the ground you walk on.”

  “Like the way Alex looks at you?” I tease.

  She beams. “Yeah, pretty much. But we’re not talking about me. Honestly, Sadie, you don’t see the differences I see in Logan. You could never make things harder for him. You unburden him. He’s always been fairly serious—yes, I know he has a more frivolous side too, but we rarely saw that. Since he met you, it’s like this light has been burning inside him, getting bigger and brighter the closer you two get. Even now, with all the pressure on his shoulders, he is keeping a level head.”

  I crank out a laugh. “You wouldn’t say that if you felt his emotion after Haydn’s little outburst.”

  Neve’s eyes pop wide. “So, it’s true? You guys share everything now?”

  I nod. “It takes a little getting used to, but it’s not as weird as I thought it’d be. It’s actually kinda cool to be able to communicate without words. He knows what I want, what I need, sometimes before I even know it myself.” The enormity of my admission smacks me full-force in the face. “To have this degree of intimacy with another person is both surreal and humbling at the same time. I didn’t expect to like it so much. But it feels … natural, like an extension of myself.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know.” I grin at her like a total lovesick fool.

  “I’m so happy for you both.”

  “I love him so much, Neve. Sometimes, the intensity of it scares me half to death. I never believed it possible to feel this much for another person.”

  “That I can relate to.”

  “I can tell it’s serious between you and Alex.”

  “It is, Sadie. He’s the only one for me.” She bites on her lip, and her forehead creases.

  “Is something wrong?” She looks dazed, and like she’s a million miles away. “Neve?”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  “You probably shouldn’t tell Logan.” I jump when she laughs unexpectedly. “Oh, stars, what am I saying, you definitely can’t tell Logan, so I guess that means I can’t tell you seeing as you are one and the same now. But I really need to confide in someone.” Her inner rambling comes to an end.

  I nudge her with my shoulder. “I’m still my own person, doofus. And we only share thoughts and feelings in the moment, and I can shut off the connection if I want to keep things to myself.”

  Her face drops her habitual cocky veneer, and she looks so young and vulnerable. “I think I might be pregnant.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I blink profusely as I stare, wide-eyed, at my friend. “Oh my God. Does Alex know?”

  She shakes her head. “You’re the only person I’ve told. I don’t want to say anything to him until I know for sure.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yeah. I feel great, actually.”

  “Are you happy about it?”

  She ponders my question for a minute. “Well, the timing sucks butt, like big time, and my father is going to freak out when he finds out, but yeah, I’m happy about it.” Moisture pools in her eyes, as she smiles. “I love Alex, and I can’t imagine my life without him.”

  I yank her into my arms. “I’m happy for you. We are both so lucky.”

  “We are.” Neve lifts her chin up suddenly. “Uh-oh.”

  “What now?”

  “Rylan said Logan just hauled Haydn outside.”

  My back stiffens. “Logan?” I reach out to his mind. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I’m outside having a long overdue chat with Haydn.”

  That sounds ominous. “I’ve already come between you two. Don’t make things worse.”

  “That’s only part of it, Sadie. Haydn and I need to get some stuff out in the open.”

  “Okay. But go easy on him.” It’s probably more than he deserves, and it doesn’t mean he’s forgiven for the hurtful remarks he made earlier, but there is still compassion in my heart for him. I know how troubled he was a few weeks ago, and I can only imagine how recent events have added to the turmoil. With a pang, I realize how much I actually miss having him in my life. He was such a good friend to me. His loss weighs heavy on my soul.

  “That’s very generous of you.” Logan adopts a conscious light tone.

  “I’m in love. I can afford to be charitable.”

  “I think that’s my cue to say ditto?” Humor sifts down the line, and it relaxes me.

  “You’ll be in big trouble, dude, if you don’t!”

  “Ditto. I love you to bits, but I’m going to cut the connection for a while. I’ll come get you when we’re done.”

  I refocus on Neve. “Everything’s okay. You know, I think we should get you looked over while we are here. If you are pregnant, you can’t come with us. It’s too dangerous.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.” She eases off the counter onto her feet.

  “Come on. Let’s talk to Haydn’s mom and see if we can get you hooked up with a medic.”

  Haydn’s mom is the model of discretion, organizing an immediate appointment for Neve without prying into the “why.” Neve and I both have tears in our eyes when the medic confirms the news. “I’m going to be a mom.” She looks at me with a stunned glaze in her eyes.

  I hug her to death. “You will be an awesome mom. Wow. This is …”

  “Crazy, I know. But it feels so right. I need to tell Alex.” A burst of excitement stains her cheeks as I escort her back to the main room, leaving her alone to break the news to Alex.

  The rest of our party is nowhere to be found, and the room has emptied considerably, so I wander outside.

  A sturdy stone balcony wraps around the exterior of the ballroom, and a few people are milling about, looking out at the harbor. Lounging against the railing, I follow the line of their focus. An exuberant crowd has swarmed the harbor. Heads are tilted up as a myriad of fireworks detonate in the peaceful nighttime sky. Shrieks of delight shower my ears and I smile. I’ve never seen a fireworks show before, and the colorful exhibit is as magical as I’d imagined.

  “I don’t blame you, so you shouldn’t blame yourself.” Logan’s sincere tone is close by. A tiny tingle zips up and down my spine. I still, looking left and right. No one is paying me any attention, too enamored with the spectacular show in the sky.

  Tiptoeing away from the railing, I tentatively peep around the adjacent alcove. I detect two shadowy silhouettes tucked into a hidden recess. I know I should walk away, to afford them privacy, but curiosity gets the better of me.

  “How can you say that!” Haydn yells. “You could’ve died! And it would’ve been my fault. I let my feelings for her cloud my judgment, and you nearly paid the price. If I h
adn’t been so sure that I was in love, so obsessed with protecting her, and so consumed with desire for a different life, then none of it would’ve happened.”

  I’m pretty much rooted to the spot now, and good luck to anyone in prying me away.

  “I failed you. I’m so sorry.” Self-loathing is obvious in his tone, tugging on my heartstrings.

  “Haydn, you can’t blame yourself. Even if you hadn’t felt like that, you still wouldn’t have been able to stop what happened from happening. Neither could Sadie. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how hard she tried to fight Griselda off. How far she went to protect me when the Tor showed up. She let them take her—she willingly sacrificed herself so that I could get away. So that we all could.”

  Advancing footsteps come close, and my heart rate picks up. Inching away from the alcove, I lean over the railing, pretending to be fascinated by the streets below. A man and woman pass by, nodding politely at me before they move out of sight.

  I scoot back over to the alcove, flattening my back against the wall.

  “I’m sorry, Logan, but I don’t see it like that. I don’t understand how you can so easily forgive her. How you can rest easy with those two silver-haired freaks in tow.”

  Indignation surges to the fore, and I feel aggrieved on Ax and Izzy’s part. They have done nothing to earn Haydn’s distrust, and his attitude toward them is undeserved and unfair.

  “I love her, and I trust her,” Logan says. “I know Sadie inside and out, and she’d never do anything to deliberately hurt me. Come on, Haydn,” he pleads, sounding exasperated. “You spent months with her. You know she’s a good person, through and through.”

  He wouldn’t think that if he knew I was basically spying on him right now.

  “I used to think that,” Haydn says, and I swallow the pungent lump in my throat.

  “Nothing has changed.”

  “Dammit, Logan, everything’s changed! You are just too blinded by love to see it.”

  “You love her too!” Logan snaps, and I jump, startled at his tone and his statement. My foot collides with a plant pot on the ground, and I watch in horror as it teeters precariously for a few beats before steadying itself. I place a hand over my chest, urging the pounding in my heart to calm down. Almost getting caught knocks some sense into me. Eavesdropping is wrong.

  I take a step to move away when Haydn replies.

  “I don’t. I was mistaken.”

  My foot cements itself to the ground. Not that Haydn’s response matters, because I’ve only ever loved Logan, but his fervent denial still hurts. I dig my nails into the fleshy part of my palm.

  “I don’t think you were. We’re both different now. We’ve gleaned a conscience because of our love for her. Don’t deny that. And she cares about you, so much. She misses you. And you’re hurting her, man, and I won’t stand by and let you do that anymore.”

  “I want to tell him,” Logan says in my mind, and I practically keel over, inwardly cussing. Of course, Logan would know I was eavesdropping. There’s little I can hide from him these days.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m not going to be caught unawares again,” Haydn argues. “Loving her made me weak. Foolish. And it was totally pointless anyway, because she has only ever loved you.”

  “She loves you as a friend, Haydn. And love isn’t weak, no matter what guise it comes in. Her love keeps me going, especially on days when the pressure is unbearable. She makes me want to be a better person, to be someone worthy of her.”

  Haydn snorts. “Only gullible, lovesick fools spout that mushy crap.” Thank the stars that his tone is teasing, because I can sense Logan’s patience waning.

  “When you find the right girl, I’m so going to make you eat your words. And I’m going to thoroughly enjoy rubbing your nose in it.”

  “Not in my lifetime. In case you haven’t been listening, knucklehead, I’m not going anywhere. This is me recommitting to my duty. I temporarily lost my way, but it won’t happen again. You have my loyal support for life, Logan. If you can forgive me.”

  I hear the sound of a back being slapped. “I know that. Make your peace with Sadie, please, and don’t make any hard and fast decisions yet. When everything settles, things are going to change. Sadie and I are going to make sure of that.”

  An obstinate silence fills the air as conflict returns to their conversation. Mention of me elicits some trigger in Haydn, some less than favorable reaction. He clicks his tongue. “Don’t kill me for saying this, Logan, because it needs to be said. I don’t think you can trust Sadie. She spent years with them. With him. How can your relationship compare or even come close to what she’s shared with him?”

  I want to get up and slap him. Maybe fling him off the balcony into the lake. The last thing I need is him sowing any seeds of doubt in Logan’s mind.

  “And I don’t trust him, at all,” he continues. “That’s why I’m watching him like a hawk. You didn’t hear the way he spoke about her when they first showed up. The way he touched her like she was his personal property. And she didn’t exactly push him away, either.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Logan!” That’s it! I’m seconds away from going raging-ninja on Haydn’s butt.

  “Don’t you dare come over here! He can’t know you are listening. Relax, nothing anyone says will ever change my mind. I know you, Sadie, and I know you love me completely. So calm down. Please.”

  “Axton is obsessed with Sadie,” Haydn continues, “and he isn’t going to let her go that easily. And how do you know she doesn’t feel that way too?”

  I don’t need the active connection to feel Logan’s jealousy and frustration, his red-hot anger. I know he trusts me, but that doesn’t mean any of this stuff is easy for him to hear. I could kill Haydn, I really could. This kind of crap is the last thing Logan should be dealing with right now. I’m sorely tempted to intervene, but I’ve already breached his privacy enough, and he has told me point-blank to butt out.

  “I’m not disagreeing with you on Axton,” Logan says. “I don’t trust him either, but there are things you don’t understand. Things I can’t tell you, because I promised Sadie I would keep them secret. But she doesn’t love him. She doesn’t even remember him. She feels responsible for him, for his safety, and I’m not going to argue with her on it. If that’s what she wants, then I’ll support her.”

  “Stars, Logan. You are so far gone it isn’t even funny. And that is what concerns me the most. She’s tricking you, like she tricked me. Her love isn’t real.”

  I have a hard time swallowing the thorny ball of emotion wedged in my throat. Angry tears prick my eyes. Haydn may be filled with self-loathing, but his obvious distrust of me outshines any compassion I may have started to feel toward him.

  And it hurts. An awful lot. To think that he believes I’m lying, toying with Logan, with all of them, that I’ve some kind of secret agenda with Ax. While a part of me can understand it, and it is part of his job to be overly cautious and suspicious, he is totally dismissive of all the stuff we’ve shared. I’ve told him personal things about myself. Private things I haven’t told others. Things I haven’t yet had the time to confide in Logan.

  In this moment, I regret it all.

  In this moment, I know that Haydn and I will never again be friends.

  In this moment, I want to punch him in the face until he bleeds.

  Logan’s unflappable devotion is the only thing stopping me.

  “You are wrong about her, Haydn. And I know it for a fact, because I am in her head and her heart, like she is in mine. I feel what she feels, and I hear her thoughts, and she is inherently good. There isn’t a malicious bone in her body.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not done,” Logan interjects, and his voice is barely restrained. “I’m trying very hard to be patient here. I know your heart is in the right place and that you’re trying to make amends. I appreciate that, I do, but you are sorely mistaken about Sadie. We have already Eterno bonded, Haydn. O
ur souls are interlinked.”

  Haydn emits a shocked gasp.

  “She couldn’t lie to me even if she wanted to. I’ve experienced every part of Sadie, and she is my equal in every respect. If you mean what you say—that you want to remain as my bodyguard—then you’ll have to find a way to forgive her. Because Sadie will be my queen one day soon. If you cannot show her the same respect you show me, then there is no future for you by my side. And more than that. I won’t let you speak to her like you did in there. That was way out of line, and you hurt her. If you ever speak to her like that again, in public or in private, then we are done. Our friendship will be over.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Logan leaves Haydn stewing in his own steam. When he emerges from the hidden alcove, he wordlessly clasps my hand and pulls me out into the empty corridor.

  We walk in silence back to our suite.

  Logan stalks to the minibar and pours himself a stiff drink. I raise a brow. “Would you like one?”

  Sure, why the heck not? I nod. Perhaps it’ll anesthetize me.

  If I’m lucky.

  He flings his jacket onto the back of a chair as he fixes my drink.

  Kicking off my shoes, I pull my legs up under me on the couch. My dress floats around me like a black shroud. “Thanks,” I say as he hands me a drink and drops down beside me.

  “I’m sorry you heard all that.” He lifts the glass to his lips and takes a healthy sip.

  “Well, you know what they say about eavesdropping and not liking what you hear. I’m the one who should be saying sorry.”

  He gives me a casual shrug. “I thought I could talk some sense into him, but I was mistaken.” He takes another large glug.

  “It’s not your fault that our friendship is ruined.” I toy with the hem on my dress.

  He stops mid-swallow. “Don’t say that. I know how important you are to one another. He’ll come around.”