by K. N. Banet
“You abdicated the throne and disappeared,” Heath said, stepping to my side now instead of staying behind me. “Why do they care where you’ve been, and why is your wife at risk?”
“Simple. I’m more powerful than my younger brother, who is currently on the throne. He’s also done a pretty terrible job, from the sounds of things.” Brion shrugged, and I saw just a hint of the man I knew in the movement. “Therefore, while I figure out how to deal with things among my family and potentially the Tribunal, you will both be defending my wife.”
“Both?” I hissed. “I’m the werecat. You are not going to drag Heath into—”
“You’ll both do it, or I’ll let slip the rumor of what’s going on here,” the king said, his face going blank. “As I said when I walked in, I came at the right time. A quiet evening, a romantic dinner, canoodling on the couch.”
“Brion,” his wife said softly, finally stepping in. “You don’t—”
“I told you when we married that I would do anything to keep you safe,” he said, turning to her. “Anything. Your life is more important to me than theirs. Your life is more important to me than the Tribunal, the fae courts, any of it. I’m going to do what I must to keep you safe.”
I glanced at Heath. We both recognized those words, that ruthlessness. We were both capable of it.
There’s no getting out of this. All we can do is swing the odds in our favor.
From the look on Heath’s face, even though I couldn’t smell his emotions, he was thinking the same thing I was.
“The fae like to bargain,” I said, looking back at the king and his mortal wife. “If you’re roping Heath into this, then we need this magically bound between us. A deal with set rules of engagement and expectations.”
I saw Heath nod out of the corner of my eye. I’d made the right call.
“Of course. Let’s bargain.” Brion smiled, and magic flooded the room, overwhelming my senses. This was ancient, powerful, and wild magic. It felt as if something had called it into my home, and it was now in control. “You will both defend my wife with your lives. If she is hurt, you will be held accountable. The punishment will be the exposure of your relationship together.”
“No, not hurt,” Heath said. “We can’t be accountable for her stubbing her toe. Hurt is too vague and has no hard boundaries. If she’s killed in a situation we could have prevented, you can hold us accountable.”
“If she’s killed at all,” Brion countered.
“We’ll take that,” I said softly. Heath stiffened next to me, and I turned to him. “Heath, I don’t plan on letting her die unless I’m already dead. I have to treat her equally to the way I treat Carey. There’s no point in being a protector if I’m not willing to put my life on the line. If she dies, it will be because I’m already dead. You can make your own choices. You have Carey here and Landon.”
“Landon will take care of Carey if it gets to the point,” he said softly. “I’ll agree to the terms.” But he would obviously say something to me about it later.
“What do we get in return?” I asked Brion. “What is going to stop you from revealing us once this is over, but we’ve upset you in some way?”
Brion’s eyebrows went up as my question surprised him. “You would question my honor?”
“I don’t know you, therefore, I don’t know your honor,” I countered, trying to sound as if I knew what I was doing. “But you know mine. You know I’m willing to put myself between the enemy and the person I’m protecting. You know I’m willing to get up and do it again. You know I’m willing to break the rules to keep the fighting going. So, I’ll ask again…what do we get in return? How do we know we can trust you once the terms of this bargain are fulfilled? Not just immediately but for the future? How do I know a decade from now, you won’t start whispering anyway to get something you want?”
Brion narrowed his eyes as he listened to my words.
“If I or anyone in my immediate family, which includes my wife and four sons, reveals your relationship with Heath Everson, I will owe you one boon, something in my power. It can be anything you want.”
I frowned. Something felt off about that statement, but I couldn’t figure out which part. It kept me from accepting it, and after a moment, everyone realized I wasn’t going to say anything. Heath was the one who continued to bargain.
“I want more,” Heath said. “I want your protection from any enemies who may come for us. Same conditions otherwise.”
The magic in the room felt as though it wanted to choke me, filling my nose and mouth aggressively, but in the end, it didn’t really hurt me.
“Brion, they love each other,” his wife said softly. “We can offer them protection if they need it.”
“It could put you at risk.” Brion was clearly not down for what Heath wanted or anything that might put his wife at risk. I respected it, even though I was on the receiving end of his ruthlessness. He was blackmailing us to keep her safe.
“And you’re asking them to put themselves at risk for us and our children. Heath has a young daughter. I remember her. She’s been through so much, and we’re bringing this to their doorstep. It would be fair if we took on a similar risk. Our boys are adults and can defend themselves, but we’re asking them to leave that girl without anyone except her brother, who we both know will fight with his father.”
Their boys…
“You have three sons,” I said softly. “Not four. I couldn’t smell it, but don’t try lying to me again.”
“My apologies for not elaborating. I do have four living sons, and for the record, I’ve had six children in total. The older three are from my first marriage, and only one is still alive,” Brion said, turning back to me. “And once I get my hands on him, he’ll remember that he’s loyal to me. He’ll keep your secret if he ever learns it, although I don’t intend telling him.”
There was so much I didn’t know about this situation, and the only person I could blame was myself. I had trusted my instincts, which for three years had told me to keep my mouth shut about the fae who did magic on me. Only bad things could have come if I started talking about it. And they did. They were right in front of me, all because I had let Alvina confirm it had been a fae to appease the werewolves. I hadn’t expected it to be a missing king.
“I should have told my father about you the moment I learned it from Alvina,” I said softly.
“Wrong. The only reason you’re alive is you didn’t tell him.” Brion’s expression was unreadable, and I couldn’t smell how he was feeling, the magic in the air too strong.
I took a step back from the king, and Heath moved and got a half-step in front of me, obstructing Brion’s view of me and mine of him.
“I’m not threatening her, wolf,” Brion said with the snappiness of being insulted. “Others would have come, tortured her, found the information they needed. Alvina hasn’t revealed her source to the public. She can get away with that, but if Hasan knew, he would have stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. He and I have history, and he would have been furious to know I did magic on his daughter and pulled her into my troubles. Then others would have easily put it together.” He looked at me. “So, while you may regret not saying anything, it’s the reason I’m here and not a fae assassin with his owner to gut you and rip open your mind for information.”
“You could still get me killed,” I reminded him.
“But you have the chance to survive. We all make our choices in this world, Jacqueline. When I saw you, I realized here is a young werecat who would never guess who I am. She’s wary and intelligent but fierce. I have a human wife I cherish, and I could use this werecat one day. I didn’t think Hasan, still in hiding, would care all that much. I certainly didn’t think he would make a replacement daughter, then let her out into the world, half-educated and dangerous. Other werecats, sure, but never him. Especially not after Liza.” He waved his hand around. “Plus, you’re the reason they found me. I wasn’t expecting that. Then again, I never though
t you would brush up with my siblings again. Most people brush against the Tribunal once and only once, then do their best to keep their heads down. I underestimated that about you. We both have made mistakes that have led to this point. I don’t make many mistakes, and I plan to use this one to my advantage.”
“My father will still be furious that you’ve pulled me into your troubles,” I said, going back to that point.
“Well, then you should be careful not to tell him going forward,” Brion said with a dangerous smile. “I would hate to see an old friend join a fight that would destroy everything he’s wanted to build with the Tribunal and probably his entire family. And it would. At least one of the fae on the Tribunal is my enemy. I don’t know about the other. This fight could spread to the werecats if Hasan gets involved. It could spread to the vampires and the witches. It could crack the Tribunal to pieces and let it be destroyed. No one wants that, but I don’t have many options to protect my wife. I picked you for the job. Now you will do it.”
“Then the bargain is made,” I said, although still unsure. I stepped forward again, looking at Heath. He was just as lost as I was, but I couldn’t think of anything else. We had to do this and only hope nothing would backfire on us. We were already being blackmailed. It couldn’t get much worse than that.
“You will protect my wife’s life with your own,” Brion said, his voice becoming different, withdrawn and emotionless. “If she dies, I shall expose the relationship between Heath Everson, a werewolf, and Jacqueline Leon, a werecat daughter of Hasan. If the relationship is exposed by my family for any other reason, you shall have my and my family’s protection from any enemies you gain in the process.”
“I agree to the terms,” I said, swallowing a lump of fear.
“I agree to the terms,” Heath repeated beside me.
“A bargain is made,” Brion said, nodding.
I felt the magic in my home reach out and wrap its claws into my chest. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like something I didn’t want. I rubbed my chest once it was done.
“Fae magic likes bargains. It is its own type of magic,” Brion said softly. “Once a fae begins a bargain, it’s an ancient ritual of wild magics that dictate what we are. Many outside of the fae will never feel what you just did.”
“And suddenly, you’re nice again,” I hissed.
“Hasan was a good friend of mine. He won’t be after this, but the least I can do is try to teach his prodigal daughter something before the end,” he said, his eyes growing softer, the color duller, and his face changed. He went into the glamour I knew him for. “My wife’s life is more important than that friendship. I hope you understand.” He went to my front door and placed a palm on it. It glowed for a moment, then he opened it, revealing three young men and a landscape that wasn’t mine.
“Rian, you’ll be staying with your mother,” Brion said and let another fae walk into my home. The moment he passed over the threshold, I felt him with my magic. I didn’t like that a fae could do that. I relied on my borders to keep me notified if anything entered my territory because they gave me time to respond. One moment, he wasn’t in my territory, and the next moment, he was in the middle of it.
I knew Rian, and in the last three years, his sense of style hadn’t changed. He had flaming copper red hair in a mohawk, though it was a little more subdued than it had been, with one blue streak still there. He still had facial piercings, but it was down to an eyebrow, snake bites on his bottom lip, and a septum piercing, and his ears were gauged. He was the type of guy I would have had a lot of fun partying with in college.
“I’ll check in when I can. Love, you know what to do.” Brion walked out, leaving my home and my territory, and the door closed behind him.
9
Chapter Nine
I was able to stay on my feet, but only barely. Heath started walking to the kitchen, ignoring me, Fiona, and Rian. He didn’t come back out, leaving us standing in silence until Fiona looked at me.
“I’m so sorry about this,” she said, taking a few steps closer to me. “I truly am. We didn’t know where else to turn.”
“He…” I looked back on my time with Brin and his family. “He never once let me in on the fact that he was as powerful as he obviously is. He even mentioned saying something to the fae kings, but they had no idea…how?”
“Well, he didn’t say anything to them,” Rian said, rubbing the back of his head. “Our family sent word.”
“And how is he the fae king while there are other fae kings?”
“There are many different names for it,” Fiona said, sitting on my couch. “Brion was the king, what you would call the High King if you think of them all as kings. He ruled all of them. The others were just his brothers, other younger and less powerful sons of Oberon and Titania. In current times, they’re not called kings anymore because they don’t rule the way they used to. Brion sometimes messes up his own vernacular when he tries to explain something.”
“So, we’re talking about the fae royal family in general. A family of kings and…and queens,” I said, not looking at her. “Like Alvina and the other one, Oisin.”
“Yeah, though nowadays, most people just call them the fae nobility, although that doesn’t perfectly fit because others are also noble without being part of the family.” Rian shrugged. “You’re not fae, so I bet my dad didn’t really think to correct himself when he spoke wrong.”
“I need to know everything,” I said to them, looking between their tired faces. They weren’t scared of me, not a hint of fear in the air, but they were both exhausted and looked as though they hadn’t eaten in days. “If he’s so powerful, why do you two look like this?”
“We’ve had to run separately for the last two months,” Fiona said, a definitive heartbreak in those words as if she couldn’t bear to be apart from her husband or her children. “When the first group of snooping fae showed up, we started to pack up. When the assassins came only a day later, we bolted. Brion couldn’t come with us because…” She looked at Rian, who shrugged.
“I don’t know how much we’re allowed to say about that, Mom,” he said softly. “But she needs to protect us.”
“Brion and the man you knew, Brin? They were, in a sense, different men,” she said softly. “He crafted this new identity so well, sometimes…”
“Sometimes, he would forget who he was,” Rian finished. “Only sometimes, and he made sure we all knew. He had walked away from the throne to be with Mom and made a promise with magic that had unintended consequences. Until it was absolutely necessary, he couldn’t remove his glamour and reveal his true fae form. He couldn’t tap into his powers to the extent others would realize who he is. He was still a very powerful fae but had magically altered who he was to the point he had strange, selective amnesia. He locked a portion of himself away, so he could be with our mom.”
“And slowly, over the years, his personality changed a little. I always loved him because people do that. We change over the years. Seeing him as Brion again isn’t just startling to us, it’s also startling to him. The promise unlocked him again, which has troubling implications for our family.”
“What was the promise?” I asked, wary of what I was hearing. This was magic no one I ever met could do; dangerous, uncontrollable magic.
“In as few words as possible?” She leaned back on the couch and got a faraway look. “When we got together after we fell in love, his status interfered with that. I didn’t ask him to walk away from it. That was something he wanted to do, and in the process, he promised me his status would never come between us again unless he needed to use it to protect the life we had built. The problem—which neither he nor I realized—was that his identity, magic, and status were so intertwined, it caused changes, like his selective amnesia, and losing some of his powers. Then the assassins came, and the promise released him from its changes. He’s still adjusting. So, I ran with our boys, who are not as powerful as their father, while he went to try to put himself back togethe
r and figure out what he could do about this. He’s not fully himself yet. This is not like riding a bicycle, it seems. Or maybe it is, but it’s taking him some time.”
“Holy shit,” I mumbled, swaying as I walked to the kitchen to find Heath. He would have heard all of this. He must have. I left them sitting there, and they made no attempt to follow me. I found him pouring a shot of whiskey. From the look of the bottle, it wasn’t his first one or maybe even his third.
“Heath…”
“King Brion, the king of the fae,” he said softly, not looking at me. “You’ve known since…”
“April,” I whispered.
“And you didn’t tell me?” he said, turning on me. I saw a lot of things at that moment—an Alpha blindsided by an enemy he didn’t know about, a father scared for his children, a man angry with his lover.
The first thing I saw was the man I had met in the back of that SUV—the face of an Alpha werewolf I hadn’t seen since Dallas. Today, for the first time in a long time, his eyes were ice blue, showing how angry he was. Heath had an iron grip of self-control, and this, added to the week we’d had, was shaking it.
“What would you have done with the information?” I asked softly. “What would it have changed in your life or Carey’s or Landon’s? I had a bad feeling about telling anyone, a really bad feeling, Heath. Every time it crossed my mind, I felt sick to my stomach, and I couldn’t do it. Letting Alvina find out seemed like the right decision. Telling anyone about it…didn’t. It felt like inviting trouble to even mention it. It had nothing to do with us. It had nothing to do with you.”
My gut had warned me things would come, and I had received a piece of advice over the summer I took to heart and intended to follow. Subira had told me to trust my instincts, and that’s what I’d done.
He looked away from me again, staring down at his shot of whiskey. I knew he was trying his best to see things from my side and digesting the information the way I approached this.
