Trial by Thrall (Trial #2)

by Lizzy Ford

  And then Aoife and Dylan die, while their daughter dies in the nursery. My eyes blur with tears, and I swallow hard. “Do you really shred their souls?”

  “No. It’s a rumor one of my predecessors started during a very rough period in fae history. We are a part of nature, and no fae, no matter what his or her crime, will be denied the ability to return to nature where we belong.”

  I nod, somewhat comforted to know this.

  The tears won’t stop. The fae as a people are in so much pain. Those who took me were still worried about not hurting me, the only person in their recent history who has the key to helping them, and a fucking Kingmaker. The contradiction of despair and mercy isn’t one I’ve encountered before.

  Tristan hugs me, and I squeeze him hard.

  “You can’t condemn an entire family to death, Tristan,” I say. “Let me help their daughter. Let them die knowing she’ll live.”

  He holds me silently.

  “Please,” I whisper.

  He buries his face in the nape of my neck. I can feel his turmoil, the conflict between his heart and his duty as a leader not to reward those who broke their most sacred rules. This is Tristan as I’ve never seen him before, completely exposed, scared and hopeful and confused. I don’t blame him for not wanting a mate. The intensity of the fae mating bond is too much for me. I’m lost in him, and he’s lost in me. I don’t know how either of us is going to survive this with no real foundation to prevent us from becoming so absorbed in our emotions, in us, that we don’t permanently lose ourselves or die or forget to come up for air.

  “We won’t drown,” he whispers. “I’ve got you, Leslie. I’ll always catch you.”

  For one more day, I add.

  It’s then I realize I won. I succeeded in peeling back his layers and am now drowning in what I found, in the combination of beauty and pain that makes up Tristan’s soul and the knowledge I can’t heal his suffering. His pain, his wisdom, his love for his people … nothing compares to this firsthand insight into the inner workings of a leader struggling to navigate certain doom – without losing himself and the part of him that’s capable of compassion.

  “Yes,” he says finally. “You can save her.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I whisper and begin kissing his face. I scatter kisses everywhere and push him onto his back, straddling his hips. With a deep, hungry kiss, my exhaustion is soon burnt to a crisp in a flair of lust that ignites both of us with desire.

  Tristan takes my hips and plunges his dick upward, into me, and within seconds, we’re soon barreling towards our inevitable orgasm, clinging to one another with desperation, seeking the solace from our charged emotions that neither of us will find.

  But, god, I’ll try. I’ll fuck him until I can’t move, until the bond between us breaks, and I’m once more left alone, the bearer of the curse, the woman who could’ve saved the fae and didn’t. The Kingmaker who will, instead, destroy an entire clan.

  Chapter Twelve

  The bond doesn’t snap and fling us both apart like I imagined. If anything, it’s a gentle withdrawal, so subtle, I don’t register it’s gone until I’m fully awake and cuddled in his arms.

  I can feel me – and nothing more. It’s a relief of sorts, though I do miss the couple’s heartbeat, the soothing rocking that reminded me I’m never really alone. At least, not while on these trials.

  “Are you okay?” I ask and shift onto my elbow to see his face. “It didn’t hurt you?”

  He smiles. “No.”

  “Thank god, right?”

  Tristan laughs.

  “I’m really glad I didn’t tear you in two,” I murmur and sit up. I may not be fae anymore, but I can still almost sense him, the emotion beyond the void between us. It’s almost like my inner wolf: part of her remained when the trial was over, an enhanced intuition and appreciation for my world I didn’t have before.

  Now, it’s almost seems like it’s going to be hard for me to return to my life of complete seclusion, not when I can almost sense the emotion of someone near me. I never paid any attention to what anyone else felt. It never mattered to me before.

  I don’t know if I like that, though. There’s a sense of responsibility that comes with caring for others, one I don’t feel at all qualified to take on. I’m a walking disaster. I can’t possibly help anyone else when I can barely keep myself in check.

  “My beautiful Kingmaker.” Tristan is smiling softly. “Don’t forget all this.”

  “I can’t,” I murmur, thoughts on last night, when we went to the nursery for the final time. Tristan turned a blind eye and let me help the latest wave of newborns. I’ve never felt so proud as I did knowing I was helping people like Aoife.

  My thoughts return to Ben, to how his family believed the Kingmakers to have the secret to curing his clan’s infertility. I can’t help wondering if the curse has something to do with it, and I have no one to help me figure it out. Will the Book reveal more after completing my second trial?

  “Tristan, if I can find another way to help your people, I will,” I say at last.

  “I know.” He sits up and wraps an arm around me.

  I’m not at all satisfied with what I’ve done and what I know and even less impressed with the fucking Book of Secrets.

  “Come on. I gotta get you home,” he says and squeezes me one last time before releasing me.

  I don’t want to leave him any more than I did Ben. The mating bond breaking at the end of each week may not cause the candidates any pain but it’s really messing with my head.

  Tristan drops me off at home after breakfast, and I linger in the foyer of my father’s row house. It’s peaceful and quiet – and I feel more alone than usual. I’ve never had my emotions so entwined with anyone’s, never wanted to and will probably never experience it again. Even so, I miss the connection to someone else. An emotional connection, not the physical kind I used to seek out from flings.

  I don’t know how to process my week with Tristan any more than I did my time with Ben. The two men are different in every way but one: they’re genuinely incredible men. Good, honest, compassionate and lying to me. Because it always comes back to this, and to the Book – as well as my father – claiming I can trust no one. I take some solace in believing that neither Tristan nor Ben would deceive me if they weren’t in these stupid trials.

  Starting forward, my toe plows through the two week’s worth of mail on my floor I haven’t bothered to pick up. There’s a letter on top with my name on it and no stamp, as if someone slid it through the mail slot.

  “Not again,” I say and sigh. Jason’s letter hurt me. I don’t want to read how little someone else thinks I deserve Tristan. Plucking it up, I dump my amulet into my hand first. “Holy shit, Leslie!”

  Why am I even bothering to wear this damned thing in the first place? It clearly doesn’t do what the vampire safeguarding it said it should. I replace it around my neck then withdraw the letter the envelope contains. It’s dated two days ago, during the day I was completely under and being butchered.

  Leslie,

  I’m not going to have the chance to return this in person. Thank you for all you’ve done for us, and I am so very sorry we subjected you to medical experimentation. I hope you understand someday why we hurt you. It’s not an excuse, and each of us involved understands the ramifications of our actions. Rest assured we will be punished, as we deserve, but hopefully, our lives will not be forfeited without cause. Hopefully, you are the key to the salvation of our people.

  With love and gratitude,

  Conor

  The fae are quite possibly the kindest people I’ve ever met. I would never, ever react as they did, with sorrow, regret, resignation and hope. If my kid’s life were at risk, I would’ve strung someone like me up and chopped me up, too, without one thought as to whether I was in pain or if I survived. After feeling the depth of his emotion firsthand, I don’t know how Tristan lives with the pain of every lost life and suffering family m
ember let alone manages to function or lead. If his people knew just how deeply he felt, of the impossible position I put him in, they never would’ve acted out.

  But I understand why they did.

  Conor’s letter, a mix of misplaced hope and regret, pushes me to tears. When he wrote it, he didn’t know there would be no cure found from dicing me up.

  I replace the letter in its envelope and wipe my eyes. Caught between exhaustion and emotions I don’t feel ready to deal with, I take a four hour nap and then shower to wake myself up.

  Later that afternoon, I stand before the mirror on the back of my bedroom door and study my scars. Without Tristan to soften my emotions, I’m starting to feel the effects of my first two trials. Of killing someone, almost dying, being unable to save the lives of more fae-bies and then being surgically taken apart and put back together. Each scar, though, was made with the hope of saving an entire generation of fae, not out of anger or hate or anything else. Seeing them crisscrossing my body is jarring, almost unbelievable, but I’m not angry towards those who hurt me. If anything, I almost admire their dedication. They knowingly sacrificed their lives to try to save their people.

  I don’t know what I feel. My emotions are as mangled as my body. Am I meant to survive this?

  My eyes tear up as I turn away from the mirror and peer over my shoulder at my back. They chopped up my back and legs, though apparently, there was nothing of interest to them about my ass.

  Maybe they didn’t want to mess with perfection. “Damn right,” I mutter and wipe my eyes.

  It’s difficult for me not to feel angry today at the Book and trials and harder for me not to blame my father for keeping me in the dark.

  I’m dreading opening the Book, afraid to learn how it will try to jam a wedge between Tristan and me like it did after I returned home from my week with Ben and discovered he was lying to me.

  I don’t feel ready to let go of Tristan. I don’t feel any more prepared to let go of Ben, either. Is it possible to fall in love with two so very different men?

  It’s definitely possible to feel the heartbreak of losing both.

  I hurt again and I’m also a little numb, as if there’s now just too much for me to handle. Maybe my vampire will distract me tomorrow, and I’ll be able to lose myself in him for a few days.

  The day I have to choose, when this month is over, and the full weight of all that’s happened hits me …

  I can’t even fathom what that day will feel like, when I hold the lives of an entire clan in my hands. Shaking off my melancholy, I dress and go to the study. I threw out my N-Thrall, or Tristan did. I’m not sure but it’s not there, and I’m out of alcohol.

  There’s nothing to soothe the pain today and a disaster of a study my only companion.

  Toying with my phone, I check it for messages and am surprised to see one from Tristan.

  I couldn’t do it, he says.

  I frown. “Do what?”

  Recalling how Ben ‘fessed up about lying to me, I suspect Tristan’s vague words have something to do with whatever he was tasked to do during our trial.

  I scroll up to see his response from when I asked him about my father and the bar.

  Tristan’s response comes as no shock. I can’t discuss that.

  Ben never bothered to respond to my text.

  In its own way, Tristan’s answer feels like a confirmation of what I already know. Someone else was present that night. Not that this information helps me at all. I don’t know what clan can become invisible and the books that might tell me – aren’t exactly cooperating.

  I dig my notebook out of my backpack and write the three questions whose answers are so far beyond anything I can guess.

  Why the trials?

  What is the Kingmaker curse?

  Why was Daddy at the bar that night?

  Setting it down, I reach for the Book of Secrets and perch on the edge of my father’s desk to read.

  “Upon Navigating the Second Trial,” is the title of the new chapter. I draw a deep breath, heart pounding. “Let’s do this.”

  “During the first trial, you likely experienced a very sharp adjustment curve. The second is defined by emotional turmoil, in part because you are beginning to doubt the Kingmaker’s importance and role. You have likely been met by resentment at some point over the course of these two trials, and you may understand, or think you do, why the Community despises Kingmakers.

  However, what is important to remember is this: the Community is bound by these customs, among others, and the roles of the candidates were sanctioned by their forbearers at the onset of the curse. The clans should no more resent you than they do those who originally obligated the clans to participate in the trials. The Kingmaker curse was a single event with multiple participants, and it occurred so long ago, all written records have been lost.

  To keep you on track, to remind you that there are no innocent parties in these trials, no matter what you perceive or how deeply you empathize with any candidate, remember this:

  The first candidate lied to you. This lie was so important, it can decide the fate of the Community.

  The second candidate was charged with trying to kill you. No candidate has ever succeeded, for the Kingmaker magic will ultimately prevent such an event as your death, but every second candidate is required to try, to the best of his or her ability, to end your life.

  To motivate the candidates, it is made clear if they should fail to obey the rules governing the trials, their clans will be at risk.”

  I close my eyes. I’m not going to let this hurt me. I’m not going to react. I’m not going down the road of my spiraling emotions.

  Tristan didn’t try to kill me. His people did.

  Unless they had either his blessing or he looked the other way. The Tristan I think I know would never do this.

  Then again … I never saw his dark streak in full light. Is this why his barriers crumbled the last day we were together? Was it guilt? Did he have the mettle to torture and try to kill me?

  If his people were at stake, yes. It’s not fair to force these trials not only upon three leaders but to threaten their clans as well. Nothing about these trials is fair.

  Pain resonates within me.

  I pick up my phone and read Tristan’s note again. I understand what he meant.

  When did you try? I text back.

  His response is swift. The night at the restaurant.

  “I knew it!” I exclaim to myself. The hole at my center is growing larger, and it hurts more than usual. You really were going to drop me out of the sky! Why didn’t you? I reply. I’m relieved he didn’t order his people to butcher me. Unless he’s lying, in which case …

  I can’t go down that road. If I doubt or second guess every single thing the candidates say and do, I’ll be legitimately insane by the time this is over. But that seems to be what the Book wants, and I’m perplexed as to why. Does one of these men pose such an immense danger, that I need to suspect them all of being capable of committing the worst imaginable crimes?

  I can feel your soul. I knew you were different the day we met, Tristan answers.

  When he says it, he means different in a positive way. My whole life, I’ve been different in a negative way, and I don’t quite grasp how being different can be good.

  Once again, the fucking Book of Secrets is right. I replace the phone by my side and pick up the tome.

  “I hate you,” I hiss at the Book and then continue to read this page of the chapter.

  “You must always remember: until their roles are chosen, and you have clear confirmation of which candidate is best suited to lead the Community, which should continue the Kingmaker line, and which is actively working to use you for unsanctioned benefit, the candidates cannot be trusted.”

  “No, you cannot be trusted you stupid, shit-faced book!” I snarl at it. Standing, I heft the book and do my best to fling it across the study. It’s too heavy to go far and it lands with a thud in one of my piles. �
��No fucking book is going to tell me how to live my life!”

  “Bad timing?” asks a low male voice.

  My eyes fly up to the tall, wide form in the doorway.

  Will there ever be a day when I don’t look at Ben for the first time without my breath catching, or hear his low, husky voice without shivering? When my whole world doesn’t suddenly grow still before it tumbles into chaos?

  I stare at him too long, into the golden gaze that pins me to a wall with its intensity, and my cheeks turn hot.

  Then I recall Jason’s letter.

  Ben deserves better. Tristan deserves better. I really hope the vampire is a deadbeat asshole, because I don’t know how I’ll ever ruin the lives of either of the men I’ve fallen for.

  “What do you want?” I snap.

  Ben’s gaze sweeps down my body and back up briefly. The scars I didn’t care to cover up now bother me on display, and I tuck my arms behind my body.

  I hate him for that, too, for making me so aware, when he’s not even supposed to be in my house.

  He holds out a grocery bag.

  “I hope it’s drugs,” I growl, baiting him.

  “Better.”

  Reluctantly curious, I pick my way through the mountains of books until I’m close enough to reach his gloriously muscular, outstretched arm if I lean forward far enough. He’s in a t-shirt that hugs his chest, shoulders and biceps just right and dark jeans.

  I take the bag and open it.

  “How …” I look from the rocky road ice cream it contains to him.

  “Lucky guess,” he replies.

  I can’t read him, but I swear I feel a tingle of my fae empathy remaining that tells me he’s hiding something.

  “Better put it in the freezer. It was a long ride over,” he all but orders me.

  “You’re not my alpha anymore. Don’t tell me what to do!” I retort.

  “Fine. Let it melt.”

  I’ve always hated how right Ben is about everything. Pushing him aside, I go to the kitchen and all but throw the ice cream in the freezer.