“That’s not true but it’s too bad I can’t go with you so I could look at it some more.”
“I don’t need an escort.”
I looked right at Ruby with full intent to hold my tongue but Adele caught it. She looked between us with that face like she was ready to get it out of us no matter what. “What was that?”
I shook my head but Ruby ignored it and laughed inconspicuously. “Funny that you should say escort. Your father picked the dress based on who he chose to walk in with you.”
Ruby took out the accessory from the bag that was like a black sheer cape with black feathers on it that would attach to the back of the dress. This was more of a costume event after all but Adele still wasn’t happy when she figured it out. “Oh, no. No way.”
“Sorry.” I smiled, feeling bad that it was true.
“But Kole? Why?”
I shrugged, trying to keep as normal as possible while Ruby began to attach it to her dress. “The usual thing. You know your father is protective. Other guys see you walk in with Kole, they’ll leave you alone.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Well, it works. People are afraid of him.”
“Because he’s scary.” Ruby whispered.
I laughed and I don’t know why but I just said it. “In a respectable way. No one’s ever bothered me.”
Adele rolled her eyes. “No one ever bothers you because if they even think about touching you, Trever has their life significantly shortened on the spot. How is Kole involved?”
“He’s the one that does the shortening.” Ruby whispered again. “There. It looks nice.”
“Great.” Adele grumbled, looking in the mirror again.
“Well, I think considering the circumstance, it’ll be good for all of us that he’s taking you.” I said.
“How would that be good for us?”
“Think about it. Kole hates these things just as much as you and having to drag you there will be a perfect cover.”
“Cover?”
“Yeah. You’ll be able to distract Kole. He’s ultimately the one person that we don’t want being near them right now. You may think it’s your father but you’d be wrong. They’ve gotten through him once, they could do it again.”
“That’s nice. We’re not encouraging that.”
“And you don’t think we could go through Kole just as easily?” Zayden asked.
Ruby laughed. “You’re brave, Zayden but it seems Adele didn’t get to go over the coming threats with you before we were forced to leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not the only ones with gifts.” Adele sighed.
Zayden shifted his eyes.
“We know that, remember?” Darius said.
Adele looked surprised. “You do?”
“We told them.” Ruby said quickly. “We thought it was important. Maybe if you didn’t spend all of your time sleeping or doing other things, you would have told Zayden.”
“Well, I don’t know what they are.” Zayden said. “So tell me now.”
Before Adele could explain, I got this sudden feeling coming towards me. My heart began to race and I found myself pulling away from Troy to the door, slamming it shut.
“What are you doing?” Adele asked.
“Ryon.”
That’s all I had to say for her to know and there was a knock at the door a second after. “Adele?”
I panicked to think he was going to come in and see them. “Don’t come in! She’s—naked!”
Adele sighed, covering her face in response to my urgency but it didn’t work. Ryon laughed outside of the door. “Yeah, Jay. Ah, I’ve seen that more than she has.”
“Well, that’s not very gentlemen like.”
“Don’t make me come in anyway, Jay.”
I quickly locked the door as another pathetic attempt to keep him out. “Ha! Can’t!” There was a long pause and I didn’t hear a response. “Ryon?” He just left?
“You know, you’re not very bright.” I was wrong. I quickly turned around and sucked in a breath. Ryon had walked through the balcony door instead, easily bypassing the locked door. That’s why I didn’t feel him. He must have gone around.
This was bad.
Adele became just as stiff as me and she moved slowly in front of Zayden to distract from his obvious Senian armor. “What are you doing here?”
“Disappointed.” Ryon answered, shifting his eyes down her body. “Though Jay is an awfully bad liar.” He walked right passed her without an eye flicker back to Zayden and went right over to the closet.
There was definitely something wrong. I slowly moved, not wanting to attract his attention towards me and I stood myself in front of Troy but I still didn’t get it. He seemed—too comfortable. He had to have noticed but unlike him, he has yet to say a thing.
“Planning on being long?” Adele asked.
“Relax. I should have done it earlier this week but it wasn’t high on my priorities.” He took a bag and a black coat out of the closet and paused in the room. “You should really think about leaving. Your father is going to be pissed even more if you wait until the last second.” He turned to the door and I couldn’t believe this was happening. I was confused.
“Wait a second.” Adele shoved a gust of wind towards the door so it shut and he couldn’t leave.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ruby asked.
“Well, surely I don’t know what you mean, Red.”
“She means, aren’t you going to say anything?” Adele asked.
“What? I’ve seen you in a dress before.”
“Not that. Something else in the room.”
“Are you feeling all right? Start the drinking a little early tonight? I think you might be hallucinating.”
No! I gasped and turned my head back to Troy, pressing my hand hard against his chest. “What?! This is just a dream?!” I didn’t want it to be. This was real. It had to be.
Ryon laughed and made the first eye glances at the Great Seni Fighters, recognizing their presence in the room and that he was just playing. Not a fun game for me. “Chill out, Jay. I see them, all right? It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Adele asked, acting seriously confused about why he would say that. She still didn’t know he was in Seni then. It was clear.
“Was that not the response you were looking for? Then how’s this? Wow, I’m so in denial by my own eyes. No one could have saw this coming.” Just as quick as he gained the sudden cheer in his voice, he lost it and turned back to the door, opening it.
Adele’s eyes widened and she pushed her hand towards the door again as fast as she could. “Wait!”
Ryon sighed, standing in front of the closed door and slowly turned around. “What?”
He was looking right at Adele as she walked over but seemed almost sad when she spoke. “You knew? You knew this entire time and you just let me—how could you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters a lot!”
Ryon paused again. It was getting clear that he didn’t want to be here and he let out a long sigh. “I’ve always been a step behind you.”
Adele’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me and you said nothing when I asked?!”
“And how exactly would that go? Your treason is never a choice topic.”
“I have my reasons.”
Ryon laughed in an amused gesture. “Yeah. I watched.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You think I wanted to? I didn’t have a choice.”
I saw Zayden look over, his face expressing a strange curiosity. He didn’t seem to know what any of it meant and I told him. “Picking up where we left off on our interrupted conversation, Ryon’s gift is a sight. He can look into the past. He knows what we did, obviously.”
“More like a curse and let’s not recap, okay? I have somewhere better to be.”
Good. I hoped he would leave yet when he did, it seemed not all of us were prepared.
>
Chapter 10
Adele
I almost couldn’t believe my own ears. He knew this whole time? It didn’t seem right with the way he was acting and I just couldn’t let him leave yet.
“Wait. I want to talk to you.”
Ryon looked back and pulled his arm away from my grasp. I felt hatred in it and it was worse on his voice. “Well, I don’t. You’re not thinking like you because you’re not you. The Adele that came home a week ago is not the same Adele that left. The real Adele wouldn’t have allowed this to happen but you, the one standing before me; this mindless, muddled thing, you don’t understand what you’ve done. People will die because of this, because of you and you don’t care as long as you get what you want.”
He walked out without giving me the chance to say a thing in return and I really don’t know if I could have. He suddenly just changed in front of me. I’ve never seen Ryon so angry before, especially at me.
He thinks I’ve changed. I didn’t think I’ve changed—that much.
“Wow.” Jaylyn muttered from behind me. “We’re in huge trouble.”
“Was breaking someone’s heart on your list of things to do today?” I could see the smile on Ruby’s face by her tone but my eyes were still on the door.
I knew I had to fix this. I had to do something. “Stay here.” I walked out of the room, down the hall and took a left passed the stairs. I turned at the next right and reached the top of another set of stairs located in the main hall just as Ryon was walking through it. “Ryon, wait!”
He stopped in front of the door and turned his head up at me racing down. The look only took a second and he reached for the door like he didn’t care.
“Stop!” I was running, luckily still with bare feet or I would have tripped by now and I pushed the door closed as he was opening it so he couldn’t leave.
“What do you want from me?”
His voice was harsh and I just wanted him to know. “I didn’t plan for this. You have to know that. I still care about you.”
He laughed like I had made a joke. “No you don’t. You haven’t shown it all week and I’ve seen why.”
This only made things worse for me and my eyes started to water. “Please. Don’t take anything you saw the wrong way.”
“Shouldn’t I? I saw you with him, Adele. I saw the way he touched you and how you liked it, how he changed you.”
My building tear fell. “Please. Don’t.”
“I’ve seen how you are with him and I realized you were never that way with me. So just go. Let this continue if you think it’s better. I’m done wasting my life on you because you are not the woman I fell in love with anymore.” He tried to push his way passed me but I wouldn’t have it.
“Then where were you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where were you? You could have stopped all of this. If you were always a step behind me than you saw me ask you to save me but—you didn’t and I thought you just didn’t care.”
“Of course I cared.” He took a step closer to me, seeming like he wanted to reach out to me but he didn’t. “And of course I wanted to be there to take you home but I couldn’t.”
“Why? If you cared, nothing would have stopped you.”
“They locked me up!” His voice was loud and I stood just trying to understand the words. “They didn’t want me to get in the way.”
“What do you mean? They who?”
“You know who they are and I’m tired of being caught up in this. I wasn’t supposed to tell you anything but I guess someone had to if you’re not thinking like Adele anymore. They’ve always known. I was commanded to tell them everything I saw and it’s been worse for me just having to say it. You may have wanted to be saved then but you sure as shit don’t now.”
The next thing I remember, the door slammed shut and he was gone.
He was right though, wasn’t he? I didn’t want to be saved but worse, my father had always known. My pulse raced and I knew I had to get to him before Ryon got the chance to tell him they were here. I wasn’t ready for that but I was ready to go.
Just as I had turned from the door, it opened again.
“You had to just ruin his night, didn’t you?”
I turned and immediately looked away from Kole’s dangerous gray eyes. “It’s not what I wanted.”
“And this isn’t what I wanted. You ready? We have to go.”
“I just have to get my shoes. Stay here. I’ll be right down.”
Kole just laughed as I walked away. He probably already knew but I was going to play this out as I have been until my father would finally say something to me. I wasn’t the only one lying this week.
“You all right?” I walked through my door and Jaylyn was right there to make sure everything was okay as usual.
“Fine.” It was a lie. “Kole’s downstairs waiting for us. We should probably think about going.”
I wanted to tell them but I didn’t want them to worry, especially when we had to leave them here. Jaylyn never would if she knew they knew.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Zayden asked.
“Yeah, I am but he might come back. If he does, it’ll be—not good. He fought hard not to let his temper out here but he won’t do that again and I need you to do something for me.”
“Kill him?” Darius asked.
“No!” My voice snapped just for him then I turned back to Zayden, touching his arms that were crossed in front of his chest. “I need you to listen to him.”
“What?!” He dropped his arms and took a step back from my preposterous request.
I knew he was going to hate it before I said anything but he had to know the logic behind it. “Please. Just do as he says. Submit to his will and he won’t do anything so abruptly. It’ll give us time to get back.”
“I am not—”
“Zayden! It won’t be as easy as you think and I don’t want you killing him. He’s not going to come back alone. Kole will surely be with him.”
“So, you won’t be distracting him?”
“I won’t be able to. If Ryon wants things to go his way then he’ll need Kole.”
“What exactly is his gift?”
“Well, first, let me just tell you that Kole’s normal skill is mostly with a bow.”
Ruby laughed. “Yeah. He practically sleeps with the thing on.”
“No he doesn’t.” Jaylyn said.
“Okay! Enough!” I cut in. We didn’t have time for this. I took a breath when they quieted down. “Who cares if he sleeps with it? The point is, he has a flawless form and can shoot an arrow through a stone wall. So imagine what one could do to your head. If that wasn’t bad enough, Trever had to go completely out of his mind and insist on getting him a gift. Trying to narrow down what it actually is, is hard but he’s the most dangerous person you’ll ever meet. He’s the only one that can stop anything I do and that would make him your biggest threat. Don’t provoke him. If he wants to kill you, he will and there would be nothing I could do to stop him. So, please just listen and chances are they won’t think to kill you before my father gets his turn.”
“How do you know?”
I didn’t want to say it. I felt the knot growing in my throat but kept the result of it in long enough to answer. “Because I already hurt him enough. Ryon would never ever hurt me and he knows killing you would. You’re actually lucky.”
Zayden laughed. “Lucky? Yeah. I have competition the second I get here.”
“There’s no competition.” I tried to make it clear by getting right in close to him. “You’ve already won.” I even leaned in on my tiptoes and kissed him just to make him end it. “We have to go before Kole decides to come up here and he’s the one I really don’t want you meeting yet so please just be subtle and don’t give them a reason to hurt you.”
“All right. We’ll try that.”
“Thank you.” I kissed him again, ready to turn away.
“Wait, I don’t think we’re done.
Isn’t there another gift we don’t know about?”
“You and us both.” Jaylyn muttered.
I laughed. “What she means is, we don’t know what it is. Trever has one too but he won’t tell us.”
“We have to guess.” Jaylyn sighed.
“Yes, well, you shouldn’t spend your time worrying about that. You probably won’t see him yet. He’s usually found wherever my father is and I really don’t want to get to that yet.”
“So, we’re just supposed to stay here?” Darius asked.
“It’s probably better if you do.” Ruby said. “We won’t be that long. We just have to show our faces under these masks to the Queen so she knows we were there and be done.”
“Shh!” Jaylyn snatched, holding up both her hands. “Kole’s coming. He must be getting impatient.”
“Well, that’s a great start. Let’s go.”
I headed for the door with her but Jaylyn’s sudden anxious voice stopped me. “You know what? You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
I turned right around. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re coming with us.”
She took a step back. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She hesitated while shifting her eyes around. “I can’t be around Kole right now. If I see him, I’m going to kill him. Just go ahead and I’ll meet you there.”
I didn’t know if this was some kind of game she was playing just to get out of going at all but I knew one thing for sure, I didn’t like it. “And if you don’t—”
“I will. I promise. Just distract him so I don’t see him.”
I still didn’t like it but I knew we had to leave. I needed to get to my father. “All right but you better be a few minutes behind us.”
She nodded and I had to trust that she’d keep her word.
Chapter 11
Troy
She was still, cold with her eyes on the door. She seemed to really hate Kole and I was glad to hear it but something still seemed wrong. She didn’t even want to see him and I was worried about why, about what he could have done.
She finally turned around and shown me that smile I longed to see but it was nothing more than fake.
Endless Night (Fate's Intent Book 3) Page 4
