Because loving Senan Vale doesn’t equate to keeping him. He is destined for Nimbiss, and there isn’t a damn thing either of us can do about it.
Still, his words in that alcove course through my mind.
“The king’s men came for me…”
My mate didn’t leave me by choice. He was stolen away.
“For a year, I waited in agony to get to you…”
I’d believed him dead from the very beginning, so I can’t imagine the anguish he must’ve felt holding on to hope for an entire year and then being faced with such a terrible truth.
Only, it wasn’t the truth.
I wasn’t dead.
“I found a body. A body with blue wings.”
Whose body had he stumbled upon?
The moment the question enters my mind, I know the answer. He’d found Wynn. And the wings hadn’t been hers. They’d been mine.
But who had burned them? The men who had attacked me were killed by Eason.
Eason.
“I was the first person through the following Samhain, but you weren’t there.”
Ihadbeen there, but no one came through.
Either Senan had just lied to my face or…
Eason had been lying to me for the last four years.
I don’t want to think the worst of the man I lived with for so long, but the more I let myself consider it, the harder it is to believe that Eason had gotten the wrong date by accident. If he lied once, who is to say he didn’t lie the other times too? Eason is the only other person who knew about Wynn and my wings. I’d passed out from trauma and loss of blood, and by the time I woke, we were inside a room at the inn. Eason told me that he’d buried Wynn.
Stars…Had he thrown her body and my wings into the fire instead?
Warm hands land on my shoulders, tearing me out of my spinning thoughts.
Braith watches me with a wary expression. “Are you all right?”
All I can do is shake my head.
If Eason lied about the date and Wynn’s body…he could’ve lied about Senan too. Did heknowthe king’s men had come for my prince? He had been a member of the royal guard, after all. And those men who’d attacked me—they knewexactlyhow to break my glamour. They knew about my wings. They knew everything…
It’s like the fog has lifted; the puzzle pieces have clicked into place.
I never questioned anything Eason told me. Why would I? He kept me safe and took care of me for years. He wasted the last of his magic healing me—Stars,is that even the truth?
Where do the lies end?
Braith says my name again, wide eyes searching mine. “What just happened, Wynn?”
Nothing.Everything.
“That is the second time the prince has cornered you. What did he want?”
It’s a case of mistaken identity.