Still, could I pretend that Fieran wouldn’t have done the same?
“There’s a spread of food in our common room,” he told us both.
“That’s my subtle cue to leave you two to shifter business,” Tay announced. “And I am happy to do just that as long as there are more of those smoked turkey legs.”
He headed for the door but stopped at Ander’s side. “Thank you.”
Then he was gone, but he had taken some of the fire out of what I had to say to Ander. He did deserve our gratitude in so many ways.
Still, part of me hated Ander.
“Do you know what I admire about you?” Ander asked me.
“I cannot imagine,” I answered.
“You’re willing to burn everything down to keep your family safe.”
“Willing to cheat?”
He huffed a dry laugh. “Anyone would have to be to survive Fieran.”
He twisted the ring off his finger and held it out. Reluctantly, I held out my palm. The ring seemed to burn against my skin.
I was never going to put it on again.
Ander was watching me carefully, as if he’d found in me an enchanted blade that might strike out in any direction. I needed some of that famed cleverness of mine to make him trust me, but I wasn’t sure at the moment I’d ever trust him. I was haunted by the look on his face before he slammed his boot into Fieran’s chest.
“I’m not keeping you prisoner,” he said. “But I won’t pretend I trust you, either. You betrayed Fieran for your family; I don’t expect I have any more of your loyalty.”
“Fair.”
He nodded once. “We’ll earn each other’s trust the hard way.”
Before he could leave, I blurted out, “Begin to earn my trust. Tell me what happened between you and Fieran.”
He crossed his arms over his massive chest. There was something he was going to say—probably putting me in my place, since he was my clean leader now—given the stern set of his mouth.
And then he let it go.
He exhaled and leaned against the doorframe. “He and I grew up together. After my parents were killed.”
Grief for him welled in my chest. “How were they killed?”
“I believe the queen ordered it. Then she rescued me to raise me as ason. It’s a favorite game of hers.” He said it simply, like it was something he’d told no one and expected no one to believe.
The queen was a monster. And yet…
“And you obey her.”
“I keep the family I have left alive,” he said sharply.
“And Fieran?”
“He’d been neglected in the palace with no training. Unarmed. Unprepared. She wouldn’t release him to the academy where the other young shifters train.” Ander’s voice sharpened. “She wanted him to be helpless. Wanted him to enter the Trials weak. Wanted him dead before he could ever become a threat.”
When Fieran first brought me here, I’d been furious he was throwing me into this dark water. But he’d had his own brush with drowning. “When did Fieran learn to fight?”
“I taught him,” Ander confessed reluctantly, sounding as if he were admitting to something shameful. “My father had been the queen’s most trusted general. I’d had the best training since I was old enough to form a fist.”
