“Escort my bride back to her room,” he commanded, “and see to it that shestaysin that room for the evening.”
The command annoyed her—the way he spoke of her like a troublemaking child— but something caught her attention before she could protest.
Another shadow beast, small but solid and certain, was sitting on a set of nearby steps.
Watching her.
But the moment she laid eyes on it, it turned and bounded out of sight.
Chapter 6
Three days after the incident in the gardens, Tarron met his brother for dinner on the private veranda outside of the king’s room.
“Doctor Elric’s results are all inconclusive so far.” He informed him, sinking down into the chair opposite of Deven, heavy with a feeling of defeat. “Useless old bastard.”
King Deven chuckled. “You think everyone is useless.”
“Noteveryone.” Tarron massaged his temples. He felt a headache coming on. “Just the ones who do nothing useful for me.”
“Which is…”
“Okay. Fine.Mosteveryone.”
Deven rolled his eyes. Smiled, and then he disappeared into his room for a moment.
Tarron squeezed his fingers more tightly against his forehead, still replaying the earlier conversation he’d had with Doctor Elric. To both his surprise and the doctor’s, the tests Doctor Elric performed had found nothing that linked Princess Leanora’s ailments to King Deven’s. They had similar symptoms, but nothing more.
It had taken Elric three days to perform those tests. Three more days of Deven potentially getting sicker— and with nothing to show for it.
And now Tarronalsohad his bride-to-be to worry about; her pallid appearance aside, she had been acting strange since their encounter in the gardens. Paranoid, almost. She rarely slept. She hardly ate. That odd scent he’d noticed at their first meeting still clung to her. But the doctor could find no medical reason for any of it.
Another person who defied explanation, same as his brother.
Just what he’d needed.
If he was the type to feel bitter about things, he might have been furious at the situation. Because here were the two beings in this realm that he was destined to be closest to, andbothof them might end up dying on him sooner rather than later.
But bitterness wouldn’t change anything, would it?
So it was a waste of time to feel it.
Deven returned, carrying two glasses of wine. He offered one to Tarron and then sipped at his own, looming over his brother for a moment with a thoughtful half-smile on his face.
The silence between them felt uncomfortably expectant, so Tarron cleared his throat, gave a slight smile of his own, and said, “I don’t thinkyou’reuseless, for what it’s worth. Not entirely, anyway.”
“I’m so flattered.” Deven’s crooked grin remained, though his eyes pinched with concern as he watched a flock of birds soaring by. “But what will you do when I’m gone? You may have to find someone else to rely on, you know. However useless you might think others are, you can’t do everything yourself.”
“I still aim to try.”
Deven laughed.
Tarron didn’t join in that laughter, because he wasn’t joking. His brother might have been cavalier about his own death, but Tarron saw preparing for the possibility of it as a matter of duty.
He could admit that it was unavoidable, relying on others in some ways, but then they died—like his father and his mother, and like his brother and his wife-to-be perhaps—and then what? You ended up alone. So why not learn to do things on your own, too? It was not the character flaw his brother seemed to think it was; it was simply being practical.
“Independence has its merits, I suppose,” Deven admitted. “But howboringwould it be, living alone indefinitely?”
Tarron took another sip of his wine. He said nothing of his older brother’s own independence, of the fact that the king himself was without a mate—though not by choice.
