Eddy whined and jumped into her lap, earning a look of betrayal from Amos. Charlie moved closer too, the two animals banding together against the Desert King. “He is myfamiliar, Amelia. I’m sorry, but he belongs with me.”
She leveled her brother with a stare that Rennick never wanted to be on the receiving end of. “I didn’t say otherwise, but his name is Eddy. You wouldn’t call a child by one name most of their lives and change it ten years later, would you?”
Rennick knew she spoke from a place of hurt, but he would make sure the fox’s name remained Eddy. He didn’t know how, but he would find a way.
Amos hung his head in defeat. “Fine. Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”
“Watch your tone,” Rennick warned.
Amelia motioned for Amos to continue.
“Our mother met Charlotte, the human queen, at a diplomat meeting, and they kept in touch over the years. Mom would visit the Human Kingdom often, and when she found out she was pregnant, Charlotte agreed to help her if she had a daughter.Charlotte hated our father more than anyone because he condescended to her in their meetings.
“Because Mom carried twins, the midwife said she’d likely deliver early. Our father didn’t know there were two babies and thought she had at least two more months to go when our mother asked if she could visit Charlotte one last time before giving birth. He said yes.
“She stayed with Charlotte, and when she went into labor, she gave birth to me.” Amos looked pained. “And then you.”
Amelia looked away. “How disappointed she must have been.”
“She was, but not because she didn’t want a girl, because she knew she’d never see you again until I took the throne.” The somberness in his tone tugged at Rennick’s chest. “She gave Father an excuse to stay another month with Charlotte to give herself time with you.”
Tears raced down Amelia’s cheeks, and Rennick felt her grief, a feeling he knew all too well.
Amos took a moment to collect himself. “She left you in the Human Kingdom with Charlotte and crossed back into the Desert Kingdom with me. She told Father she’d only just had me so that our births were recorded a few weeks apart.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I never understood why she decided to change my birthday and not yours, but it worked out in my favor in the end.”
“Heirs can’t cross the barrier,” Amelia argued, looking to Rennick for confirmation. The hazel eyes he loved so much pleaded with him to make everything better, but he couldn’t. Her confusion, anger, pain, and grief swirled within him like a hurricane, almost taking his breath away. Damnit, if he didn’t feel like the most helpless man in the world.
He did the only thing he could and attempted to push reassurance and tranquility through the bond. It might be futile, but he had to try.
“They can’tleavetheir kingdom,” Amos corrected. “But I wasn’t leaving, I was entering. There is no magic in the human lands to tie an heir there.”
“If she left me with the human queen, how did I end up in an orphanage?”
“They couldn’t chance anyone knowing who you were. They hid you until your ears healed, then left you where they knew you’d be safe. The queen monitored who ran the orphanage and had extra patrols stationed in your village.”
“Why couldn’t I leave with Rennick?” she asked. “We could have married when we turned twenty-two.” She turned to Rennick then, and he saw the hurt in her eyes,feltit clawing at his chest. “Why didn’t you send for me sooner? I had no one. I thought I had no family, and the entire time you knew.”
If his mate hated him for this, he would kill Amos. “We tried, love, I swear it. The human queen wouldn’t let you leave until I took the throne.”
“Why?”
“Because until you married him, you were considered an heir to the Desert Kingdom,” Amos said softly. “One look at you, and our father would have known you were his.” He gestured between them. “We look just like him. If you married another king, you’d no longer be in line for the throne because you’d already rule another kingdom.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “How do you know that sitting on one throne prevents you from taking another?”
Rennick noticed the dark circles under Amos’ eyes when he looked listlessly at his sister. “A treaty signed between the five kingdoms over a thousand years ago states that no one person can rule two kingdoms.”
“Rennick would’ve kept me safe,” she argued weakly, her shoulders slumping with defeat.
Amos shook his head. “It wasn’t worth the risk.”
“Where are our parents now?” Her voice sounded bone tired. “Did our mother not want to meet me?”
Amos’s eyes filled with unshed tears, and Rennick knew this was hard for him, too. “She fell ill when we were twelve. She’d been so full of life one minute, and the next she puked for hours, and her mouth filled with sores as if burned.” He stared at his feet for a moment. “I think she was poisoned, possibly by mistake, but there’s no way to know for sure. There were many people in our kingdom who wanted our father dead.” He sniffed. “When she realized she was dying, she told me everything and begged me to make sure our father never knew of your existence.
“I was a child, but I swore to her I would take care of you. The following year, the Mountain King came looking for his son’s mate—a girl named Amelia born on my real birthday. I knew in my gut it was you, and I thought Callum could protect you. I managed to get him alone before he left and told him everything.”
Silence sat heavy between them.
