“I heard him.” I was shaking now, my hands curled into fists at my sides. “The king’s assassin. I heard his voice while she died.”
Grump hadn’t moved. Hadn’t breathed. He stood frozen, the pocket watch clutched against his chest like a shield—or a wound.
I stepped closer, tears blurring my vision. “Did you murder her?”
The accusation hung between us, sharp as a blade.
“Did you kill my mother?”
Darius clasped my arm and pulled me toward him. “Alice, what are you saying?”
“She died protecting me.” I lifted my chin, forcing myself to hold Grump’s gaze. “I can still hear her screams and that man’s voice. He said my father was dead.”
Darius rubbed my back and kissed my cheek, holding me steady when I couldn’t hold myself.
“I didn’t kill her.”
Grump’s voice came out barely above a whisper. Shattered. I lifted my head.
“I loved her.” His face had changed; the hardness crumbled away, leaving something raw and wounded beneath. “She was my mate.”
The soft word echoed through me. Mate.
“I didn’t...” He looked down at the watch in his trembling hands. At her face. “I didn’t know she died in a fire. I didn’t know how—” He stopped. Swallowed hard. “They told me she was gone. They never told me how.”
The cavern had gone silent. No one moved. No one breathed.
Grump lifted his gaze to mine. Tears—actual tears—lined his weathered face.
“Alice.” His voice cracked on my name. “You’re my daughter.”
Chapter Nineteen
Alice
You’re my daughter.
Those three little words stopped my heart.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Twenty-one years of wondering. Twenty-one years of believing I had no one. That my father was dead, or worse—that he’d abandoned us. Abandoned me.
And he’d been here. All along, he’d been here.
My legs trembled beneath me. The cavern tilted—no, I was swaying. Black dots swam in front of my eyes, crowding at the edges of my vision, threatening to pull me under. If Darius hadn’t been holding me, I would have collapsed.
Daughter.
The word didn’t fit. Couldn’t fit. Grump was hard and cold and suspicious of everything. He’d looked at me like I was a threat from the moment I arrived. How could he be…?
Someone lifted me into their arms. Strong. Steady. I hoped it wasn’t Darius or we’d both fall.
The world blurred around me. Voices, distant and muffled, like I was underwater.
“Sit here.” A rough voice, cracked with something I’d never heard in it before. Grump. My father. “Bring her some water.”
I felt stone beneath me. Cool and solid. An anchor when everything else was spinning out of control.
You’re my daughter.
