He tilted his head, confusion on his face, because to him, he’d been told all his life his purpose was to serve me. Be my right hand. Be better than the Scotts that came before him. Never betray me. Never step out of line.
Any mistake felt like failing a lifetime’s worth of expectations.
And I’d meant what I said that day to Quinn. Landon had never betrayed me. He’d always tried to do the right thing, even without having all the pieces. Because he’d asked me once not to give them, but in the end, he’d left me with the choice. It always came down to my decision to protect him. Maybe he’d never see it that way. Maybe others would disagree. But…
He was my best friend. And I saw how it was killing him.
So, when he asked me to make it stop, I let him forget.
I met his gaze. “A wise king leads from the front, Landon. He sets the example…” I dropped my eyes to her as I got the words out. “I would shoulder all of it to protect the people I love. And in the end, as long as she’s Queen of Camelot Court, it will have been worth it. She’ll choose you. And we can do what I set out to do.”
“And if she chooses him?”
“Would it really be the worst thing?”
“No,” he grumbled. But his admission, however begrudging, said more than he knew. “He still hates me for what happenedlast year, and he’s so fucking stubborn. Always baiting me and rubbing it in my face.”
“Because he doesn’t know the truth, Landon. Only you can decide when you’re ready to give it to him. To both of us, fully. Only you can decide when you’re ready to let the past go.”
“What if it makes everything worse? What if I tell him and he still doesn’t forgive me? Or…I find out I could’ve saved her, but I hadn’t been strong enough to do it.” He swallowed. “What if it always should’ve been him?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked me that, but the answer was too closely tied to the one I couldn’t give him.
“We’ll deal with that. But…” I glanced at him, then down to Quinn again, and he followed my gaze like I’d hoped he would. “What if you get so much more than you expected?”
He smiled at her sleeping face, and the love in his eyes hurt but also healed. It was the first moment I thought I could truly bear it. Loving him while letting him go. Where the path forward, even if it didn’t lead to us, still made me feel…happy. Whole. With them together.
My eyes drifted shut, thinking he’d fallen asleep and planning to follow him. Follow them.
But then he spoke again, his low and quiet voice blanketing me in the dark. Reminding me I wasn’t alone.
“Moments like this…I feel like I remember.”
I swallowed. “Remember what?”
“Why you’re my best friend. Why I’d always followed you wherever you wanted to go. It feels like it’s been a long time since we got to talk like this, but it’s…familiar. It makes sense why I always trusted you. And I—” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry I forgot.”
“It’s not?—”
“I know what you’re going to say, but I have a choice, too, Kingston. And sometimes, I want to remember the rest. I wantto know…But it hurts. And I don’t understand why, but you said—You said you didn’t ask for this.”
I fought to keep my voice from breaking. “No.”
“I asked you not to tell me, didn’t I?”
All I could do was nod.
“And you never did.” His brow furrowed as he thought about it, but he didn’t wince. Not a memory, just his thoughts. “I think because of that, I’ve known that it had to be really bad. Even before everything that happened with Quinn. I think it’s why I never asked. And then, even more so when things were falling apart, when I chose her instead of you, when I ran from you that night…”
Breathing slowly through my nose, holding onto the sound of his voice.
“If you’ve let me be angry with you to protect me from it, it had to be something that would hurt me worse. It’s like you’re worried it might…break me or something, and I’ve been fighting the memories, to stop them from returning, because I trust you. And I’m scared to remember because I don’t want to lose her, too. But…”
I pulled in a ragged breath, willing my body not to shake because I didn’t know what I’d do if he asked me for the truth right then. And I didn’t know why it surprised me. That he’d seen what I’d fought so hard to hide.
But he’d seen it the way he always had. The way he’d always seen me.
“Kingston, if I wanted to remember, would you tell me?”
