“Yes, but I didn’t?—”
“Information I withheld, too, Landon. This is on me. Not you.” He sighed, staring at his hands as he twisted them together in front of him. “And even though I have no right to ask for it, I need to hear it from you.”
“We—” The words lodged in my throat, but he didn’t need them to know the truth, so I nodded instead. “It’s too late.Before the Knights’ Quorum, we…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “I fell in love with her, and she deserved a choice.”
He nodded, straightening even as his hands shook. “You were right to give her one.”
Splintering inside my chest splayed out like ice across a frozen lake,sparkling midnight blue in the moonlight.
The pain on his face fractured my heart. Hurting him... It betrayed the marrow of my being. Cut deep within my bones—fierce, insistent, and sharp.
His blue-gray eyes met mine,filling with tears over what I’d done…
But Kingston held back his emotions. His eyes were filled with grief instead of tears, and I didn’t understand what my mind fought to remember.
Or why it hurt to let the truth step into the light.
Why would you do that? You won’t remember any of it. You won’t remember?—
You’re my best friend, Kingston. Can’t you see that this is killing me?
Can’t you see?—
His voice filtered through my head right before he whispered, “It’s not your fault.”
He promised me that, just like he always did.
Kingston never blamed me. He never said it was my fault.
Except I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was.
Kingston
Awareness that it was too late had risen within me that morning, when I stepped into her bedroom.
Not when I walked in on her, Landon, and Max Dread, surprisingly enough.
Landon’s expression, when I mentioned the possible solution to our statute problem, gave it away.
Guilt visited his features so frequently since last year, I had picked up the ability to catch it at the slightest hint.
Outrunning his family history had become ingrained in him. I’d seen that easily when we were young. But back then, he resisted it.Before, Landon had known that betraying his heart was far worse than betraying those who ruled over him.
I hadn’t always been in the latter category, even if our birthrights—mine as the D’Arthur heir, and his duty as my right hand—conveyed otherwise. I wanted to believe a part of him remembered. That, perhaps, it explained why he struggled more with betrayal now than he had then.
But, truth be told, I had no way of knowing if that was true, or the foolish hope of a young boy who’d lost his dearest, closest companion. His partner in crime.
The person promised to always be by his side.
A promise made by power-hungry men and fulfilled by love-starved children. A promise bound in blood, sweat, and tears. And broken by our joined hands.
“It’s too late.”
Each word that followed drove a nail into the crypt of my future. Even though I’d suspected it—knownit—before he said the words, they came so quickly now compared to the way he’d withheld the truth before.
Thatwas the part that shattered me.
It was no longer a question. As much as he’d said he was mine, too…as much as I believed he’d do his best to honor his duty to me, the man before me, choosing her, wasn’t mine at all.
