“Vaan,” Thaine whispered. “How long?”
“She left three weeks ago.”
“Where is she?”
“In Laras,” I replied, “to go be with the male she actually loves.”
It took everything in menotto fly to Laras this very moment. To track her down. To chain her to my side.
“And you’re just going to let that stand?” Thaine asked, after he absorbed the words. If I thought I’d get sympathy from him, I’d been sorely mistaken. “Yourkyrana? Your one fated mate? My true brother would never have let her go. I don’t know who’s standing in front of me now, but it’s not him.”
“You don’t understand,” I told him, irritation making me bristle. “It was my fault.”
“Then help me understand,” Thaine said, handing me back thelore. “Help me understand so we can put this right.”
We.
“There’s nothing to put right,” I told him, my shoulders sagging.
But in the end, I told him everything. Every ugly detail. How I’d kept Erina at arm’s length, not wanting others to know she’d been my keeper. Her perfume, Luc Denoren. How I’d discovered that she’d intended to use me for my money, for my title, to better the life of her lover. How I’d thought she was different. How she’d overheard Lydrasa and me in my study. Everything she’d accused me of that I’d confirmed…how she believed I thought the worst in her. Even how I’d become aware she was mykyranathe day she’d walked in on me and Lydrasa.
I confessed how hellish it had been. About the day I’d found out she’d left and the scrambled, chaotic aftermath searching for her. Then the resignation had come…the anger, the fury, the longing.
It all came pouring out of me like opening a festering, pus-filled wound.
In the end, I didn’t feelclean, but I was relieved that Thaine finally knew.
My brother had his elbows planted on the banister, and he was massaging the bones of his brows by the time I was done, his eyes closed.
“You’re a fool,” he finally decided. “I expected this of Kythel, trying to be all noble by sacrificing his own happiness for the betterment of our family’s line. But not of you.”
“Thank you very much for that insult,” I snapped. “I thought you would understand it. She’s a keeper, one who’s made it clear she wants a higher position.”
“Yeah, she’s a keeper. Not a Thryki spy. Who cares? And you believe she was using you? Why? Because of the word of her supposed friend?” Thaine asked me, finally lifting his gaze. He wasn’t quite glaring at me, but there was disappointment in his eyes. “Because you heard it from someone else and believed them over the sacred bond of a blood mate?”
Nothing I hadn’t already agonized over in the last few weeks, but his tone made me bristle.
“She told me she loved him!” I growled, my voice echoing over the quietness of the courtyard below, which led to the garden pathway. “That night in my study. She told me she loved him.”
“Who thefuckcares?” Thaine asked, glaring at me now. “She’s yourkyrana, Kaldur. Not some socialite you picked up at a noble’s dinner. Steal her away from him like your life depends on it…oh, because it does!”
I’d never heard Thaine so willfully sarcastic. Or this fervent.
“No, this is about you,” he decided, rolling his shoulders. “Did she ever admit to wanting to ascend her position within the keep?”
I gritted my jaw. “No.”
She’d actually wanted to keep the blood-giver contract secret,so others wouldn’t find out. So she wouldn’t be the subject of idle gossip in the kitchens, of people she’d once considered friends.
And one of those same friends had sold her out.
“They share a family name,” I said. “They took it together. Denoren. They grew up together at an orphanage here. Something about the way she talked about it…it just felt so permanent. How can I compete with a bond like that? Some bonds go beyond fate.”
“You never even tried,” Thaine accused, softening his tone. “You cared more about what the nobles would think. You’re embarrassed by what our uncle did here. You’re trying to save yourself the humiliation of the same thing, but you pushed away yourkyranato do it. You gave up. And now you look as defeated as you must feel.”
I rasped, “Your comfort is really making me feel better.”
“I’m not here to comfort you,” he snapped. “I’m here to pull your head out of your ass and make you seereason—something, up until recently, I thought you understood.”
