Bile rose in my throat as understanding clanged through me.
Kaden had no hope of taking the throne without a queen. And with Caladwynn’s bargain . . .
I was going to be sick.
Caladwynn had barred me from the Quartz Palace so that I could not marry Kaden.
As if he’d read my very thoughts, Kaden said, “My cousin is a conniving bastard. He has no love for Alfrigg, but he might side with him. Many would have to die for my cousin to take the throne, but garnering my uncle’s favor could grant him a nice position in court should he ever return to our realm.”
I shook my head. It felt too full. Bursting with this new information and a wild array of emotions. “But —” I spluttered. “I don’twantto marry you.”
“You wound me, little huntress.” Kaden’s eyes danced wickedly, and my stomach pitched for an entirely different reason.
“It’s not —” I choked. “I mean, you haven’t asked. Not that I . . . We only just found out . . .”
I trailed off. I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain. It was all too much.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “I would not burden you with such a request. While it would be the greatest honor of my immortal existence, my ascension to the throne will not be a peaceful one. As queen, you would have a target on your back for the rest of your life.” He swallowed. “I will not ask that of you.”
I shook my head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t relevant at the time you made the bargain. I still did not know what you were to me, though my cousin’s terms were certainly suspicious.”
“And after?” My voice trembled with rage and heartbreak.
Heartbreak I did not understand and did not want to look too closely at.
“After, I . . . I didn’t want to burden you.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
When Kaden met my gaze, his devastation was written all over his face. “Maybe not. But if you would have seen the way you looked at me the first time I brought you here . . . It felt as though any moment I would turn around and find that you had disappeared. If I’d told you that I needed to take a queen and that I wanted her to be you . . . You would have run.”
My throat burned with devastation, both for the impossible choice Kaden now faced and the things he’d hidden. It stung that he’d had so little faith in me.
Then again, what reason had I given him to trust mewith his heart? I’d been so busy hating the prince, so busy plotting to kill him, that trusting him had snuck up on me.
I had no recollection of when I’d begun to cravehistrust.
But instead of telling him that, I reached for the familiar vitriol that was never far from the surface. “You don’t know that,” I seethed. “You don’t knowme.”
His nostrils flared. “I know you, Lyra. You’re still a huntress. No matter what you might feel for me, I am half demon. There will always be a part of you, however small, that wants to kill me.”
His words hit like a physical blow, though I didn’t want to show how much they hurt. “If I wanted to kill you,” I growled, “then I would have let you rot in that cell in Dorthus. Instead, I saved your sorry ass. But what else is new?”
Kaden let out a low, mirthless chuckle.
“Sorsha was right,” I went on, recalling the argument I’d overheard at Cragsmuir when she’d been insisting he tell me we were mates. “You keep everyone around you in the dark so that when they get fed up with you, you can blame everyone but yourself.”
Kaden looked as though I’d slapped him, and something ugly roared inside me. I knew it was a low blow, but I was tired of his secrets — the truths he kept locked away due to his own wretched fear.
“I keep the secrets I need to keep to protect those I love,” he growled, his shadows fanning out around him. “To protect mykingdom.”
“Oh,bullshit.”
Kaden blinked, taken aback. I supposed that being the Taker of Souls meant that he wasn’t used to people arguingwith him, which, if I was being honest, only made it more satisfying. I could feel the hum of that ominous power lapping at my skin — feel Kaden’s demon magic writhing just below the surface.
“You know what?” I seethed. “I think part of youlikesthat Velisara opened the sire bond because it gives you another reason to hide.”
