I clamped my mouth shut. I didn’t know who this person was anymore. Did I ever? He certainly didn’t act like the boy I grew up with, like the boy who stole a bun from the market and risked getting beaten, only to tear the meager food in half because I didn’t have anything to eat.
“Come on, Em,” Paul said, his voice too calm, like the eye of a storm I hadn’t yet begun to understand. “Come inside.”
His words held no force, or threat. But they didn’t need to. He was my brother. I wouldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t.
To my greatest shame, I obeyed. My feet moved before my heart could scream no, each reluctant step dragging me back across the threshold of the cabin I’d fought so hard to flee. More hunters had joined us and followed us inside. The door creaked closed behind us with a finality that stole the breath from my lungs. Trapped again, not by ropes or chains, but by something far more insidious—love.
Late afternoon sun bled through the curtains, illuminating the living room we’d hurried through moments ago. Paul waved at the table. I hesitated, then sank into the rickety chair at the scarred dining table. Its legs wobbled beneath me, but I barely noticed. My attention was fixed on the man across from me. My brother. My own twin.
Paul met my eyes without a flicker of remorse, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. He looked the same as he always had.
The new hunters stepped in behind me, their presence and position a silent threat.
Why was I here? Why hadn’t I run?
Beside me, Ace remained silent. His presence was grounding, yet the tension rolling off him was palpable. He sat still, but his hand brushed lightly against mine beneath the table, just once. A quiet reminder that I wasn’t alone.
I wanted to grab his hand and hold on, but that wouldn’t save me from this moment.
I turned my attention back to Paul, fury simmering beneath my skin. “What’s going on?” I asked. My voice shook a little, but it wasn’t from fear. Oh no. It was barely contained rage.
I couldn’t deny the truth now, as it was so much worse than I initially thought. Paul wasn’t just involved with these hunters. Not just complicit. He was leading them. Or close enough to it.
The man who’d sworn to always have my back since childhood was the reason I’d been captured and chained.
And now he sat calmly at the dinner table as if he hadn’t just tried to steal my freedom.
The audacity of it made my blood boil.
“Explain,” I said, my voice sharper this time. “Start talking before I decide I’d rather take my chances outside against your men.”
“I’d advise against that. There’s only so many poisoned arrows you can take, and Ace here doesn’t have the same shield of immortality as you.”
“Neither do your hunters. How many more can I take down with me before I’m incapacitated?” I asked. “How many more can you afford to lose?”
He hesitated and the softness around the corners of his eyes faded.
Touched a nerve there. Good.
“Why?” I asked again.
Paul shook his head and glanced toward the door. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me.”
“I’m trying to rid this world, our world, of the galeons.”
“But…but why?”
He pressed his lips together and looked down at the table.
I knew this look—the one with the furrowed brow. He was deciding how much to tell me.
He spoke to the tabletop instead of meeting my gaze. “Aren’t you tired of taking crap from the galeons? Why them and not us?”
Us? Did he know we were phaanon? Did he suspect? Surely, he would’ve said something if he knew.
No, he meant us as in peasants. He either thought we were pureblood galeons or at least partly galeon, and it was lack of money holding us back. “So, you have issues with the royals, and you’ve decided to recruit hunters and make your own army to kill the unkillable?”
