“What?” I twisted in the chair and turned toward Caden.
“Before you ask, yes, we’ve had eyes on Flux. He was not seen going in, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t well-hidden.” He paused. “Like some do when they go to Flux.”
I ignored that. “And where did he go?”
“That, we don’t know,” Ren answered. “They were able to tail him for a couple of blocks, but they lost him on I-10.” Based on Ren’s tone alone, I knew how ridiculous he thought that was. Yeah, depending on the day, traffic sucked, but…come on. “But he’s here. We’ll let Miles know so all Order members are on alert.”
“And we’re increasing our own presence,” Faye added. “Between the two groups, we’ll form a net that can sweep the entire city. We will find him.”
My gaze shot back to Caden, and I knew without a doubt that he would be out there tonight and every night until Aric was found. “I will—”
The door opened, and I looked over my shoulder. It was Tanner and a younger man that I’d never seen before. They weren’t alone. There was a tall, lithe, dark-haired female fae with them. She wore a pretty, off-the-shoulder, pale blue and gold dress that would’ve looked great on a beach and terrible on me—someone who actually had hips. She was gorgeous, with delicate features, and whoever she was, she didn’t attempt to conceal the quicksilver tone of her skin. The male beside her didn’t glamour himself either.
“My King.” Tanner bowed slightly before correcting himself and slipping into a full bow. His gaze flicked to me and then away. He swallowed, probably worrying that I was going to start screaming curse words at his King at any second. “I am sorry to interrupt, but I was sure you would want to know the moment our guests arrived.”
Caden stood, but he did not speak as his gaze flickered across the two standing behind Tanner. A hardness settled across the King’s features, and tiny balls of unease formed in my stomach. I took a closer look at the two new fae, sensing that Caden was either not thrilled with the interruption or not exactly happy to see them.
“This is Sterling,” Tanner advised. “And his sister Tatiana.”
“I am pleased to meet you, my King.” The woman stepped forward, hands clasped under her breasts as she bowed deeply with the grace of a dancer. As she straightened, she smiled. “And I am honored to become your Queen and serve our Court together.”
Chapter 32
I couldn’t… I couldn’t have heard her right. Honored to be hisQueen?
A sharp blast of icy panic sliced through my stomach as I stared at the beautiful fae. No. No. There was no way I’d heard those words or understood them correctly.
Because if I did, that would mean…that Caden was to bemarried. That he was engaged and belonged to someone else while…while I’d had him in my arms and inside me. If what I had heard was correct, that meant I’d never had him at all because he already belonged to someone else.
My chest rose and fell with short, quick breaths as disbelief ripped through me. Knots formed in my stomach, and a tremor started in my legs, traveling rapidly throughout my entire body.
“As I am honored to be joining my family with yours,” the brother spoke, bowing as gracefully as his sister.
My heart started thumping harder, and then it was racing. Pressure seized my chest as I slowly turned my head toward Caden. He was speaking. I knew this because I saw his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear the words over the pounding of my blood in my ears.
Caden was…he was to be married.
I was going to be sick.
Nausea twisted up my insides. I could taste bile in the back of my throat. I needed to get out of there. I needed to be far, far away.
Placing my hands on the arms of the chair, I started to stand but couldn’t. The muscles all along my calves and thighs seemed to have turned to liquid.
Caden looked at me then, and our gazes connected. I saw… I sawnothingin his expression, and I knew he saw everything in mine. He faced the door. “Give us a moment, please.”
There was a brief hesitation. Tanner murmured words I couldn’t understand. Then Ivy and Ren shuffled out when they realized that Caden was asking them to leave. I felt Ivy’s stare, but I couldn’t look away from Caden as what we’d done the day before played over and over in my mind. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. That every breath I took did nothing to inflate my lungs or push oxygen through me. Faye and Tanner leaving momentarily blocked Caden from my view, and I…
I hadn’t known what to think about yesterday or what it had meant. I’d been too wary about allowing my heart to run away from me. But I’d loved him before we had sex and I loved him afterward.
And he belonged to someone else.
Caden’s amber gaze collided with mine once more. My fingers began to ache from how tightly I was clutching the arms of the chair.
God, I was so incrediblystupid, so recklessly naive to believe that him not wanting to feel what he felt for me meant that he felt more than he should, not that he only wanted me physically. Never once had I considered that perhaps he’d been fighting what he felt for me—whether it be more than the physical or not—because he was already committed to someone else. Obviously, this wasn’t the first time he’d heard about this…engagement. As if he weren’t involved in the whole damn process up until a handful of minutes ago. I doubted even the fae operated that way. Caden knew he had been promised to another when he kissed me, when he stripped my clothes fromme andfuckedme. Because that’s what he’d done, right? We hadn’t made love. We’d screwed. We’d fucked.
And I was the other woman.
“Say something,” he said.
