Neither of them had known how Renata would react, and they’d decided it wasn’t worth the risk of anyone else finding out. And it was now painfully obvious that Renata had been incapable of keeping secrets. He still couldn’t believe that she’d told Keryna about their horns.
And the spell to kill him.
Why, Renata? Why?
Didn’t matter at this point. Other than he would have rather had his sister than a horn.
Which was why he kept Ryper’s relationship to him a secret. And why he’d never told Renata the truth.
Ryper didn’t want to be acknowledged as a prince.
He’d rather be castrated than have anyone bow to him or treat him like royalty. It just wasn’t Ryper, and Dash had promised his brother that he’d never force it on him. He loved his brother too much to make him do anything he didn’t want to do.
Dash pulled Ryper in for a rare hug and kissed the top of his head.
“What are you two doing?”
Dash pulled back to see Marthen putting a shield over the room to keep anyone from seeing into it. “You both know better! What if someone saw you?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “No doubt it would spark a whole lot of new rumors as to why I’m not married, and why, unlike my father, I don’t have bastard children running about.”
And that had been the biggest problem for them. It would have been bad enough for Cratus to have had one bastard son for his throne.
Twins were a catastrophe.
And a death sentence.
So, the eldest son had been sent off to their father while their mother had kept Ryper in her own kingdom where she could protect him.
Until the king had needed hostages.
To this day, Dash had no idea how Ryper had been sent off with others to Meara’s court. But since it hadn’t been a shock to Ryper when they met, he suspected his idiot brother had wanted to go there so that they could meet.
A typical Ryper thing to do.
And an uncommon one for their mother to send her child into danger. There was something to that story that Ryper didn’t want to share, and though Dash wished he knew it, he was aware that no amount of threats or intimidation would loosen Ryper’s tongue on the matter.
Unlike Renata, his brother kept his secrets.
And Ryper had been the only thing that had kept Dash from ripping Meara into pieces.
In spite of the hell she’d given them, he’d found his brother in her court. There, the two of them had forged a kinship far greater than blood. It was why he trusted Ryper, fully.
The only saving grace was that they weren’t identical twins. Dash took after their father and Ryper their mother, right down to her ethereal blue eyes and impatience.
Until Tanis, no one had ever noticed their similarities.
Well... other than Marthen and their mother. But as their uncle who’d been present when they were born, Marthen had known they were related from the get-go.
“Why are you here, Marty?” Dash asked.
“I was coming to take one last look at the map when I happened upon you two cuddling like puppies. Your mother would be proud. Everyone else would be shocked and gossiping.”
Dash ignored him. While Ryper was still close to their mother, Dash preferred to pretend she didn’t exist. Mostly because he blamed her for not keeping both of them after they’d been born. His father had a wife. There was no reason to think that Cratus wouldn’t eventually have had other children to inherit.
But their mother had wanted her blood on the Licordian throne, and it infuriated her that Dash refused to allow her to claim him now.
If she tried to let anyone know he was her son, he’d denounce her as a liar.
