I have some seriously aggressive friends.
I massage my temple to relieve the constant throbbing before I tell them everything—from the fumbling nurse, the double-timing warriors, how the portal didn’t actually collapse and the coup of our lifetime.
I still can’t figure out how we teleported back inside the kingdom that night. In a kingdom so heavily protected by barriers, even the strongest beings can’t attempt something like that without dying.
“So that was your plan? Throw Nevaeh out and then what? Sit around and wait for traitors to come to you?” Grace interrogates.
“No, I thought… I thought—”
“Where are the traitors? Where are your treacherous parents? Why did they do it? Who else is helping them? What’s their end goal? Why just Nevaeh, why not you or Harvey or Seiji? How many warriors are involved? What about the coven, do they know—”
Her blow-up is justified. The questions Grace is asking are precisely those that run through my mind every damn second, but I don’t have the answers to them.
I can’t tell her I successfully saved Nevaeh because all I did was delay the threat still coming toward her,but I couldn’t think. My mind stopped working after the amount of danger she was in settled into my bones. All I knew was that I had to dosomething.
Blinking fast, I keep my head down and ruffle through a mountain of papers to find some of the answers. “I just knew she wasn’t safe here,” I croak out, not daring to lift my head.
The papers below me spot a few teardrops, but I don’t have time to drown in the pain that comes with knowing I hurt my mate. I have to help Nevaeh. I have so much to do and not enough time or a stable enough head to complete the simplest tasks.
“And she’s safe out there?”
Bundling a few papers, I pass them to Seiji so he can see I at least did something right. I made enough arrangements to know my sweetheart was safe. “Trust me, she has protection. I have my best and most trusted men watching them both.”
“What were you thinking?”
The repeated question grates my nerves, and I’m getting sick of hearing it. My brain is way too jumbled up to process more than one piece of information at a time.
Trying to identify the traitors, maintaining the kingdoms, overseeing security, preventing the coven from attacking, and constantly defending my decision to adopt August to the elderswhile pushing away my thoughts of what I did to my mate is too much.
And I just snap.
“That she was going to die if she stayed here!” Banging my fist against the desk, I glare at the papers in front of me. “She was being targeted in her own home, and I had no goddamn idea by who. All I knew was that I had to get her out of here. If I started sniffing out traitors while she was still here in harm’s direct way, I would’ve never forgiven myself if something—”
Fisting my hair, I take a sharp breath to keep it together. There is too much to do, and I have no idea where to start. For the first time in years, I feel like the same useless boy who couldn’t do anything right, who only knew how to disappoint his people.
I’ve never felt this helpless before. I’m someone who always has a plan and is prepared for anything, but this has caught me off- guard. My incompetence has caused me to lose my mate, her trust, and her safety.
“I admit I don’t have all the answers, okay? But I wasn’t going to risk another day of her standing beside me, oblivious to the danger surrounding her. You saw what happened that night. What if someone found a way to pass our portal guards? They’d know exactly where to find Nevaeh and August.”
Grace bites the side of her cheek and nods in thought. It’s hard on all of us. Our love for Nevaeh and August is getting in the way of logic but I know even if it hurts right now, removing both of them from the equation was the safest way.
Meeting their eyes, I try to convince them that I’m trying because I really am. “Ineededher safe before I turned this place upside down.”
Snatching a notepad from my desk, Grace starts jotting something down. I watch Seiji walk to the corner of my office topick out a map. Returning to the table he sweeps everything off the table with a dramatic flair.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Yeah, it’s not like it took me days to sort those out.
“We need a plan.” Hopping on the table, Seiji lays out the map and stares at it intensely as if the map is going to poop out the answers he wants.
Nodding her head, Grace asks Hazel to look at the locations she has marked on the map. “I think I have a few ideas.”
I’ve never been more grateful for her. The need to have my sweetheart back is clouding my senses, and the guilt of hurting her is killing me so much that I can’t form proper sentences, let alone an elaborate plan. Grace is truly a blessing at this point.
“Of course you do.” Harvey boasts, but a glare from his mate shuts him up.
“None of you are forgiven. I’m only doing this because I love my sister and nephew.”
