I exhale slowly, shaking my head. “She keptmealive.”
“She kept us all alive when we were almost sacrificial lambs,” Sylvian says, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.
“Yeah,” I mumble.
Silence again. But this one is different. It stretches, not uncomfortable, just… heavy with something none of us are saying out loud. Each of us has stepped in. Each of us has pulled her back from something that would have taken her. Each of us has been necessary for keeping her safe. And she? She’s done her fair share of saving us too.
Something inside me tightens slightly as the realization sinks in. We don’t just work together. Wefittogether. Around her. Necessary components to her safety and happiness.
“She needs all of us, doesn’t she?” I ask.
“We need each other,” Cassius corrects.
The thought should feel wrong. It doesn’t. No one argues it. No one even tries. We all know. It’s there in the way all of us behave when she’s near. How we seem to be better people.
There’s value in it. In all of us. What that means… I have no idea.
“What happens when we leave this place?” I ask before I can stop myself.
All of them stiffen.
Yeah. That’s about what I expected.
I huff out a breath, my back straight. “You know what? Never mind.”
Sylvian glances back at me. “Ashton?—”
“No,” I cut him off lightly. “That’s a problem for later.”
“But itwillbe a problem,” Cassius says softly, but I choose to ignore him.
I grin, a little sharper this time. “If we survive long enough to have those kinds of problems, I’ll consider it a win.”
That earns a quiet reaction from all of them, the tension in the room easing just slightly as they exchange brief glances before their attention returns to me.
“Then we deal with what’s in front of us,” Cassius says.
“Exactly.”
And right now, what’s in front of us is obvious.Alette.Alette. My sweet human. The woman who has stolen my heart.
Looking around the room, I know not every man here has admitted to himself how he truly feels about her, but I don’t want to be held back by the things they’re not brave enough to admit. Within the labyrinth, we may all be working together, but when this ends, only one of us will end up with her. We’ve seen in the past what happened when fae royalty from different courts tried to share a woman, after all. So if one man is going to be picked, I need it to be me. I couldn’t take another easy breath without her.
I head for the door.
“Where are you going?” Sylvian asks, confusion in his voice.
I glance back over my shoulder. “I just need to talk to Alette alone for a few minutes.”
That’s all it takes. They settle into the chairs around my fire, scotch between them, and I head out the door, knowing this can’t wait any longer. Knowing that I have to tell Alette how I feel. Before it’s too late.
I lift my hand and knock once.
“Come in,” her voice calls out, soft but clear.
I push the door open and step inside, and the world stops. The air within the room is warm and inviting, filled with thefaint scent of the fire crackling in the hearth. Alette stands near the window, bathed in the warm glow of the firelight, her silhouette framed by the dancing flames. She’s wearing a thin, white nightgown that makes everything inside of me tense. The fabric flows around her, elegant and regal, but it’s the way she holds herself that strikes me most. She looks every bit a queen.
“Wow,” I manage to say, though the words feel inadequate. “You look… stunning.”
