The fire hisses behind me. I collapse into the chair near it, curling into myself. The shadows dance across the floor, and my wolf watches them like they might give us the answers we’re too afraid to speak aloud.
Eventually, only Eryndor returns.
Marcus rises immediately. “When can we go back to our rooms?”
“Soon,” he replies. “The apothecary confirmed there was wolfsbane in the wine. How did you know?”
Marcus doesn’t look at me. “I’m immune to wolfsbane. I’m only half-shifter. I’m half-farfadet. My farfadet blood protects me from both wolfsbane and short-term silver exposure.”
The world tilts.
My breath stutters. My wolf freezes. Everything stops.
Not because he’s half-farfadet. But because he never told me.
He never trusted me with the truth.
Farfadets are earth-fae. Old, rare, and always a little wild. They come from the soil and stone, tricksters by nature but powerful in their own quiet way. Half of him belongs to that world. My wolf’s growl rises, not out of rage this time, but something rawer. Sadder. We should have known. Should have sensed it in his magic. But we didn’t.
I clutch the blanket tighter around myself. It smells like home, so I twist the edge between my fingers.
It’s not just what he hid.
It’s that I still want to understand him.
And that realization? That’s what hurts the most.
My throat aches. My chest feels hollow. Grief crashes through me in cold, brutal waves.
I thought I’d already lost everything tonight.
Turns out, I still had more to lose.
12
MARCUS
The click of the lock is clean and precise, the sound echoing for longer than it should. My wolf bristles, ears pricked, crouching low, reading danger in the sound long before my human mind does. The sound vibrates around the chamber before settling deep in my stomach.
Esmerelda doesn’t say a word as she walks by, chin held high, shoulders squared like a soldier entering a battle they might not survive but willing to fight anyway. She settles herself into a chair and wraps Min’s blanket tight around her shoulders. Her hands tremble just enough that I notice. Is this all an act? If so, I’ve underestimated my wife. The worst part? I don’t even know if she did it.
And that terrifies me. It also pisses me off. How the fuck did the council think forcing enemies to marry was going to turn out? Did they really think sending a council member to attend the dinner was going to prevent anything from happening? All it guaranteed was that they were now a council member short, and Esmerelda and I are more suspicious of each other than ever.
The audacity of the woman to accuse me of murder.
Once a murderer, always a murderer.
My jaw clamps so tight I think my teeth might snap in half. I thought I’d made peace with the accusations about the warehouse months ago, shoved them down so deep that I figured no one could touch them anymore. But the bitter accusations spilling from her mouth sting, and combined with the shame and confusion I feel over tonight, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
For a breath, I’m not in this chamber. I’m transported back to the chaos of the dining room where I failed everyone.
The dinner comes back in clean, merciless steps, as if to make sure I don’t miss a single moment of the torture meant for me. Slowly, the images swirl around my head in a dizzying flurry. The emotions assault me as if it’s happening in real time. Frustration at Esmerelda, feeling smug that I got the speech over with while taking pot shots at the ridiculousness of the whole evening. If I hadn’t tried so hard to prove we were functional to the council, to our families, maybe even to her, would they still be alive?
My shoulders have curled in on themselves without my permission, making me smaller, a posture that would make my old tutors clear their throats or slam wooden rulers on the desk. My hands move of their own accord in a restless rhythm that has my skin itching from the inside. They open and close relentlessly against my thighs. Press, release, press, release, press harder until the muscles ache and still I press and release. Heat rises up my neck and into my face. It’s not from the fire. It’s the pure, undiluted shame I feel. A shame that’s like a presence of its own.
I see with sickening clarity my hand on the bottle of wine I hand-picked for the evening—a deep vintage with hints of dried blackcurrants, cedarwood, and violet. Delivering a toast-worthy speech. Faces open, unguarded as every guest acted like one happy family. Tallulah lifting her glass, her opal ring catching the light. Lovell leaning back to say something I didn’t hear.My father’s mouth forming a scowl as he mentally prepared the berating he’d give me later. The clink of crystal. The soft scrape of a chair.
Then a pause. One that if you blinked, you’d miss. Taking a sip. Watching others follow. Watching everyone follow. How did I not know what was happening in my own house? How could I not see what was going on? How could I not sense it?
