that we must protect those we love from. My teeth grit together.
A memory from my childhood slams into me. Three men had followed my mother as she walked home after visiting with a friend late one night. She called my step-father, scared. The men were shouting at her, chasing her, laughing and describing what they would do to her. He played every word of it through the phone’s speaker for me to hear.
I can still remember their words to this day.
My step-father brought me with him to face the men and sent her inside the house. And then he beat the men. Not a little. A lot. I stood in my pajamas, a young boy, watching in horror as the men screamed and begged to be let go. But there was something in my step-father’s eyes that night, something that said he was the judge, jury, and executioner for these men.
And he’d deemed their crimes worthy of a slow torture.
The next day, the news talked about the men and what had happened to them. All four of them were in the ICU, unable to talk, and people wondered what mob of psychopaths had beaten them. And what weapons they’d used to deliver the blows.
I was the only one who knew the truth. It was only one man, and his fists were the only weapons. He just wasn’t human.
What I saw scared me. Both the violence of it, and the voice of doubt that whispered that I could never protect someone I loved as well as he had that night. My step-father’s influence meant that I wasn’t a light fae the way my mother was. I was something darker and more twisted, and yet, was it enough?
To this day, I can still feel my step-father’s hand on my shoulder as he staggered away from them, covered in blood, and stopped beside me. “There are bad people in this world, Bron. It’s our job to protect women. It’s our job to make certain that no one ever hurts them. You hear me, boy?”
I heard him. And I hear him now. But how do I protect someone who’s looking for trouble?
“Fuck,” I mutter, rubbing my face.
I was already worried about protecting her. The last thing I needed to do was worry that she was going to go looking for trouble. But knowing her, I should’ve been prepared for it.
“Do we tell her?” Dwade asks.
Stiffening, I drop my hands and look at him. “Are you nuts? If she even has a suspicion--”
“She’s smart,” he says, as if I don’t know that. “She’s going to find out sooner or later. Wouldn’t it be better if she heard it from us?”
Lucian leans back on the couch. “Not a chance. No matter how we explain it, she won’t understand. She’ll blame us for what happened, and we’ll lose her forever.”
I don’t say the thing we’re all thinking. That it was our fault. We might not have driven that blade into Rayne’s stomach, but we might as well have. His death lay squarely on our shoulders, and Esmeray would see it too.
“I vote we keep it a secret,” I say. If it meant we could have her, it was a secret I’d take to my death.
Dwade shakes his head. “I vote we tell her. She deserves to know the truth. Even if we lose her forever.”
The thought of her disappearing from our lives is like a knife to my gut. I realize I almost tumble off my chair, and Lucian grips my shoulders, pushing me back as I pant. “Don’t think about it,” he says. “Thinking about losing her creates a physical pain. You know that.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Saying it and feeling it were two totally different things. I knew in my head that the power of a mate bond was a deep and complicated thing, but it didn’t stop my body from breaking out into a sweat, or mind-numbing fear from coming over me.
“We can’t lose her,” I whisper. “Even if keeping the secret destroys us.”
After a second, Lucian says, “She has nobody. Her parents are assholes. She’s been alone for too long. If we tell her the truth, she loses us, after losing Rayne. I want to tell her, but I think it’d be cruel.”
“So?” I whisper.
He closes his eyes. “May the gods forgive us. I vote we keep it a secret.”
I reach out my hand, and Lucian puts his on top of my mine. We both look at Dwade. After a long minute,