limit and had quite enough of being in the middle of these two. So, I gladly held out my arms ready for him to take over, despite Nero's protests.
But then something stopped me when she suddenly gripped onto me so tightly, I felt her entire body freeze solid in my hold.
“Hey, ah said…wait whit's wrong, lass?” Vern asked, obviously seeing her reaction for himself and knowing that something wasn't right…it also wasn’t because of him. We both knew that when she couldn’t seem to take her eyes away from staring in the direction of my throne. The look on her face was as if she had seen the ghost of her ancestors speaking to her only of the death they wanted for her, like a darkness upon her soul.
I turned to look in the direction, seeing now my brother after he had just created a portal and was stepping through it. Nero then started to tremble in my arms and the scent of fear was clinging to her like a sickening veil.
“Nero, tell me what's wrong?” I asked in a stern way to get her to speak.
“It's him, oh Gods…” I frowned, looking back at my brother wondering what it was she thought she saw in him.
“That is my second in command, he rules my realm when I am absent. he is…” I started to explain more but she finished off my sentence for me with a word I prayed was wrong,
“A traitor!” she hissed as if close to spitting it on the floor.
“Why do you say this?!” I demanded, and she looked up at me with fearful eyes, ones that I knew were not lying to me when she explained,
“We both saw him there; he created a portal just like that. But then it can't be right, Fae had said…she told me she saw…”
“What, what did she tell you?!” I asked with more desperation now and Nero took a sneak glance back at the man who she believed had been there calling the shots. but she must have been wrong. There was no way he could have been that shadowy figure that I had barely seen in the Eye’s visions. No, it couldn't be true!
Of course, no matter how many times I told myself this, the knowledge was obliterated the moment she turned back to me and said,
“Fae told me that the Eye had shown her who was responsible for all of this, the same man that had been there with the Harpy Queen…she recognised him, and she wasn't sure that you knew.”
“Knew what, tell me Nero!?”
“Speak, lass,” Vern said seeing how close now I was to the edge. She gripped onto me harder as if fearing that once she said it out loud I would toss her aside. But the only person in the whole room that I would take action against for such knowledge would be the person under scrutiny now.
Because of what she said next, there was no way possible she could have known other than that of the Eye showing Amelia the truth.
This was when she told me…
“…That he is your brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hope in Hand
The second I heard this was when I knew I had to hand over the girl before I crushed her already battered body in my hold. Vern took her quickly, as if knowing I was too close to the edge to be handling his woman, because despite Nero's denials, I could see it in his face that was exactly who she was to him, his woman. Even if he hadn't claimed her to be so yet, to him she was already claimed in his heart.
As for my own heart, looking at my brother now and it felt like it was being ripped in two. I saw him frowning at me as if knowing that something wasn't right, but I couldn't let on. Not yet, anyway. So, I granted him a nod, silently telling him everything was fine just so he wouldn't escape by creating another portal. Then with clenched teeth I muttered to the shifter,
“Place Nero on the ground and pretend to assess her wounds, do it quickly.” Vern didn't argue, he simply did as I asked knowing the importance of what I had just been told and my reaction to it. Vern now had his back to my brother and as he was leaning over Nero it meant that I was out of sight, thanks to Vern not being of slight frame.