his muscles went rigid. “I need to go to her, but want to say something to you first,” he said sternly.
My brows furrowed. “About what?”
“About Larken.”
My curiosity piqued. “What about her?”
He leveled me with a glare. “The pledge is making you protective.”
I knew that.
“The pledge. And nothing more,” he asserted.
“Is this the big brother talk, Kes?” I asked with a slight grin. Kes did not smile with me.
The hardness of his expression made mine melt away. “She is my sister. I wear her brother’s skin, bones, and am sustained by his blood. Beyond that, she is my sister because she chooses to be. And she chooses me as her family, as her brother, but also as her friend. You were the first person I called my true friend. I’ve lived thousands of lifetimes since you preserved my soul that day and made me your eternal Guardian, but in all those years, in all those lives, I’ve never once called someone family, or friend. Only you. And only her. That’s how important she is to me.”
I cleared my throat. “I see.”
“She is not someone I would have you trifle with. Her feelings for you are growing. Stop feeding them, Aries. If you hurt her…”
Leaving his words hanging in the air, he disappeared, a look of warning in his eyes.
Kes had never threatened me before.
10
Kes appeared on the balcony where I stood shortly after that. In his hands was a steaming bowl of some sort of stew. It smelled amazing. Not gonna lie. “Are you insane?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
He shoved the bowl toward me, the spoon singing around the edge. Luckily, he didn’t spill any as the thick broth sloshed and finally settled.
“Aries is furious with you.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I know.”
Kes raked a hand through his hair, which I noticed with a start was shot through with thick swaths of gray. “Do you want to tell me what you did to make him so angry?”
My brows popped up. “What I did? Why do you assume I did something? Clearly, he has anger issues.”
“Only when it comes to you,” he said pointedly.
I shook my head. “Not just me. He tore someone’s head off today.”
“Someone who deserved far worse,” Kes insisted. He was right, of course. “And he did it for you. He said he showed you.”
“What is happening, Kes? Why is he so…”
“Protective of you? Oh, maybe because I used my one right to ask him to be. I’ve asked him to protect you above all others. That means above all of them,” he said, thrusting a hand toward the village. “That means above each and every Guardian. Above the Zodia who might still favor him. Above everything, Larken.”
My breath caught in my chest. I hadn’t realized what the pledge truly meant until then.
I just thought it was making him feel things I was sure he otherwise wouldn’t, and that maybe the marks on my skin were making me feel something similar. But to put me above his Guardians, above my own brother, and above each and every man, woman, and child in his territory? That was crazy. They needed him to survive. He gave them food and shelter. They would die without him. They would starve. I couldn’t live knowing that I was responsible for anyone else’s death.
“I should just wipe the marks off and let Taurus come for me. I don’t want him to protect me before all of them, or all of you.”
Kes cursed. “I didn’t mean it like that, and I didn’t mean to upset you. I knew what the pledge meant when I asked him to make it, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Because you deserve a chance to live your life, Larken. You deserve the best life has to offer…” His voice broke, but he recovered. “I just need you to know why he’s so… intense.”
“Because he has to be, I get it.” I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that his feelings toward me, the intensity, wasn’t real. I was also a little scared that I felt that way. I couldn’t let my feelings get away from me. Aries was not human. I had to remember that. I needed to forget the way I wanted to put my hand in his when he reached for me. How I wanted him not to let go. How I wanted to hear him speak in every language and know what made him smile. What made him truly happy.
Kes shook