Page 43 of How to Keep a Fae

“What is this? A test?” My chest is heaving. “Of him or me?”

“Of both of you,” he says, meeting my gaze.

I want to hate him. There have been times when I thought I did. His cold indifference has often beenhard to reconcile, and now this? I see what he is doing. I tell myself that if Jayga betrays me, he is not the man I hoped him to be, and better I know it now. My mind is already a quagmire as I try to unpick how such a mating between the three of us might work.

But… his words, his calm acknowledgment that this is a test, make me burn.

I don’t know how to live without her; that is the beginning and the end of the circle I take.

Could I be that strong if I were the one left to tend her? Given the opportunity, could I resist the pull to claim her for myself?

With startling clarity, I know that I could. Adaline’s happiness is as essential to me as my own. I could not do to her, even in the heat of passion, anything that might damage her, that might be against her free will.

“I always thought you had more of me, but I can see your mother too.”

He has barely said a word to me in many months of travel. I wish he would shut the fuck up again.“You don’t have to say it like an insult—like her ways are a weakness.”

“Insult? No.” He blinks slowly. “Weakness? Maybe, in some’s eyes.” His brows gather together like my sharp words present a puzzle. “I love your mother. Why would I see anything about the woman I love as a weakness?”

I suck a deep, sharp breath. He is not usually this candid, and I don’t know what to do with this forthright version of him. “If you loved her, why didn’t you claim her?” The words are out before I can censor them. I guess we’re tossing all the burning questions onto the already well-stoked fire.

“Because I am a fool. Because I thought if I claimed first rights to a pretty breeder I was obsessing over, it would end my obsession.” The words rock me. There is no mistaking the bitterness in his tone. “And she was so very sweet and hopeful,looking at me with worship in her eyes. The king saw what was happening and sent me on a mission that took me five years to complete. What is five years to me? It was a blink of an eye and forever, and when I came back, she’d had two more children and was ripe with another on the way.”

A cold sensation is spreading through my chest. I don’t like it. I wish it would stop.

His laugh is devoid of humor.

“I couldn’t keep away from her even though it burned every time I saw her loving gaze turn equally upon children that were not mine. I wanted to hate them and her. But how could I? She is a breeder. Her open, loving nature is what drew me to her as much as her pretty blue eyes.”

I’m still reeling. I doubt this tumbling sensation will stop any time soon. “How did my stepfather come to mate her? Why would the king sanction that?”

“Sanction?” He is not feigning his confusion nor masking his underlying rage. “That upstart is not sanctioned. As if the king would grant permission for a warrior whose life and achievements span mere decades to claim a valuable breeder as a mate? No, he did what every man does when he cannot let a woman go, the only failsafe option, the only one that does not carry risks. He forced her heat.”

The hits don’t stop coming.

Unsanctioned.

Forced Heat.

I shake my head. “Breeders are at the bottom, why would you?—”

“Do not insult your mother.” His expression is a billowing storm. His eyes say he wants to rip me apart. I’m an exemplary warrior, but today showed me I am nothing compared to a centuries-old fae warrior with imperial blood.

I swallow, but I don’t look away.

“Just because their blood is not potent and they have neither the strength nor disposition to wield a sword does not make them any less valuable. They are the caregivers, the mothers; they bring new life into the world. They should be revered.”

I realize he is speaking his own truth of breeders and not that of Sanctum as a collective.

His anger drains. He swipes a hand down his face. His eyes carry the weight of his vast existence.

“She loves you.”

He huffs out a breath. “She loves everyone.”

“She does,” I agree. “But she loves in ways more than that. There have been too many unguarded moments between you when you do not think the other is looking for me to have doubts.”

“How old are you, again?”

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