Page 132 of Until the Stars Fall

“Is it fair to assume you’re no longer waiting for me then?” he asked. “I won’t have to worry about you trying to sabotage my wedding?”

I laughed nervously, thankful he couldn’t detect lies like Mrs. Bishop. I peered sideways at him to find him trying to hide a smile. “Only if you ask me to, though I get the impression that something’s changed. Is it possible you’re actually happy?”

“In fact, I am,” he admitted, glancing at the ground as a boyish smile pulled at his lips. “The king and queen returned to Arenysen after you and Connor left, but Calla remained here for several days. She is…well, she’s incredible. She’s really something else. Smart and witty. Kind and sweet. Gentle but with a bold fierceness too. Basically she’s everything I don’t deserve.”

My heart warmed as I listened to him, and I noted the genuine contentment in his voice. “Nonsense. You deserve to be happy. I’m happy for you. Truly,” I said. Inside, though, my gut wrenched itself into uneasy knots over the task the rebels had given me. The idea of breaking up their engagement had been bad enough when I’d thought he wasn’t happy about it. How could I do that to him now that I knew he was?

Brennan hummed softly. “What happened to the woman who swore to wait for me until my vows were uttered?”

Laying my head on his shoulder, I drew in a slow, deep breath and sighed. “I think you already know.”

CHAPTER 66

Connor

With a growl, I punched the wall beside my window and turned away from the sight of my mate clinging to my brother as they walked toward the palace. My mind ran wild with scenarios for why they were coming out of the forest together. None of them were desirable.

Closing my eyes, I dove into my own consciousness, seeking out Lieke’s emotions within myself. How this worked, I didn’t know, but the entire run from the stables after I’d kissed her—after the bond had formed—it was like she was running alongside me. Her confusion, her rejection, her pain—they’d accompanied me all the way back to the palace. It was like all she felt had seeped into my own veins and singed my nerves.

It had overwhelmed me then, but now—as I watched her hold onto Brennan’s arm, lean her head against his shoulder, and smile at him—I longed to know what she was feeling. Did she still love him? Did she still want to come between him and Calla?

All I found inside myself, though, was my own anger and bitter jealousy.

Desperate for a distraction, I picked up the message Matthias had sent earlier. The healers had discovered something.

“It’s blood?” I asked Quinton, our lead healer. His white hair bobbed in the air as he nodded. Pushing his spectacles further up on the bridge of his nose, he reached for a paper on his desk and handed it to me.

“And not like any blood any of us have ever seen, Your Highness,” he said, his voice as smooth as old leather.

“Can you tell how it works?” Matthias asked, peering over my shoulder at the report in my hands.

“Not yet,” Quinton said. “But we’re working on that, while trying not to kill ourselves in the process.”

“What about the needle or dart or whatever it was that struck me?” I asked. “Lieke said it must have been something different.”

“Indeed. It’s most fascinating actually. It has many of the same markers, which has us believing it’s from the same individual—or at least within the same family.”

My brows shot up. “Family? You mean it’s not from an animal?”

Quinton shook his head casually. “Not an animal. A human actually. More or less anyway.”

“What do you mean,more or less?” Matthias asked, stepping up beside me.

“Well, just that it’s human. But it’s also not,” Quinton said, as if it should have been obvious. “Something’s altered it, shifted it into a venom of sorts, which they’ve used to create poisons of varying degrees of potency. How they did it, we don’t know, but we can venture to guess why.”

“For the rebellion,” Matthias and I said in unison.

“Is it related to the poison that killed my mother?” I asked quietly.

Quinton shrugged, and his face fell. “We still don’t know, and we might never know. Without examining the weapon or knowing the delivery method used in her case, we can’t truly compare them.”

“Do we know where it’s coming from though?” Matthias asked.

Quinton lifted a finger in the air. “Ah, yes, that we can tell you. We found faint traces of pollen from a plant that does not grow on our land. It’s native to the island of Dolobare.”

“Dolobare?” Matthias and I asked in unison.

Matthias then asked, “Do you think the night stalkers have some hand in this?”

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