Page 43 of Shadows of Ruin

Kade’s shadows settled around me, and I let them.

“I wasn’t born in a palace,” she said. “Certainly not surrounded by family and loved ones.”

Jax snorted. “Are there such things as loved ones in the palace?”

Raya snickered along with him. “Fair point. As I said before, I was dropped on the doorstep, inside the royal gates, abandoned by my worthless parents. I had to fight every day to survive there. When the king discovered I had the ability to connect through minds, he didn’t hesitate to use it to his advantage. Forcing me to enter life as a Guardian, to train not only my mind but my body as well. I rose in the ranks quickly and became one of the elites, just like the rest of these fools.”

“We are all elite of course.” Jax held out his arms, spanning them over his outfit. “The Guardians of Mysthaven. The best of the king’s soldiers.” He winked.

Raya rolled her eyes, something I found her doing often when Jax spoke. “Whatever the king did in our private training sessions altered the way I use my magic. Through his training, he has access to my mind at any time. Over the years, I have learned how to shield him from seeing everything, but without the ability to safely test some of our theories, we don’t know what the king can and can’t see through me.”

I gasped. “The king is that powerful?”

“Yes,” Kade said from behind me, and I didn’t miss the way he shifted his hands on me, tightening his hold. “He can wield several other elements too—air and fire. He is powerful, as was your father due to their royal bloodlines.”

I glanced back toward Raya. The king’s power aside, that level of intrusion, especially from such a young age? It was awful. The king, so far, sounded far from a good and just ruler. The fear the others had of him was palpable.

She cleared her throat. “So while I know some of thedealings occurring in our group, and help however I can, I am not privy to everything.”

“Help with what?” I questioned, but Kade spoke at the same time.

“Raya, you know we do it just as much for your protection as ours. We trust you, we just can’t take any chances that he will find out about anything we’re doing. It would ruin all we have worked toward. All that we hope to accomplish.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Raya snapped. “Of course I do, but it doesn’t make it any easier to be left on the outside.”

A strained silence surrounded the group as we trudged along. Raya and I were more alike than she realized. I could empathize with her feeling of being left on the outside because I had felt it my entire life.

It’s why I fought so hard to establish the Hidden Henchman. Watching others take on risk, take on life while I remained safe in a guarded palace had never sat well with me. It still didn’t.

As a warrior, it would be difficult. As a Guardian, that feeling must be tenfold.

If what Jax said was true, and Kade didn’t really kill those people, what happened to them? Where did they go? An explanation lay within reach, but any hope I had of obtaining those answers in Raya’s presence remained slim.

We moved through a tunnel of leafless trees, their branches forming an interconnected archway above us. Thorny bushes lining the edges made it impossible to escape the well-established trail without our skin being torn to shreds.

Kade shifted in the saddle and his arm loosened, though still resting on my hips. The hair’s breadth between us did nothing to calm the electric current of energy sparking as it always did. His presence wrapped around me. If Jax and Storm spoke the truth, then perhaps I had been too harsh a judge.

Though he’d made it impossible to continue trusting him blindly, I could at least refrain from assuming the worst immediately.

While I would never be over the death of my father, maybe, just maybe I could grant Kade a bit of a reprieve from my loathing. Right now, I needed one moment not to worry about the warring emotions inside of me. So I’d use him in the same way, all for a second of peace and the possibility of returning home quicker if I cooperated.

At least that’s what I told myself.

“I’m too tired to fight this anymore,” I said, as I stopped resisting the lull of riding in front of him and nestled my back against his chest.

Kade sighed. A strange relief fell over me as our bodies connected. One he must have felt as well, if his sigh served as any indication.

“I’ll take any excuse you need to give if it means touching you again, Little Rebel.” His whispered words brushed over my skin. This might have been a bad choice.

I tried to keep those thoughts at the forefront, but Fates, the comfort his arms provided—no!

I needed a distraction.“How much long—” I started to ask as we exited the tunnel of trees, when Onyx reared on his hind legs, neighing in fear.

Kade’s shadows burst outward over the ground, and I saw what startled the horse.

Dark ones.

A horde of them.

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