Page 74 of Never Run from an Immortal

“So you understand then,” she said hoarsely. “My brother. Everything I did was for him.”

The face he’d seen, Aidan assumed. “And now?”

Rae frowned, and he knew she was fighting her sorrow, but for herself this time. “Now it’s over.”

“Because of Nim?”

Steel blue eyes flicked up to meet his. “Because I can’t do this anymore.”

Use him? Pretend? Manipulate everyone around her? Aidan’s patience was growing thin; if she’d been anyone else, he’d have sought the information he wanted without this preamble. He held her gaze, more anger bubbling up inside of him. She lookedtired. Afraid. He hated it, but she had every reason to be. “The tattoo? What does it mean?”

She didn’t try to cover her fear as she glanced over her shoulder at her inked skin. “Did anyone else see it?”

Aidan hadn’t allowed anyone to enter his room whilst she’d been resting, not even the damned rutok, even though the others had all asked for updates. No one had seen what he knew she’d tried so hard to hide. He could only manage a shake of his head in response.

A car approached the gates, a visitor Aidan had little interest in entertaining right now, but he rose from his chair anyway, if only to clear his head. Panic flared again, and he didn’t know which he hated more, that she was afraid of him or that a stupid, stupid part of him wished she wasn’t. “Stay here,” he snapped, a sharpness to his tone he hadn’t intended. “I have a visitor.”

Rae chewed her lip. Dipped her chin, and it was an effort to tear his gaze away from her, to leave her there in his bed. As he opened the door, the rutok burst in and he didn’t need to look back to know it had leapt into her arms, though her shaky exhale as it did had him swallowing against the tightness in his throat.

He passed Orion in the hallway. Aidan wanted someone outside his room at all times when he wasn’t in it, and he wasn’t taking any chances. The commander of his First Unit tipped his head in acknowledgement as Aidan made his way for the stairs.

“Maddock,” Aidan said in greeting to the waiting Witch examining the bookshelves in his study.

“Vale.” No pleasantries here, no bullshit. The Witch kept his hands behind his back and a sword strapped to his hip, and he had every thought and emotion locked down so tight Aidan couldn’t find a hint of a way in. A wise move. He’d have made an excellent pet for the likes of his uncle.

Aidan poured two glasses of visk, handing one to his guest. “I take it you’ve accepted the position.” With the new king dead,and his older sister still missing, Maddock was next in line as first cousin to the heir.

“Someone needs to put a stop to this monstrosity the Fae have created.” There was no attempt to hide the disdain in his voice.

“Liberalist Fae and a few of the human factions,” Aidan reminded him, “not the Royalists.”

“Does it matter? The Royalists are allowing it to happen; they’re complicit.”

That was difficult to argue with, but the Fae king had been on his deathbed for some time, and court matters were delicate. Aidan leaned back against his desk, his Provident abilities reaching out to check on Rae. She was on her feet, out in the corridor above, arguing with Orion. “What brings you here, Maddock?”

“I’m looking for my cousin.” He searched the shelves as if he might find some evidence of the missing princess there, the red tattoo on his neck like a trail of blood in the low light.

“Worried she’s going to steal the throne out from under you?”

“She has something that belongs to me.” His magic, Aidan would put money on it. And then—fuck.

Not what,who.He’d been asking Rae the wrong fucking question all along. Ten years.I’ve had no one looking out for me but me for the last ten years of my life, she’d told him. Ten fucking years she’d been missing.

Vale,she pleaded in his thoughts. She was on the stairs, Orion’s hand around her arm, the rutok growling at him. From Orion’s thoughts, Aidan knew she’d been told who stood before him in his study.

Get her back in my room, Aidan ordered his commander.

He killed… the new king. Maddock did it, didn’t he?Rae asked, and Aidan dragged a hand down his face as the pieces came together. Her brother. The reason she’d all but fucking detonated in his pool.

“Whatever she took from you, she’s long gone,” Aidan told Maddock, his expression bored as he downed the last of his visk.

“You proved rather useful in removing one heir; I thought you might help me remove the other.”

“I didn’t know you were going to kill him.” He’d been too caught up with Rae when the request had come from Cormac. From Scarlett.

“Is that remorse from the Vampire Lord?” Maddock arched a brow, a measure of disgust dancing across his features. “Seylan was useless, and Alethea murdered my sister in cold blood. She needs to pay for what she did.”

“Murdered? She’d have been a child when your cousin died.” A fuckingchild.

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