Page 25 of Veiled Fate
Upstairs. With Kiel.
“No,” I said, the meaning behind his offer suddenly clear. “No, I’m fine, I promise. Thank you, though.”
“Just doing my job,” he said, the smile returning.
“Must be pretty boring today,” I said, unable to stop myself from initiating a conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s empty,” I said. “Nobody else around anymore. Did you scare them all off?”
He laughed a bit awkwardly, his eyes darting away. “Most people are in bed by this hour or just waking up. I guess they’re off doing that.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my drink again. Sleeping is what I would prefer to be doing. But I couldn’t. Not now, not after all I’d just learned from Kiel.
Not one, but two sets of Alpha’s blood ran in me. All thanks to Kiel.
Where would I be without his interference? Who would I be?WouldI even be? Unlikely.
Lanna would still be alive, though. She would be mated by now. Probably a mother several times over. My older sister had dreamed about it since she was a kid. To have her own children, to raise them and show them the world so they could do great things. That had beenhergreat thing.
I glared at the bar through my wine. A not-insignificant part of me wanted to shift some of the blame for Lanna’s death onto Kiel’s shoulders, but that wasn’t true, and I knew it as much as he did.
Not that it diminished my anger at him. I’d been manipulated into existence. Everything about my life had taken on this glossy fakeness in my mind. Like it shouldn’t exist. Which it shouldn’t.Ishouldn’t.
The closest thing it came that I could compare it to was that of a dream. I was wide awake, but everythingfeltlike I was dreaming, that it wasn’t real, and I suddenly knew it. Which was about when I woke up in dreams.
But it was real life.
Just how much of my life had Kiel manipulated past my creation? How far did his fingers sink into the threads of my past?
I drew in a sharp breath.
Had Clive been a part of the plan all along? Was he under orders from Kiel to befriend me, to stick through all the bullshit and how I had treated him in my attempts to drive him away? Had that entire part of my life been nothing but manufactured emotions?
Another life that could be laid at Kiel’s feet.
Stop it. You’re not being rational, and you know it.
My eyes rose as I slowly looked over my shoulder at the stairs. Kiel was still up there. He had never followed me down. Was he waiting? Did he know I was still there, and that was why he hadn’t left? Or was he gone?
Taking a long sip, I contemplated going back up there and confronting him. Demanding he tell me everything he was still hiding.
Did I really want to know? That was the question I had to ask myself before I went to find Kiel. Was the truth something I still cared to hear?
Movement in the mirror hung on the wall under the stairs caught my attention. It was positioned so that I could see into the rear of the inn, where the kitchen and such were located, which was too far to my right to view clearly.
“Shit.”
I pushed back from the bar just as the man grabbed my wrist.
“Stop,” he rumbled.
Rolling my hand over his, I yanked hard, pulling him into the bar. My other hand grabbed the back of his head and smashed it into the drink.
“KIEL!”I shouted at the top of my lungs as the innkeeper burst out of the back.
“There she is, that’s her!” he cried, pointing me out to the two silver-armored Wulfhere following him.
