Page 46 of Veiled Fate
Arching an eyebrow, I pressed my ear to the door. “This had better be good.”
His smile only grew.
Focusing, I listened for sounds outside, and almost immediately, voices came to me.
“You heard it, too? There’s no way. It can’t be true. Can it?”
“Arcadus is dead. Killed on his way here. I heard it from a friend, who has a friend in the guard, and apparently, he was talking to one of the Arcadus unmated coming here for their Fate Night. Said that he was attacked and killed. Never seen again.”
“Impossible,”a second voice put in.“He probably just had some secret mission to go on or something. Had to duck away. The Alphas are immortal.”
“No, he’s dead,”a third voice argued, this one female, her tones hushed, so the words didn’t carry too far.“If he weren’t, Lycaonus would have addressed us already and said it was just a rumor. His silence only confirms its truth.”
“But how?” the first voice asked.“The Alphas are immortal. Everyone knows that. They’ve been our leaders since they bound Fate to the stones. One of them can’t just be up and killed … can he?”
“Unless … they aren’t actually immortal,”the female said slowly, thinking her way through the logic as she talked. “Maybe they’ve never been immortal.”
“Then how have they been able to rule all this time?” the second voice challenged.
A pause followed as the little group thought about that question.
“Maybe they haven’t been,”said the first, though he didn’t sound like he believed it.
“So, what, they’ve been lying to us?”the second voice scoffed in disdain.
“Yes,”the woman said. “They could have been. And if they’ve lied about them being immortal …”
“Then whatelsehave they been lying about?”the first finished, his voice fraught with disbelief.
“You two are wrong,” the second said.
But I could hear the lack of confidence in his denial. He wasn’t entirely convinced, but neither did he truly believe they were wrong.
“You see,” Kiel said, pulling me away from the door.
“It’s starting,” I said, nodding, still very self-conscious about being naked in front of him.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes elsewhere. “Now, we must keep it going. Push the momentum, and pull the curtain all the way back to reveal the truth.”
“We will,” I assured him, reaching up to touch his chest and pat it in confirmation.
But my fingers lingered of their own free will. Kiel’s eyes snapped to me, locking on with a force that stole part of my breath. My mouth parted slightly, suddenly dry, as the tension in the room skyrocketed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For all the lies and deceit that led to this. That you didn’t know the truth from the beginning. I never intended for that to happen or for you to get hurt. But I never faked anything. It’s all been real. I only intended to hold back. To try not to let you get hurt. And in that, I failed.”
“I’m glad you failed,” I said after a moment of reflection. “Because although I have conflicted emotions about you—some very positive, some very negative—the experiences that have given me those positive memories are ones I’m happy to have. That doesn’t make me feel less angry or hurt about the circumstances behind my literal creation, though.”
“I understand,” he said heavily, his muscles tensing under my fingers, waiting for me to pull away.
When I didn’t but instead swayed closer, giving him an opening, he frowned.
“What?” I asked, looking around awkwardly. Did he not want to kiss me? Had I read it all wrong? “I thought, and then you said, and I said, so I thought we …”
“It’s not that,” he said with a chuckle, taking both my hands with his, leaning close.
