“N-No, Your Highness.” Fear clamped around my sternum and squeezed tight.
Lupin had said several of my possible futures ended horribly. Was this one of them? Because this asshole looked two seconds away from shoving my twink ass over the railing. I was wearing my protection stone, but it wouldn’t stop me from falling to my death.
“I wonder…” A crazed look surged in Cedric’s eyes, matching the inflection in his voice. “If you fell from this height, how much blood would there be upon impact? Would it splatter on the wall? How mangled would your body be when the servants scraped it off the floor?”
What the actual hell? Forget being an asshole. Cedric was a freaking psychopath.
“You’re trembling, little pebble,” he said, amused. A sick amusement that fractured his princely persona and showed the mad man lurking beneath. “How pitiful. Like a lamb awaiting slaughter.”
My gaze shifted to the guards behind him. Three followed Cedric wherever he went, and others stood outside the nearest doorways. Guards I’d given treats to in the past. A few had even come to my café when not on duty. Their expressions were torn.
“You remind me of Sawyer.” Cedric flashed a chilling smile. “He was such a weak and pathetic thing when we were younger. Sickly and accident prone. He even fell down the stairs once. Did he ever tell you? Broke his wrist and several ribs. Cracked his head open as well. I still remember how beautiful it was. The shade of his blood against the tile.”
The fear churning in my gut worsened, and my tongue felt three sizes too big. Pretty sure thePsychotheme song started playing off in the distance.
“It’s quite strange.” Cedric’s eyes narrowed. “You even look like my brother. I see why that bandit mistook you for him.”
Okay,thatwas the thing to nearly make me throw up all those delicious quiches. But there was no way he could put the pieces together about my true identity.
Right?
“Your Highness?” Sir Keegan stepped forward. He was Cedric’s personal knight, much like Sir Noah was to Sawyer. “Lord Vernon awaits your presence in the council chamber.”
“He will wait for as long as I wish for him to,” Cedric snapped. “I’m the goddamned Crown Prince.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Sir Keegan bowed his head. “Of course.”
“But I suppose I shouldn’t keep him waiting. He’s awfully irritating as it is.” With a sigh, Cedric stepped away and snapped his fingers at the guards behind him. “You two. Escort this commoner from the premises. Ensure he doesn’t steal anything on his way out.”
As he tore his attention from me, relief had me sagging against the railing.
The two guards quickly nodded and rushed over. They grabbed my arms, one on each side, and guided me down the stairs. I went along with them in a daze. My mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, making my already poor balance even worse, but thankfully, they kept a firm hold on me.
“Are you all right?” one of them asked once we’d reached the ground level. His gruff voice was familiar.
“August?” I’d been too much in my head to recognize him before then. He was also in full armor.
He gave a sharp nod.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
I would be anyway, once I stopped shaking.
Even more unsettling than almost being an Evan-sized red stain on the entrance hall floor? Cedric’s comment about me resembling Sawyer. Could’ve been nothing more than a simple observation, but what if that twisted mind of his had somehow caught wind of the truth?
That’s when I realized I couldn’t delay it any longer. I had to tell my men what I’d learned about my parents.
Because something was brewing, a storm that had sprung to life with the crumble of a cookie at the top of a staircase.
***
“He’s pacing,” Rowan said. “Now, he’s cleaning.”
I wiped down the kitchen counter, then wandered over to the sink to wash dishes. My nerves had been on edge since I returned from the castle. Cedric’s eyes had been so cold. Menacing. He’d murdered a cookie, and I couldn’t help but imagine him crushing my head in the same way, enclosing it in an iron fist and shattering flesh and bone.
A low whine tore through Lake’s throat. The scent of peaches tickled my nose as his arms came around me. “I sense your soul’s unrest.”
He was able to tap into my emotional state because of our fated mate bond. His soul had imprinted on mine, tying us together in ways that went beyond my understanding.
