Page 40 of Silent Secrets

Caiden

Bythetimethat I make it back to the dining room, the only people still inside are my parents. My heart is in my throat, eyes wide as I rush up to them.

“Where are they? Where did everyone go?”

My dad frowns as he stares down at me questioningly. “They took a portal to your place. I told them we’d wait for you, so that you didn’t have to go on your own.”

“I knew you wouldn’t think to check your phone, dear.” My mom pats my arm with a smile.

I swallow hard as I nod. I need to calm down. As long as the others are with them, Kai’s dad won’t dare to lay a hand on him. Not because Kam believes that he’s hurt Kai enough, but because he knows what our parents will think of the fact that he beats the shit out of his own son. That’s not how we’re supposed to treat our family, after all—especially not the heir to the dukedom.

I’d made the mistake of mentioning the state that I’d found Kai in the night before his twenty-first birthday to my parents, and they’d confronted Kam about it. He’d denied it, of course, but then he’d taken it out on Kai the next time that they’d been alone. Telling my parents hadn’t done me any good then, and it would do me any good now. I love them, but they also disappoint me. Accepting Kam at his word without bothering to check on Kai is just another on the list of things they’ve been intentionally oblivious about.

Hunter’s family isn’t much better—once again highlighting the differences between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Gabe just chooses to only use his words to beat down his son’s spirit, while Eve likes to pretend like she doesn’t have children. After all, how can she sleep with the entire court if she’s saddled with children?

The Fae in the fucking Unseelie Court, and therefore the Autumn and Winter courts, are terrible. My dad and I might not always see eye to eye, but I know he loves me. And my mom would do anything for me or my sisters. Marcos and his brother are super close with their parents—and it’s not just because they weren’t sure that they’d be able to have children.

I hate that there’s so much segregation between the minor courts, and therefore the major courts. We’re all one people, but we don’t act like it, and our morals and beliefs are so different from court to court. It’s something that me and the guys plan to fix once we take over our courts—whenever the hell that’ll be. I’m not worried about mine or Marcos’s dad giving up their leadership over their courts. But I think for Gabe and Kam, it’ll have to be ripped from their cold, dead hands.

“Is everything okay, Cade?” my mom asks quietly.

I force myself to smile, giving a small laugh. “Of course, I was just thinking about how it’s going to be so much fun teaching Hadley the dances tomorrow.”

“You and Marcos seem to have gotten close to her,” my dad says hesitantly.

“Now, now, Carter.” My mom’s attention turns to my dad. “Let’s wait until we’re all together, yes?”

“Of course, dear. Cade, let’s go, son.”

I trail behind my parents, trying to keep myself from hurrying them along. It’s extremely hard to keep my anxiety to myself, but they wouldn’t understand. It’s not like they know about mine and Kai’s relationship—I’m sure that they’d understand our connection, but I also know what they’d say.

They’d understand, but they wouldn’t accept it. How could they when it’s illegal? That it’s only illegal because our ancestors didn’t want to chance another Fae Queen being born by allowing the courts to intermingle means nothing to them.

It would be one thing if it was just sex, but what we have is so much more than that—and I wouldn’t lie about what I felt if I did tell them. I wasn’t lying to Hadley when I told her that I planned to spend the rest of my life with Kai. I don’t care if we have to hide it forever—though I damn well plan on making sure that we don’t have to. He’s everything to me, and I hate everything that he’s been through. He’s lived a quarter of the life that I have and he’s already had to deal with so much more than I ever have.

It devastated Hunter, Marcos, and me when Ryder disappeared. We hadn’t known what it would mean for the Autumn court, but more than that, we didn’t know what it would mean to the three of us that were still there. The four of us were a unit. We would rule together. And overnight, we were missing a piece.

When we’d found out that Rini was pregnant, we hadn’t been sure how we felt, or how to react to it. Obviously, they needed an heir, and Ryder had been missing for over two years. I’d gone to visit Rini shortly after I’d heard the news and she’d been the one who’d set me straight.

When I’d asked her if she was happy to be having a replacement child, she’d ripped me a new asshole. She’d informed me that she’d waited as long as she had because she hadn’t wanted to feel like she was only having a baby to replace the child that she’d lost. She’d broken my heart when she’d asked me if Ryder would have been proud of me and how I was acting.

I knew he wouldn’t have been, and right then and there, I decided I would take care of Ryder’s sibling like they were my own. Which turned out to not be fully true because what Kai and I have is not a relationship he would have had with his brother. But while he’d been growing up? The three of us treated him just like he was our younger brother, because he was and Ry wasn’t there to take care of him, so we had to.

Kai was about thirteen when I noticed for the first time how he looked at me. It was cute that I was his first crush, but I didn’t think much of it. Not until he was seventeen and after yet another beating by his father, the guys and I got him trashed. He’d tried to kiss me and surprisingly, it had been hard for me to push him away, though I knew all the reasons I needed to. He was drunk, much too young, and he was Ry’s little brother.

I don’t think that Kai remembers that night. He’s never mentioned it and I’ve never brought it up, but that’s when things changed between us. I began to see him as more than another annoying sibling. It took another two years for me to convince myself that Ryder would have been okay with me falling for his younger brother and then months to convince Kai that I wasn’t fucking with him. We’ve been together for three years now, and the only people that know are Hunter and Marcos. Well, and Hadley now.

I’m fairly certain that Kam believed us that night, all those years ago, that we’d just been experimenting. If not, I think he would have killed Kai already. Especially now that his new bitch of a wife is pregnant. Goddess, I hate that woman. She tried to get with me, Hunter, Marcos, and even Kai before moving onto his dad. I know for a fact that Marcos has slept with her—thankfully, before she got married and well before she started seeing Kam. I would’ve kicked his ass if it had been after, not for Marcos’s sake, but for Kai’s. It wouldn’t surprise me if Kam would have decided that his wife’s infidelity was also Kai’s fault and punished him for it.

We finally make it to the portaling room and I let out a sigh of relief, my mom turning to me with a frown. “Seriously, Cade, what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing, Mom, really. I just really don’t want to deal with Kam and Gabe. You know how they get.”

She looks like she doesn’t believe me, but doesn’t push it any further as she nods. “That’s because they’re assholes.”

“Veronica.” My dad sounds annoyed, but I know he’s not. I know he feels the same way. He just won’t say it out loud because it isn’t proper.

“Can we just get this over with?”

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