Page 14 of A Story of Sinners

Relief lightened my shoulders. “So you won’t expect me to fulfill any—erm—mistress duties?”

“No,” Aiden answered with a shake of his head. “I’ve come to realize I don’t even know you, and from what Idoknow, I wouldn’t want to be with you.”

My eyes widened with hope. “May I stay in the Sanctum?”

“No. I don’t trust you. None of us do, hence the cuffs on your wrists.”

I stared at the cuffs and the iron chain attached between them. So many times I’d cursed my magic. I now understood why Ryken claimed to never wish loss of magic on his own worst enemy. The separation between me and the one thing essential to my soul left a deep wound.

“Is that all?” I asked, desperate to return to bed. Only a century of sleep would do.

“No.” Aiden’s lips pinched and his blue eyes hardened as he pointed a finger at me accusingly. “Before you retire for the night, I want answers. I want to know everything you’ve hidden, everything you’ve lied about. I want the truth.”

My jaw clenched, and a puff of air shot from my nostrils. The truth and I didn’t get along, but I had nothing to lose. There was no point in hiding anything, not anymore. “You had three months to question me, yet you wait until now. Go ahead. Ask away, Your Highness.”

“Are you the one who released the darkness? Are you the one who let the shadows pass through the portal?” George spoke, taking over for Aiden.

It suddenly dawned on me that this wasn’t a meeting: it was an interrogation.

My attention whipped to George, and we locked eyes. His expression was hard, brokering no room for argument. He had an axe to grind with the Otherworld and its creatures, and for good reason.

The shades had killed his and Brandon’s parents—their entire family, baby sister included. Her loss may have been the reason they chose to take me in as a sister of their own.

“I didn’t,” I answered, another half-truth spilling from my lips. “But I can’t say it isn’t partially my fault.”

Aiden scoffed from his throne. “I can see why you took a fae as a lover. They only speak in twisted truths and half lies, just like you.”

A sharp, stabbing sensation filled my chest at the mere reference of Ryken, but I breathed through the pain. I’d never bothered to ask if the prince and assassin knew much about one another, never questioned if he was aware of Ryken’s true identity.

Apparently, he was.

“So what are you, then? Witch? Fae?” Aiden asked.

As much as George hated the shades, if he discovered the truth, I would be as good as dead. My eyes turned downcast as I avoided the question.

“Neither,” I whispered, praying he wouldn’t press the issue any further.

Aiden’s breath hitched. “A shade?”

My eyes lifted, and I met Aiden’s look of disgust, George’s rageful glare. I was so tired of lying, of hiding, so I answered honestly. “Yes.”

The air in the room clouded over with orange—hostility—and George tensed, slowly reaching for the dagger at his hip. With my back to Brandon, I braced myself for an oncoming attack, but the only signal he’d even heard was the sharp breath he released.

I glanced at Brandon, but he didn’t move toward me. My curiosity piqued at his body language: shoulders slumped, head hung. Guilt.

My brows furrowed.

All the moments Brandon and I shared together flashed through my mind, like the night he’d caught me out in the forest past curfew—the same night Aiden and I had come together. At the time, it seemed as if he knew what I was hiding, but I hadn’t questioned it.

My eyes widened as he met my gaze, a spark of understanding passing between us.

He knew. Brandon knew.

“It changes nothing,” Aiden’s voice cut in. My head whipped around, my body tensed in preparation of an attack, but Aiden sat unmoving, eyes squeezed shut. When his eyes reopened, I was met with a piercing glare as his voice hardened. “I can’t let you out into the world now, being what you are. You’re a threat and need to be controlled.”

George slowly approached, his feet echoing along the marble flooring, dagger in hand. I remained on my knees—unable to fight back.

“George, stop,” Aiden commanded. “She is not to be harmed. There are ways she could still prove useful, especially against those like her. Despite how much we may resent her, there may be some good left—somewhere deep,deepdown.”

---