“Yo, okay, stop…” Killian steps in front of me like a protective beast. “That has nothing to do with what you were talking about, Mom. Back the fuck up, and I will never forgive you for the things you said about Saskia when she was a kid.”
“What?” Draya torments. “I didn’t do anything that you wouldn’t have felt eventually, Killian. I didn’t manipulate you by using a talent.” She looks between the two of us. “And you don’t think that girl already knows that you and Maya will end up together?” Then she brings her eyes to me. “Because let me tell you something, Saskia. My son comforted your pain, but you could never comfort his, and that’s the difference between you and Maya—”
“Enough!” Killian snaps. “Leave. Now.”
“Killian Cornelii, I’ve had about enough, and I’m not done talking.” She once again brings her eyes to mine, and the dagger that she flung into my heart thrusts deeper inside of me, missing every important artery and slowly killing me. “Your father was Killian’s first kill. As you know, if you do math, that made him very young. But that day wasn’t when his nightmares started, he wasn’t born that way. He was a happy child. Until he learned his first responsibility—you. For whatever reason the gods graced us with, he felt the need to watch over you—even when he hated it.”
I suck in a breath, my heart beating in my chest. Boom. Boom. Boom. Blood rushes through my eardrums as my world feels as though everything is caving in around me. The edges of my vision blur, a buzzing sound ringing out in my ear.
“Hey!” Killian’s hands are on my cheeks. “Don’t fucking listen to her. She’s crazy.”
“She’s right…” I whisper. “You may have hated me as you got older, but she’s right.”
His arm hooks around my waist, pulling me farther into him. “She’s not, and I didn’t hate you. I was a kid, confused with my feelings.”
I shove away from him. “I need a minute.” Turning around, I run out of the kitchen and through the house, shoving my way out the door. My breathing doesn’t slow. Not when I’m pushing my way through the trees, and not when I’m leaning over my knees heaving, my stomach flipping at every turn.
I stop running when I’m in the forest that connects Delila’s house to mine, swiping the sweat from my forehead.
“I can’t—” I shake my head, spinning around when I hear footsteps.
Killian is heading straight for me, but before I can say anything else, everything goes black.
“She’s going to be fine. She fainted. Can’t say I blame her. She was bound to snap sooner or later.” King gestures to Sass, who is stretched out on my bed. After she fainted in the forest, I carried her back to my bed at the house I have on the property.
“I told you all to leave her alone,” Perse mutters, brushing her hair back from her face. “She has just found out all this information, way more than I had to, and you expect her to also stand up against your mother?”
I flinch, because she’s right. I didn’t think about everything being piled on top of what she already knew.
“Is it true, Kill?” Perse asks, turning to face me. The sun hits her red hair from the back, beaming through the binding doors that open out onto the patio.
“Is what true?” I ask, even though I half know what she’s about to ask.
“That you’re stuck between her and Maya?”
I can’t help it, my head tilts back and a laugh erupts from my mouth. “Let me ask you something, if I wanted Maya in that way, would she not already be mine?”
“But Saskia isn’t exactly either…”
“Saskia was mine the day she was born, Perse. That was inevitable. When she came in as a Royal, and if she had stayed a Royal, she would have been wife’d already, but then Dragavei was revealed and Patience happened. I tried to fight my impulses at every turn because to be honest with you, I didn’t trust her. Her intentions. Patience is manipulative and toxic, and I wasn’t sure exactly how much of that was sewn into her—but the day I found out that she was my Saskia, it all made fuckin’ sense to me. Even if I didn’t trust her.”
Perse grins. “So she is yours?”
My eyes snap to hers as a round of chuckles sound off behind me. I flip them all off. “Don’t act like you all didn’t already know.”
“Oh, we knew,” Keaton mutters. “But we weren’t sure you did.”
There’s a knock on the door, and I make my way toward it, swinging it open to see my mom on the other side.
“What?” I love my mom, and I hate disrespecting her, but every time she does something to hurt Saskia, it’s my impulse to rear my back up and protect her, because I know what my mom is like. I know how she plays. I know that she doesn’t just play a game, she owns the whole board.