Radiant Shadows
Page 45

“Progeny?” She stared at him.
“Yes.” He stood as motionless as a sculpture, seeming unaware of the awkwardness of his unchanging position, unwilling to sully himself by joining her on the ground.
Feeling like a guest in her own body, Ani stood. Vaguely, she was aware that her hands were dirty from pushing herself off the ground. Every detail felt too crisp then, too real.
Devlin still didn’t move. “You were important enough to attract the High Queen’s attention, and now—” His words ended as Ani stepped closer to him.
She tilted her head so she could stare into his face, and then she slapped him as hard as she could with her dirt- covered hand. “So you killed Jillian? Because her progeny are a threat?”
She lifted her hand a second time, but he didn’t let her strike him again.
“No. Just you were the threat.” He caught her wrist and simultaneously dropped his ridiculous self-control to the point that she could feel his emotions for the first time.
Sorrow-sweet. Afraid. Protective. Longing.
She paused. He didn’t feel like someone who wanted to hurt her. He felt like someone who wanted her safe.
What am I missing here?
She stared at him, letting his emotions roll through her, drinking them down to sate her hunger. “You didn’t kill me before. You won’t now…. Would you kill me if they ordered you to?”
“Bananach does not order me.”
Ani almost smiled at the idea that he could play word games with her. “Nice dodge. Try again. Would you kill me if Sorcha ordered it?”
He didn’t move. “If she ordered me to end your life and I disobeyed, I would be cast out of my court. My vow of fealty”—he held Ani’s gaze—“would be corrupt. I would be foresworn.”
“You are. You’re hiding things from her, hiding me.” She understood then. “You’ve known where I was my whole life.”
He nodded once.
Ani tucked her hands in her back jeans pocket and rocked on her heels. “Why not tell Sorcha where I was? Why spare me? Why not save Jillian too?”
He stared at her for several very even breaths, silent in word, but his emotions ricocheted from excitement to fear to hope. Now that he was off-kilter, she could be nourished to the point of gluttony on only a taste of his feelings.
Like feeding from a king.
Devlin reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. “Take your taste, Ani. It won’t make you understand.”
Her mouth opened at that. No one outside the court was to know what the Dark Court took for nourishment. Sharing that secret was punishable by starvation up to the point of death.
He lowered his hand from her cheek to her collarbone, so it rested just there on the edge of her throat, above her heart.
Ani wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a caress.
He stood perfectly still, hand motionless against her skin, inhaling and exhaling slowly. “Ask me again.” His voice was soft. “Ask me your question.”
She paused. He wasn’t shutting down his emotions. Where’s the trap?
“Would you kill me?” she asked.
“Not that one.” He brushed a thumb over her bare throat. “Ask the other one.”
She’d been waiting her whole life to ask this question, in this moment, of this faery. “Why did you kill Jillian?”
He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I didn’t. She’s hidden away in Faerie.”
Ani felt herself stumble, but Devlin caught her before she could fall. He lowered her to the ground. A lifetime of certainty, everything she thought she knew about her past, had shifted. Her mother was alive. It was almost too beautiful to believe. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. The monster she’d feared had saved her, saved Jillian, and risked himself to do so. After all these years of fearing the faery that had changed her life, Ani looked up at him and knew that he was why she was alive. Why Jillian lives. She couldn’t make all of those changes fit into her mind. All she could say was, “My mother.”
He knelt beside her. “She didn’t want you to know, but… I won’t have you hate me. I can’t keep you safe if you hate me.”
“She’s… where? Where is she? Is that where we’re going?”
“No. She’s safe, but we can’t go to her,” he said.
“I thought…” Ani tried to find words for the years of fear and loss, but there weren’t any. “I thought she was dead. That you…”
“It was for the best.”
“Help me understand how. Because of not knowing, I’ve spent my life thinking she died and fearing someone— apparently you—would come back to hurt Tish.” Ani felt tears sliding down her cheeks.
“I had few choices. Sorcha can see everyone but those closest to her or those whose lives matter in her life,” he started.
Ani couldn’t speak, couldn’t do much other than stare at him and wait for the rest.
“If I hid Jill, she wouldn’t be important enough to draw Sorcha’s attention… especially if Jill didn’t remember having children.” Devlin’s emotions went several different directions, but his inflection was unchanged. “The alternative was her death.”
“Do you save many people Sorcha wants killed?”
Suddenly, his emotions were completely blocked from her. “Only you.”
“And Jillian.”
“No. Jillian’s death wasn’t ordered, but… her vanishing would make Irial put you under his care. It was her idea. She would’ve done anything to keep you and your sister safe.”