Kar had trusted me without a question, and I wasn’t sleeping with him. He’d put his dick somewhere else entirely by the looks of it. How in the world he had managed that was a question he’d effectively avoided answering earlier, and I wasn’t going to ask again, even though curiosity was killing me. Something entirely different did its best to keep him down: the mate bond he’d created with Isay. Now everyone in the vicinity knew about.
“Take the three of them out of my sight.” The king waved his hand with the order. “To the dungeon, preferably. Keep them separated. We don’t need them killing each other before we get to the bottom of this.”
“Shouldn’t you question Ferro,” I asked. Out of line, I was so out of line when the king’s furious gaze practically peeled the skin off of my face.
I’d become too comfortable around Hiko that I’d forgotten his father wasn’t only the one person who couldn’t know of our involvement, but also had the power over my life or death. Whichever pleased him most. Nobody could talk him out of it, either.
I dropped my eyes and my head in a submissive bow.
The king did not acknowledge my surrender. “You have no voice in my court, Regar Tremok. I should kill you now, but your father was a loyal man. Only in my respect for his memory do I keep you alive for interrogation.”
Pressing my lips tight to keep any rebuttals to myself, I begged Hiko with my eyes to do the same, but he’d always been bullheaded, and while he was also pissed at me for whatever I’d done wrong in his eyes, he also couldn’t watch his father threaten my life.
“Father, I know you are angry, but would you not reconsider—”
The king spun on him. “Shut it! Where were you when Isay got captured? Were you not one of her assigned guards?”
“We can’t all stay with her twenty-four seven, Father. We also need to sleep.”
King Grath waved his hand toward Kar. It looked more like he was slapping at the air in front of him and only accidentally happened to do it in Kar’s direction. “Is that how this one is now mated to the princess? You were all sleeping? I should behead him for defiling the girl on the spot.”
“Grath.” The queen’s soft voice didn’t reach the king’s ears. Her delicate touch on his shoulder went just as unnoticed.
“Well, clearly, Ferro was doing something else entirely,” I bit out, forgetting to keep my tongue behind my teeth and meeting the king’s furious gaze again. That’s why I never spoke up in court. It was better to keep quiet and accept everything, then laugh about the absurdity later under Hiko’s bedsheets.
“To the dungeon, now! Sinister, drag this trash out of my sight.”
“He needs to go to the infirmary, not rot in the dungeon, Father,” Hiko protested. He was coming around to our side completely, throwing suspecting looks at Ferro who was already pulled away to the direction of our designated lodging for who knows how long.
If Ferro wasn’t going to be questioned, Isay would likely remain in captivity too. We’d never find her. And if I was going to die for this, I’d completely misjudged my king’s fairness.
That said king stared down at Hiko. “Will you ever just do what you’re told for a change?”
Hiko lowered his gaze, but he did not stoop as low as to bow. He’d told me once it was his way of testing his father’s patience.
I found it amusing then. Now? I was fucking terrified he was overstepping the king’s patience altogether. It was, after all, still his honeymoon and so far, we’d dealt with a delther attack, calming down the new explosive energy Isay had slammed into every fae in the court, temper tantrums, us announcing a dispute with Felroth, and then an all-out battle with the emotion-feeders.
It was not what a honeymoon looked like, not even in Vindica. It usually consisted of a lot of sex and never leaving the bed. In their case, even more likely never leaving the bed since they just recently were safely able to relish each other’s touch.
I expected Hiko to have another comeback on his lips, but he surprised me by marching over to where Sinister was doing his best to haul Kar’s ass off the tiles toward imprisonment.
With the help of Hiko, they managed to get his upper body off the ground. I groaned my displeasure before I grabbed both of his feet just as he began thrashing and screaming again.
We all dropped him like a sack of potatoes, unable to keep him between us as his body convulsed in his fever dream.
That man had a hell of a set of lungs on him, and he was not afraid to use them, that’s for sure. I’d be surprised if there was a fae in Vindica that didn’t hear him. The rumours of his unauthorised mating to the princess were likely spreading just as fast as the wavelength of his howls.
The moment Kar went limp, we continued dragging him toward the dungeon. When we were out of ears reach of the king, Hiko jumped on me.
“What the fuck happened, Reg?” he demanded.
“She wanted to go on the stroll of the gardens. I was with her when the Felrothians attacked the gate. Ferro stumbled on us when I was dragging her back to the palace. I… ah… might’ve suggested he’d take her so I could go protect the gate.”
Both Sinister and Hiko stared at me as Kar started convulsing again, his cries more muffled this time.
“She was your responsibility!” Hiko shouted at me after we placed Kar down more gently this time. He was already going to have a concussion and who knows what else when he woke up.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I yelled right back. “I fucking know that. But it was Ferro… We grew up together, for Death’s sake. I didn’t think he’d sell her out.”
“I defended you to the king!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. We didn’t fight. We never fought each other.
Now Ferro was a traitor, Kar was in a coma, Sinister was just trying to stay out of whatever we’d gotten ourselves into, and Hiko was at my throat.
For a good reason, of course. He had a good goddamn reason.
Swallowing hard, I nodded toward Kar, who’d stopped his most recent escapade, and we all hauled him off the ground again. At least Hiko believed me. That was a start.
It also sounded like me, dumb and single-minded.
What he didn’t know was how much my mistake ate me up inside. I had no time to focus on the guilt, but I was sure it would hit me like a sledgehammer once I was stuck behind bars awaiting my punishment.
All the while Kar kept up his episodic screamfest, reminding me just how much I’d fucked up.
Getting him down the stairs was a hassle I wouldn’t want to go through again. He weighed more than a muscle car by the feel of it. I wasn’t going to admit it, but I was glad when we dropped him on the thin cot in one of the cells, the farthest from Ferro we could get.
“I’ll let you stay next door,” Hiko said, ushering me out.
