Chapter 162 War is coming
“What?” Finn spat out. Hale whipped his head around before I could school the shock on my face.
“I was right, I….” the words were bubbling out of him in excitement, and then he stopped.
His head jerked backward as if I had just punched him, and his eyebrows rode up to his hairline. “You knew?” He rasped.
All around us, the guests were entranced by the performance, heads tilted up as the sound of the orchestra completely drowned our voices. But between the three of us, the tension was like a suffocating blanket.
This moment was one of those few times I did not feel big, strong, or old. Terror made my heart race like it hadn’t in years, my limbs limp in my chair.
He would leave me. He would walk out and never speak to me again, and then I would spend the rest of my days feeling like one half of me had been amputated.
And he did, rising slowly from the table. He paused just to fix the button on his tux, and then turned away.
My silver knight, even now, appeared calm, moving through the tables with that controlled grace that could not be learned.
But I knew him. That calm was surface level, deep within lay an explosive that was counting down.
“As soon as she gets off that stage,” I clutched Finn’s knee under the table. “Bring her to the hotel. Speak to no one, you have to get her back to the hotel immediately.”
Finn was the one person I could trust on a night like this. Even more than Hale, who was more level-headed. Finn could be like a guard dog around the people he loved. Like me, he would kill first and ask questions later.
But the beautiful man looked just as stunned as his boyfriend had been a second ago.
“Finn!” I tightened my grip on his leg, and he blinked out of his trance.
I tapped his knee and exited the courtyard. In the hallway, I pulled a door open to the right, using it as an alternate door right into our hotel suite.
Hale had apparently used the same route, because I found him staring at the glass-walled fireplace, back turned to me. I hesitated at the doorway, but slowly, walked in and shut the door behind me.
There were twin storms in those eyes when he turned around. “Why?”
It was a single word.
My heart was still thudding, and it took every last morsel of willpower to hold myself upright.
This past week, since I found out her real identity, I had spent hours thinking about Hale’s reaction if he ever caught me out in my lie.
Outraged yelling, accusations, storms, declared enmity.
But not once did I think he would look this way. This stupified look in his eyes, as if he still could not believe I would lie to him. Neither had I expected the single exasperated why.
There were a thousand responses to that question, so many that my brain glitched, and I said the fear top of my mind.
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
It was the truth. Other than keeping my wife safe from that decaying bastard, I wanted to push back the war over her that was bound to happen. I wanted to stretch our time together till I finally solved this whole ordeal.
“Lose me?” his eyes narrowed. “For fuck sake!” he roared, and the sudden wind blasted me right in the face. It lifted every loose object in the room; stationary, Finn’s tie, my computer, an open book, and some decorative ornaments that had spilled out of the box where Finn stored them.
They hung in the air for several seconds, and then gravity won, snatching them back to the ground with a loud crash.
“Must everything always be about you?”
I staggered backward, feeling the words like a hammer in my chest. “Mon amour…”
“There comes a point where your selfishness becomes less sexy.” His eyes shot flames, his body shivering from the force of his emotions. “You really were going to watch me kill her? I told you hybrids could not participate in the exchange ritual and…” His face contorted in pain lines. “You did not think of saying a word even then. You would have watched me kill her.”
He swallowed hard, and when he spoke again, his voice was once again a whisper. “You loved Nym. You loved her, did your feelings change because she returned in the body of the woman you cannot bring yourself to love?"
I found my voice then, broken and hoarse as it was, I used it regardless.
“I loved Lys long before I knew who she really was.” I forced myself to not dwell on his words, not to fixate on the pain they caused me because this was exactly what Aionis had been banking on. “You really think I will let my wife die?”
“Mine,” he growled in the reverb baritone of a possessive Alpha, his eyes flashing a pale gold. “That’s my Luna!”
And rage, scorching blind and raw in its intensity, seized me. The possessive jealousy I had managed to keep chained, my instinctive nature I had numbed out so I could share, the last thing any dragon that had ever existed would do, burst free like a flood.
I forced my legs to move, to turn my back on him because my brain was beginning to inspect him from a different lens. A lens that made me ashamed because I should never think of the man I loved that way.
“She’s ours,” I said quietly after two long minutes, my back still turned. “I refuse to fight over her like a child’s toy. We will never speak of this again."
I stripped my jacket off and hurled it like a javelin onto a couch, feeling much better for it.
“When did you find out?” His voice halted my movement as I rolled my sleeves up.
He was much quieter now, and the pain in that voice was… I preferred the anger, the rage. I prefer those to whatever this sensation was in my heart at the sound of his voice.
“After her studio attack,” I returned, carefully peeling my sleeves off my forearm.
“Night take me.”
I moved towards the bed then, and lowered to take a seat. Unable to meet his eyes, I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the fireplace instead.
“I did not believe it at first,” I began gently. “Broke his damned leg clean off for it. But then I returned home and found her sleeping in the vault. I moved close and found she had the diary opened in front of her. She had apparently been reading one of her entries. I read it too, and on that page, I saw exactly why she would return with this completely different personality."
The crackling sound from the fire filled the room as the wind howled outside.
“That means nothing,” Hale said now, stubbornly. “You were wrong about Finn, this might be wrong too.”
I smirked. A situation where Hale Denver would cling to false hope, even after seeing hard evidence minutes ago, was a horrific situation.
“Lys Astre Grunder,” I said then, and finally met his eyes. “I had to find out that middle name myself. Why did you never tell me?”
He cursed. “I tried to tell you. You had your mind set and would not consider any other options.”
I stared at him for a second, he looked like he was about to pass out. “Take your jacket off.” I rose from the bed and moved to the nightstand. Grabbing the remote control, I turned around and shut off the fireplace. Then I turned on the air conditioner.
“You cannot stay in a cold place.” He frowned as he slung his jacket over the couch backrest.
“It does not matter.” I returned to the bed. “I consulted a witch.” I paused, and then continued, speaking more quickly. “I told you about Julien.”
Hale stiffened.
Seconds crawled by before he whispered, “What does he have to do with this?”
“Every blasted thing.” I cursed, lacing my fingers together and gripping them firmly. "Julien loved my wife so bloody much he returned again and again… “ I exhaled through my mouth. “Julien, Tarek, and even that Konrad.”
“No.” Hale was still on his feet, at the same spot. His eyes begged me to stop, to say no more. To not tell him what he most likely already guessed.
I tapped my foot, staring at the reflective polish of the Italian pair of shoes. ”They really got me this time, Hale. The Senate fucked me over.” I met his gaze again. “They must have been laughing at us the whole time. Finn is her soulmate. All those men… Finn is Tarek.”
I knew this news would shake him. Rock his world.
But what I did not expect was that my mostly composed lover would move towards the desk, draw his hand back and break in cleanly in halves with a single punch.