Seven Black Diamonds (Seven Black Diamonds #1)(32)

“Don’t.”

“Roan doesn’t want to talk about it either,” Will continued as if she hadn’t spoken. He tossed the boot back toward her.

“It was horrible,” she admitted, her tense expression fading away for a moment.

“Isn’t it always?”

“Did you . . . were you given any work to do for her over the summer?” Very pointedly not looking at him, Violet tucked the boot into a bag with its match. “The movie has been . . . I should’ve checked in more.”

Will sighed. “I’m not actually your little brother, Vi. I’m just as capable as the rest of you.” He stared at her, looking for a sign that she understood. “I wear as many masks as you do. My mother’s dutiful son, the team’s quiet one, Roan’s supportive boyfriend.”

“But they’re all real . . . aren’t they?”

“They are, but I’m not just one of any of those things.” Will shook his head. “Don’t try to shelter me so much, okay? I know things are changing, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as capable—or as much under threat as you are. The same classes, the fighting, the requisite sword and gun and . . . all of it, Vi. I’ve been there too.”

“But you haven’t had to k—”

“I have,” he interrupted. “Zeph knows. Kam too.”

Violet’s mouth gaped open, and Will wondered—not for the first time—if he should’ve told her when he’d had to do so. He knew her though. She would do as she had with Roan, as Zephyr had done for both Creed and Alkamy. She’d have taken his task as her own to protect him.

“If I’d have known . . .” Violet’s eyes filled with tears.

Will shrugged. “That’s why I didn’t tell either of you.”

“But . . .” Fierce moody Violet folded her arms over her chest as if to stop herself from shaking. It was, oddly, all the proof he needed that he’d made the right choice. She wanted to protect everyone around her, and as much as he loved her for it, he wasn’t going to ask it of her—or allow her to do it on her own if he could help it.

Will was sick of everyone trying to shield him.

When he came home that night, hands still shaking but holding it together more than he’d expected when he’d received the orders from Clara, he thought he had managed it all well enough.

The door fell shut behind him with an almost inaudible snick. It was the only sound in the townhouse, making it seem louder than it really was. He slipped his shoes off and was about to go up to his room, when a series of soft thuds drew his attention as someone stood and walked toward him.

“I can’t protect you,” his mother said from the darkness of the foyer. “If you get in trouble, you’ll end up exposed for what you are. I can’t protect you then.”

“For what I am?”

“I know we don’t talk about things,” she continued on as if he hadn’t spoken, “and I know that what I did in order to be your mother might not have been right, but I don’t regret it and I wouldn’t want to change it.”

Her arms were folded tightly, and as she turned the light on, her fluffy yellow bathrobe looked oddly cheerful despite the conversation. They weren’t talkers. They debated, and they discussed. That was different. It was mental exercise. This . . . this was bordering on emotional revelation, and Senator Parrish simply didn’t do that.

“If you get exposed for whatever you sneak out to do, they’ll test you. It’s standard for arrests now.”

“I was out late once and—”

“Don’t,” she cut him off. “I see your friends, Will. Do you honestly want to try to tell me that they aren’t fae-blood? That you aren’t aware of what they are?”

“So the anonymous donor . . .”

“There was no anonymous donor. There was an offer, a fae who offered me the one thing I wanted more than anything,” she said softly. “I couldn’t conceive, despite science. I didn’t have a partner either. When I was offered a chance to be a mother . . . I accepted.”

“You willingly slept with a fae-blood then.”

“No,” she corrected. “I slept with one of the true fae. The faery who fathered you was not able to pass as human. He had no desire to bed a woman—fae or human—but he wanted a child. We both wanted a child.”

Will nodded. He wasn’t sure what else to say. He had heard Zephyr explain that they were “modern changelings,” that instead of leaving behind sick faery babies in exchange for stealing healthy human children as the fae once had, the fae had left strong fae children behind in order to be raised in this world to fight for their true families. There was no way, though, that Zephyr’s explanation made sense. Will knew that his mother was truly his biological mother. That meant that it was likely that Zephyr was either lying to them or believing in a lie he’d been told. His mother had just given Will proof of his own suspicions about his heritage.

“Do you ever hear from him . . . my father, I mean . . .”

She shook her head, and then, in a very tentative tone, she asked, “Have you?”

Will shook his head.

“So you’re not out . . . doing things for him?”

“Things?” Will prompted.