Scarred (Never After #2)(64)

“You’re right,” he presses. “We can save Alexander.”

I shake my head, brows pulling in until my forehead creases. “Wait. Tell me what you meant about my father.”

He lifts a shoulder. “I meant… look what happened to him. He was murdered.”

My teeth grind, sharp pain radiating up my jaw. “Don’t treat me like I’m inept. If there’s something you’re not telling me, then tell me.”

My stomach rolls like waves of the ocean in a looming storm. “I deserve to know.”

He swallows, dropping my hands and bringing his up to run through his hair. “It wasn’t the king who killed your father.”

Disbelief slams into me, ripping through my skin like he shoved the words straight into my chest. “I don’t understand.”

“It was the rebels. They captured him on his journey home, and tried to use him as a bartering tool, the same way they are with your cousin. Only last time…”

His voice shakes as it trails off, and my body freezes, shock spreading through every limb until it grows numb from the icy chill. “But you said… you told me—you lied to me? All this time?”

“Your father was a duke, sweet niece, gifted the title by King Michael II himself. The rebels saw an opportunity, wrongly assuming the new king would find him too important to lose.”

I shoot to my feet, betrayal slicing through my insides like a heated blade; grief for my father and realization that everything I’ve been told is a lie pouring through my middle like lava. “So, what was the point of all this?”

“The point?” He glances up at me, his eyes glossy. “The point is the same as it always has been. They captured your father. Tortured him. And the crown did nothing but stand by and watch. They’re just as responsible. Don’t let this distract you from what we came here to do.”

“No.” I shake my head, the omissions of my family sitting heavy on my tongue until my mouth tastes sour. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to stand there and tell me how to feel or how to act. Not when you’ve been lying to me.”

A burn scorches up my throat and settles between my eyes, tears threatening to blur my vision. “You lied to me!”

Not here, ma petite menteuse. They don’t get your tears.

Tristan’s voice rings through my head as if he’s standing behind me and coaching me through the pain—through the absolute devastation of everything I thought I knew being demolished from the inside out. I stiffen my jaw, forcing the emotion back down.

“I was trying to save you!” my uncle shouts. His hand turns white as he presses down on his cane to help him stand. “Your father trained you very well, Sara, but going to the shadowed lands is too dangerous.” He walks closer, his eyes trying to capture mine, but I glance away, unable to even look him in the face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry we kept this from you. I’ve tried to do right by you my entire life, and when he died—” His voice cracks. “I was terrified to lose you, too.”

“Yet you’ll send me here for no reason.”

“No.” His hand cups my jaw, tilting up my head. “The Faasa’s are still guilty. They still deserve to rot. But the rebels are uncivilized, their leader a ghost. It’s a different game to play. I couldn’t bear for something to happen to you too.”

My teeth grit together, a new fire burning in the pit of my stomach, one that blazes brighter with every word he speaks, snuffing out everything in its path.

“I welcome death, as long as I take the ones responsible down with me,” I hiss through my clenched jaw.

Raf blows out a shaky breath, nodding his head. “Then you’ll need to kill the rebel king.”





CHAPTER 36





Tristan





The guilty must pay for their sins.

I stare at the scrawled note—the one that was written by me—before placing it down on Michael’s desk and looking up at him.

“And what have you done to be guilty of, brother?” I ask. “What has Xander done?”

Michael’s eyes shift from left to right. “Nothing, of course.”

My boot presses on the wood floor, causing it to creak, and his body jumps. Amusement rains down my insides and I remind myself to smother the grin wanting to spread across my face.

“Do you ever think about our father?” he asks, his fingers white-knuckling the back of his chair.

The question makes my stomach twist, like it does any time I think of our father.

“Did mother put you up to this line of questioning?” I glance around, half expecting her to be in the room. Truthfully, I’m not sure if she’s even still in the castle, but I can’t be bothered enough to care either way.

He shakes his head.

I place a joint in my mouth and walk to the sitting area, bending over the coffee table to light the end on a candelabra, puffing a few times as I make my way back toward Michael and offer it to him.

He stares at the burning paper as though he doesn’t trust it not to be poisoned.

“If I were to kill you, brother, I would make sure you knew it was coming.” I nod at him. “Take it. It will ease your conscience. At least for a while.”