These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(77)

I cough and nearly spit out my coffee. “Is that so?” I knew I needed to act like Finn’s betrothed this weekend, but I’m beginning to worry that I should’ve asked more questions about why.

“Plenty of singles trek up the mountain as well,” she says, “but the ritual is considered the prime time for matchmaking, and I’m . . .” She shakes her head. “Although it’s been long enough that I’m expected to move on, I’m not ready.”

And how could she be? She loved her husband and lost him, but never stopped loving Amira either. I can’t blame her for not inviting more heartache.

“Anyway,” she says, sliding pins into my hair, “Kane will hike alongside Juliana, and Misha, Tynan, and I will follow on horseback a little behind the official trek.”

I nod, though my mind won’t stay on the details of the day. “When did it change between Finn and Isabel?” I ask, even though Pretha seems to be done with the subject.

“What do you mean?” she asks warily.

“How did he go from rebelling against his father for her to deciding it was worth sacrificing her?” I’m so busy avoiding her gaze that I don’t even notice how quiet she’s gone until a few moments have passed. I lift my gaze and see that she’s frowning at me, something like disappointment in her eyes. I cringe, but I don’t take the question back.

“There are some stories you need to hear from Finn,” she says. “But I can tell you that whatever you’re feeling for him shouldn’t be dismissed because of what you think you know. Talk to him.”

I swallow hard, shame making my skin feel too hot and tight. “It doesn’t matter what I feel or what answers he could give me,” I say softly. “I shouldn’t trust anyone. Not anymore.”

She doesn’t speak again until she’s done with my hair, and even then she waits until I meet her eyes. “Did you ever ask yourself why Finn didn’t try to get you to bond with him that night when you were drugged?”

The heat in my cheeks turns from shame to mortification as I remember that night. The shower. My begging. “Because he knew I would’ve said no,” I say.

Pretha gives me a sad smile that seems to say she understands me better than I understand myself.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“I would have. I wanted Sebastian.” But I wanted Sebastian to be the male I thought he was. The male whose top priority was protecting me, not cheating me out of the crown.

“Well, you got him.” Her face twists in irritation.

“Don’t act like Finn’s reasons for wanting me were any more noble than Sebastian’s,” I growl.

“They wanted the same thing for the same reasons—still do.”

“At first that was true. At first, you were just a pretty girl who had what he needed.” Sighing, she steps back and looks me over, surveying her work. “Then you became something else.”

“Became what?”

“My friend, among other things,” she says. “And as a friend, I’ll share this with you. When my parents found out about Amira and me and sent me away, I was broken and angry. I prepared to spend my life in a political marriage and for my heart to always belong to someone else. I wasn’t prepared for Vexius. I never knew I could love two people in that way—romantically, completely, and simultaneously. My feelings for one always felt like a betrayal of the other, yet one never diminished the other.”

I think about how I’ve somehow fallen for two faerie princes—romantically, completely, and simultaneously. But unlike Pretha, I shouldn’t trust either one.



By the time we head downstairs, rain is tapping against the window in a steady rhythm. A look outside reveals Finn, Kane, Juliana, and a group of fae I don’t recognize all standing around and talking in the rain. None of them seems the slightest bit concerned about the drizzle wetting their clothes or the droplets of rain rolling down their faces.

Pretha opens the door for me and nudges me onto the front stoop.

“And then he said he would—” Finn stops in the middle of his sentence when he spots me, and his eyes trail over me, from the short red curls Pretha pinned out of my face all the way down to the hem of the red dress that sweeps the damp wet stone of the stoop. His face is solemn when he lifts his gaze to mine. “Good morning, Princess. You are absolutely stunning, as always.”

My stomach does a giddy flip at those words, even as I realize that they’re more for the crowd that’s waiting here than they are for me. Even so, some visceral part of me desperately wants to believe them.

He steps forward and takes my hand, drawing me out from the overhang and fully into the rain.

“Are you ready for our trek up the mountain?”

“We’ll be soaked through,” I say, tilting my face up toward the sky. I don’t mind, truly, but suddenly the idea of hiking through the rain at his side, of pretending to be a couple, makes me feel far too vulnerable—as if the rain might wash away the last of my willpower where Finn’s concerned.

Perhaps that’s ridiculous after last night, but at least last night there was no one watching us, no one trying to dissect what we feel for each other.

Juliana steps forward. She’s dressed in a shining yellow and gold dress that reminds me of the sunshine, and she has marigolds woven into the curls pinned off her neck. One chunk of curls, I notice with a shameful flash of satisfaction, is a great deal shorter than the rest. “A gentle rain during Lunastal is considered a blessing by Lugh,” she says, handing a basket of flowers to Finn, who accepts them wordlessly.