Page 12 of Hunted
“You heard us speaking,” I trailed off, my eyebrows arching.
Tallin’s ears wagged, then fell. “I apologize, it was not my intention to eavesdrop. But I have been blessed with incredible senses, and this house is small.”
“And you heard, everything?”
“I overheard him offer his magic for you to use. If he weren’t on our side, he would not want you to have any magic in you at all. You would be easier to control that way.”
“Except if he had enough magic in him, I could’ve sent us all back to Arcadia. So… there’s a selfish motivation right there.”
Tallin shut his eyes. “I cannot stop you from believing he is an enemy,” he said, then he looked up at me. “But I know you aren’t doing that because you believe it.”
“I’m not?”
“No. I know you well enough to know how you think. And if he is your enemy, then you don’t have to deal with the Fate bond the two of you have.” Tallin paused. “You can’t ignore this, Amara.”
I sighed. “I know. I do.”
“Then… try to go easy on him. We are all in the same boat. If your grandmothers can’t help us, we may be stuck here for a long time. All three of us. We may even need to learn tolivein this place.”
“I don’t even want to think about that.”
“Maybe it’s not that bad, here?”
“Let’s not do that.” I paused. “It’s not that I won’t grow to like this place. I know I will. It’s where my grandmothers live. But if I start accepting that now… I need to focus my energies on getting back, on fixing this mess I’ve made. For your sakes.”
“My sakes?”
“And Valerian’s. I got him into this. Maybe if it was only me, here…” I shook my head. “And even then, the thought that someone has replaced me, that someone is sitting in my room, enjoying time with my father and mother. I have to get us back.”
Tallin frowned. “I can see the conflict in you, and I don’t like it.”
“I’m going to have to deal with it, one way or another.”
“The important thing for you to know is, you don’t have to deal with this alone. You have support, you have help, and you have love. Your grandmothers clearly care about you very much.”
I nodded, then smiled. “They do. It’s sad that I don’t get to see them very often.”
“You have been busy growing up and becoming a Princess. For them, it has only been a few months since the last time you were here, and you were a child, then.”
“I know. I guess I just feel like I’m taking advantage of their hospitality. I don’t know them that well, and they swooped in to take care of me.”
“That’s what family does.”
Tallin paused, then, letting his words linger in the air. I wasn’t sure why, but then I realized, he had left a couple of things unsaid. It was a silence that confirmed, he did in fact know way more about me than I thought he did.
He had been bound to me since birth, had been in my life since I was born, had watched me grow up and become the Fae I was today. That meant he had seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, just as clearly as I had—if not more so.
My mother was only part Fae, like I was, but she was raised on Earth, raised by the three women who had taken us in tonight. I was more Fae than she was, and I had been brought up in Arcadia; specifically, in the Winter Kingdom. There was a reason we were known as theColdest Fae.
Affection didn’t come easy to us.
It wasn’t that I didn’t receive any. My mother did her best, and so did my father, in his own way…maybe. I was having a hard time remembering. The point was, I had grown up in a place notorious for being heartless and cold, with only my mother’s flame for warmth.
Was it any wonder, really, that I didn’t want to take part in the Royal Selection? That I didn’t want to get married? That I didn’t want to accept Valerian’s Fate bond, or know how to appreciate my grandmothers’ help without feeling guilty?
Before I was made to take part in the Selection, I hadn’t even thought aboutlove. Love was a word rarely spoken around me. It was a concept, an idea, one I could feel shared between my parents, but it wasn’t something I could put my finger on and identify when it happened to me.
I mean, it hadneverhappened to me.