Secrets and Lies

*Kieran*

I march down the hallway away from Blanca’s room, wondering what possessed me to go in there in the first place. I should’ve known better. Even that close to her, my mark still ached. As long as two mates who had marked each other continued to fight against the Moon Goddess’s plans, that would always be the case. But what the fuck else am I supposed to do? The alternative isn’t even an option.

I’m almost to my room when I hear a voice behind me and freeze. “Hello Kieran Wieran!”

I grit my teeth, bite back a sigh, and slowly turn around to see Nessa standing in the hallway wearing a bright pink ball gown. It’s the shade of bubble gum and looks hideous. What the fuck is she doing? Is that what she spent my money on?

“Hello… mate,” I manage to spit out. “I see you’ve done some shopping.”

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” She does a full twirl, and the skirts swing out so far, I’m afraid she might knock over a statue sitting on a pillar not far away. Luckily, the bust is just grazed.

“It’s… something else.” That’s not offensive–and it’s true.

Her smile widens as she comes at me, a little too much like that cat that pounced on me the other night. I almost back away but remind myself she’s in charge now. She pulls me to her and presses her mouth against mine. When she slides her tongue along my bottom lip, I start to gag but know I have to open up for her. She holds my entire life in her hands right now.

Eventually, I start to run out of breath and have to pull away. I plaster a ridiculous smile to my face because I don’t want to offend her. “Let’s leave something for our wedding night.”

She giggles and covers her mouth with a gloved hand. “All right, matey-watey. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“I can hardly wait.” She winks at me and does another spin before heading down the hallway, and I wait until she’s gone to let my true emotions take over, my shoulders slumping as I shake my head. “It’s too bad Blanca didn’t have her attacked by mice.”

“Hey, just the man I was looking for.” Taner’s voice cuts through the images in my mind of Nessa being eaten alive by a drove of vermin.

Slowly, I turn to face him, expecting him to say something out of left field that will make me question humanity, but instead, he points at my face and laughs hysterically. “Were you just attacked by a clown?”

Swearing under my breath, I pull a handkerchief from my pocket and wipe my mouth. When I pull it away, it’s covered in bright pink lipstick. “Son of a bitch,” I murmur. “Did I get it all?”

“Yeah, sure.” Taner looks too amused for me to believe him, so I swipe at my face a few more times. “Man, I wish Ayla would kiss me like that, but she’s giving me the cold shoulder until we’re married.”

“When’s that happening?” I ask, wanting to tell him he has nothing to be jealous of. I’d rather lick the inside of a toilet than have Nessa’s tongue in my mouth.

“Not sure yet. Have you two set a date?”

I shake my head. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid that so far, but it won’t be too much longer before my mother and hers will agree on a date.

“Well, I’m sure it won’t be too much longer before you’ll be linked to her for life. I bet you can’t wait to hear her voice inside of your head.” He laughs, and I grimace. No, I do not want to have the mind-link with Nessa.

But then, I won’t, will I? She’s not really my mate, so even when we’re married and that should officially kick in, I won’t have to worry about it.

“So I asked my dad a few questions about what we were talking about earlier.” Taner lowers his voice to a whisper. “Can we go in your room?”

I’m still struggling to remember what we were talking about the last time I saw him as I nod and lead him the few steps to my room. I unlock the door, and he follows me inside.

My chambers are a stark contrast to Blanca’s. While she has one tiny room with a bathroom the size of a small closet, I have an antechamber that leads to my bedchamber, a sitting area, and a kitchen. My bathroom is bigger than Blanca’s bedroom. She wasn’t kidding when she said things were different for her. I’ve never really thought about it before, but I probably should since it doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ll add it to the list.

“Do you want a beer?” I ask Taner as he makes himself comfortable on my couch.

“Sure, thanks.”

I head to the refrigerator and pull out a couple of cold ones and walk over to him. By the time I’m sipping my beer and settled in the chair across from him, I remember what we were talking about before.

“Escuro?” I ask him.

He nods. “Yeah. My father wasn’t a commander when the raids into the other kingdoms took place, but he was a warrior. I asked him what it was like, if the stories were true about the Escurotites sending bears and other animals to attack them.”

“Yeah? What did he say?” I’m not sure why I’m nervous to hear his response.

“Well, he didn’t want to talk about it at all,” Taner admits. “It took some arm twisting on my part to get him to start talking. But he says a lot of the stories he’s heard from various commanders and other nobility are not at all how he remembers the situation.”

This is astonishing to me. “Really?” I ask. “How so?” It’s hard for me to imagine Taner’s father, an enormous man with facial hair and tattoos, afraid to talk about anything.

“He says that they headed to Escuro planning to fight, that they’d been warned that the royals and some higher ranking nobles could manipulate animals and send them to attack in large numbers. But by the time they got there… there wasn’t really anyone left alive to fight.”

My mouth drops open, and I have to set my beer aside because I don’t understand what he’s saying. “No one left alive?”

“That’s right. The commanders were joking about it, laughing, even going into the people’s houses to joke around about how they’d been outsmarted and all that, but my father didn’t think it was funny. He had gone there expecting to prove himself as a warrior. Instead, they only fought a skirmish or two against a few smaller groups that hadn’t been affected by… what had been done.”

Swallowing hard, I stare at my best friend, trying to decipher what he’s talking about. “What who had done?”

“Your father and his higher ranking commanders, I guess.” He shrugs. “My father didn’t say, but who else could give those kinds of orders?”

“But… what was it?” I demand. “Why would an entire kingdom of people be dead when my father and his warriors had just arrived? Were they attacked by another kingdom?”

Shaking his head, Taner says, “No. They were all foaming at the mouth. Some of them had been dead longer than others, like they hadn’t figured out what had gone on in time to stop doing it but–Father says it looked like… wolfsbane.”

“Wolfsbane?” I repeat the word–the one substance that can take us out faster than any other. “What do you mean?”

“Apparently, your father had poisoned their water supply. We have the same streams here, but they’re downstream from us. The people who drank the water died–and that was almost everyone.” Taner looks morose, but I’m already gritting my teeth together and shaking my head before he finishes.

“No fucking way,” I tell him. “There’s no way that’s possible. My father is a great warrior. A proud warrior. He would never do something so underhanded.”

“I was shocked to hear it, too, but once my father started talking, he told me more. He said when they attacked Starfall Mountain pack, they locked the entire royal family and all of their guests in a temple and set it on fire. The king’s daughter was getting married. Your father was an invited guest.”

“Fuck you!” I stand up, leaning over him, snarling. “How dare you! What you’re saying is treason, Taner!”

“What I’m saying is the truth!” He doesn’t move, only stares back at me, and I see in his eyes that he believes it.

I suppose I believe everything my father says, too. But this… he has to know it can’t be true.

“I’m sorry, man. I’m not trying to be treasonous. I just want you to know that… maybe you should ask your father some more questions about what really happened. You wanted to know about Escuro, how we overpowered people with magical powers, now you know.”

“We didn’t poison them! We outsmarted them!” I insist. Taner shrugs and slides off the couch, steering clear of me. I’ve been mad at him lots of times in my life, but this is the first time I’ve wanted to rip him limb from limb.

“I’m gonna go.” He walks to the door, setting his unfinished beer on a small table there. With his hand wrapped around the door knob, he turns to face me. I am still seething but I don’t say anything. “By the way,” he says, his voice quiet. “I asked him about that Blake guy. He is from Escuro, but he’s not just one of their warriors or what have you.”

“Who is he?” I demand to know.

Before he opens the door and disappears, Taner replies, “He was the king.”