He tightened his hold, desperate to be wrong. Desperate for an explanation, any explanation, for what had been done to him. To her. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you didn’t know she was alive.”

Jaeros’s face stayed firm, his soft expressions and playful humor nowhere in sight. “For once in your life, listen to me, boy. This is not the place.”

Jaren bared his teeth, snarling down at him. “Tell me the fucking truth!”

He tried to shove him off, but Jaren held on to his tunic, refusing to release him until he heard the venomous words straight from the fucking serpent’s mouth.

His father’s face broke, despair and agony blanketing him, but Jaren only snarled louder. “Say. It.”

“Yes,” he said, low enough that no one around would hear unless they actively tried. “At least, we knew she left that way. We had our reasons, and I swear on the gods we will talk, but please, Jaren, get her out of sight.”

Jaren’s fingers released the fabric, his hands dropping to his sides like dead weights as that one word hammered into his skull.

We.

Jaeros stepped back, his body tense and alert, whether in reaction to Jaren’s emotions or what he feared from the crowd, he didn’t know. He didn’t fucking care. He focused on the second beat in his chest, needing to feel her presence and remind himself that she was indeed here, with him.

Veralie’s emotions washed over him, and his entire body went taut. There was still confusion, but it was buried under layers of worry, sadness, and pain. Not for herself, but for him. His mate had been cast away by those who were supposed to love her most, yet her heart was breaking for him.

As if, after fifteen years, she was so fucking used to males trampling all over her life, Jaeros’s admission didn’t even surprise her. The knowledge snapped something inside him that he didn’t think he’d ever get back.

“You did this to her.”

Jaeros’s face darkened, his fear dying out as his own, rare anger came to the surface. “Everything we’ve done was to protect you both.”

“Protect?” A hollow sound broke the air as Jaren tipped his head back and laughed. “Were you protecting me when I spent months wanting to ram my dagger through my heart? Did you protect me from the shame of not only killing my aitanta, but the Daughter to the Throne? From the shame of furthering the taint of my home?”

Jaeros blanched before slashing his hand through the air, hissing, “Lower your gods damn voice.”

A corner of his brain screamed at him, warning him to be careful, but he couldn’t obey it. He couldn’t tamper down the feral rage building and coursing within him. He was consumed by it.

“Were you protecting her when she was abandoned in a strange land? When they held her down and mutilated her?”

Jaeros’s eyes shot back over his shoulder, his face draining of color as horror flashed across it. He may not have been able to see her ears tucked under her hood, but he wasn’t stupid. There was only one way for a Magyki to blend in on a continent of humans.