Ashes (The Divided Kingdom)

by Sophie H. Morgan

  She hadn’t considered Cade could be one because she could burn him.

  Only now she realized that every time she’d burned him had been an aggressive move, a defense through offense, or her intent had been on not harming him, like searing him to save his life. A phoenix was never 100 percent vulnerable to anybody, even their Kindreds. Their embers wouldn’t allow them to be betrayed by another—if a Kindred tried to attack, they could still be burned. But not when the phoenix wished otherwise.

  She could finally be with somebody.

  He could be her weakness.

  Ana closed her eyes and said nothing.

  Cade angled his head toward Alana, nestled in the crook of his arm. She’d been idly stroking his stomach with her claws, legs tangled with his on top of the sheets they’d so ably mussed—but thankfully not set on fire. The question of his status as a Kindred was carefully avoided, which he was fine with—for the moment. But there was one thing he needed to confront. “Why did you run?”

  Her body stiffened, claws faltering. “Why drag up the past?” At her throat, her pulse quickened.

  He didn’t retreat, not this time. He needed to know why she’d run;, from her parents’ murder, from him. She had to know he’d never believed, even for a second, she would disappoint as a ruler.

  “Ana.” He tightened his arm when she made to pull away. “Please.”

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “You’re kidding me, right? I was terrified for weeks that you’d been murdered too, or taken. Then I realized you might have escaped, and the idea of you alone out there…” His jaw had clenched. Cade forced it to relax. “You weren’t a warrior, Alana. When the weeks fell into months, I accepted you wouldn’t be back.”

  Alana’s mouth had dropped, a wide O of surprise. She shifted against his arm, sitting up against the wall, the sheet tucked around her. “I thought you’d washed your hands of it all.” Bitterness coated the words like poison. “Of the Farrahs, of me.”

  “Why?”

  She stared at him as though he’d suggested dancing naked with a pink feather boa. “You said you were giving in your notice. You said you were done.”

  “That’s why you didn’t come to me?”

  “You said you were done,” she repeated. A stubborn tilt to her chin reminded him of the girl he’d adored. “I didn’t know who to trust.”

  “Below the belt, Alana.” He rubbed at a spot on his chest, the burn everything to do with Alana, but not her fire. “You had to know I’d have helped. I loved you.”

  Color drained so fast from Alana’s face that Cade actually moved to catch her if she fainted.

  “Alana?” Urgency tripped the name off his tongue.

  “You lie,” she whispered.

  His jackal snarled at the hurt resonating beneath.

  Her head was shaking, back and forth, back and forth. “You mocked me only a few days ago. Don’t lie to me.”

  Cade cursed, calling himself all the different shades of fool. He reached out a hand, persevering when she tugged away. He clamped on to her upper arm. “Listen to me. When we saw each other again, I was a mess. Relieved you were okay. Furious you were mixed up with a terrorist.” He amended that as her head jerked up. “What I thought was a terrorist.” He sighed, smoothing the bristles on his chin, searching for words. “You’ve got to understand, Alana, I’m a man. We don’t cope well with emotion.”

  “Bullshit, Cade.” Her eyes glittered in fury. “If you think that lame, clichéd apology is going to get you off—”

  “Okay, okay.” He caught her hand as it balled, brought it to his mouth, kissed the tense knuckles. His chest heaved. “I’m sorry, Ana. For using your words against you.” He ducked to catch her eyes.

  “Sorry. When you said them—” Cade paused, remembering why he’d overreacted like he had, threatening to quit. Because he’d signed up with the Treaty, had been investigating her family, he hadn’t been able to say it. Besides, he was in no way good enough to be her consort. He could fail her.

  If he told her that, it would mean confessing everything.

  Something in him shied from that much intimacy. So he took the coward’s way out. “I was scared. It isn’t as though we could’ve actually made it work.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a princess, Alana—whether you admit it or not.” He felt like he needed to offer something for his lack of courage. A confession of a different kind. He exhaled a breath from his soul. “I’m a wandering jackal who killed his own father.”

  The words settled between them like a stick of dynamite.

  Alana approached it cautiously. “I always knew there was something.” Her eyebrows drew low. “What happened?”

  Cade’s jackal paced, disliking the memories, fury rising in sticky waves as he recalled the year he’d turned sixteen. He’d hardly spoken of it since that night, and then only to explain. Alana’s parents had never asked more than the basics, nor had the Treaty, and he’d never told anyone else.

  But this was Alana.

  His hand fisted. “I don’t know how much you know about jackals, but we’re not pack animals by nature. We tend to run in smaller groups, if at all, as long as we go off on solitary trips to keep our animal satisfied.”

  He swallowed, staring into space. Into the memories. Comfort filtered through as he felt the reassuring scrape of Alana’s claws.

  “My father,” he said, as neutral as beige, “was obsessed with having a pack, being an alpha. He was…charismatic. He convinced over twenty jackals to join together, in case of any ‘shifter wars’.” He air-quoted the last before his fingers fell back to the sheets. “There’ve been no shifter wars since the late sixteen hundreds, but he was great at whipping up fear.” He bit the inside of his cheek to stay the growl. “It was my sixteenth birthday. We’d had a sort-of party to celebrate. I went to find my brother, Xavier, to tell him to bring the damn cake.”

  He could see it in his mind’s eye, the dancing firelight on camping equipment, the chatter and whoops of laughter from the pack as he’d resisted their efforts to come and dance, wanting to find his brothers.

  “Brother.” Alana’s voice was hollow. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  A clipped nod. “Two. Xavier was the elder, Tobias the younger. X was twenty. Old enough for my father to consider a threat to his alpha status.” With the jackal’s heightened senses, he heard Alana’s heartbeat speed up. He continued through the lump in his throat. “I saw him slice X’s throat as I came around the corner of a tent. Just slit it. No warning. And Toby ran past, yelling at the top of his lungs.”

  His beautiful ten-year-old brother, so fierce as he’d shifted into his jackal, pouncing on his father, before being beaten by the elder man’s vicious strength.

  Cade was silent for a moment. “Nobody could stop me after that. I think he must have been dead long before they pulled me off him, but I kept ripping.” Copper blood flooded his mouth, sense memory overwhelming him until Alana’s claws rubbed sharply. He covered her hand. “It’s why I don’t shift often. The sensation of losing control is too much for me to handle. And it’s why my eyes are completely black.” Being that close to losing himself to his animal had altered his eye color, reminding him of his shortcomings every time he peered into a mirror.

  “I’m glad you killed him.” Her voice was low and fierce, bloodlust curdling the tone. Flames shimmered over her skin like specters. “He deserved everything you dealt him.”

  Cade’s jaw clenched. “I failed my brothers.” The start of everything.

  “No.” Alana put a hand on either cheek as she shifted to throw a leg over him. She stared into his eyes as she sat astride him. “You were sixteen, for fire’s sake. Who could have predicted your father would see his own kids as a threat? I bet when Toby ran past, you were seconds behind him.” She stroked her thumbs over his cheeks
. “You avenged your brothers. That’s not failing them.”

  Her words struck him, arrowing downward to the core of guilt he carried around with him like his backpack. She believed in him; he could see it in every resolute line. Maybe she had a point about his being right behind Toby. He’d still failed them. As he’d failed her.

  His hands manacled her wrists. “Do you ever dream of avenging your parents?”

  Something passed over her face. She seemed to wrestle with something as her hands slipped off his cheeks. He felt the loss keenly.

  Her shoulders slumped. She blew out a breath. “Sometimes.”

  “Why haven’t you ever searched for their killer?” He kept hold of her wrists, brushing his thumbs over the thready pulse points.

  One shoulder lifted. “At first I was battling to survive. Trick might’ve taken me in, but he wasn’t a doting guardian. He worked me hard, pushed me more than anyone ever had. Then, I don’t know.” She swallowed. The uncertainty in her eyes paled the amber to honey. “You know what the Houses are like. Ambitious, territorial. I guess…” Alana fisted her hands in the sheets. “I guess I didn’t want to find out someone I knew had done it.”

  He understood, more maybe than anyone else, because he’d seen the inside of phoenix culture. She was entirely just to consider that possibility. He squeezed her wrists. “How did you find them?”

  Staring past him, Alana spoke as though reciting from a sheet of syn-paper. “You know I went to bed angry. How dare they demand I marry a stranger? I was eighteen.” Her eyes flashed with shadows. “I was in love with someone else. I wouldn’t have my life decided for me. So, I went to their chambers. No guards on the door.”

  “They were found dead the next day.” Cade’s voice came out gruff. “Daggered, with bow-and-arrow wounds.”

  “No other phoenixes had learned the art. Another mark against me.” Her laugh was shrill. She swallowed. “I didn’t even recognize them when I walked in. They were so quiet and still; I’d never seen them like that.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “My locket was in this big pool of blood. I stepped in it by mistake. It was still warm.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I just stood there, and I thought for one wild second that I had done it.” She huffed a bitter laugh. “Eighteen and wondering if I’d lost control and didn’t remember. I knew if the Houses could get me out of the line of succession, they would. They never liked me or the way I acted. A princess doesn’t…et cetera. Even if I wasn’t accused outright, the whispers would have started, and it wouldn’t have been long before they’d have forced an abdication. It seemed better to run and let them choose a decent governor.”

  “You’d never have killed them. You loved them.”

  “Yeah. I did. Even with their disappointment eating at me twenty-four/seven.” Alana traced a pattern on the sheets with her finger. Their combined breaths were loud in her silence. “When I stared at them, every rule they’d ever told me, every setdown or disappointed sigh, it all gabbled in my ears. I thought about how disappointed they’d been that I hadn’t wanted to marry Edward and join the territories. I got it. I was never meant to be queen.”

  “Alana.”

  “No, I’m serious, Cade.” Her gaze swung his way, earnest. “They’d known it all the time. I was the last to grasp it. In those seconds, I knew I’d be the worst thing to happen to the Royal House. I’d bring war down on our heads, let people starve. So, I waited until you changed shifts with the castle guards. I slipped out of my window on sheets that I’d tied together. And I ran.”

  And she’s never stopped running.

  Cade kept that thought to himself, hushing her as misery pulsated in thick black currents. He brushed strands of hair away from her face, framing it with his hands. Forgiveness nestled in his heart, bitterness over their past melting under the strength of her disbelief in herself. Her parents had a lot to answer for. So had he, for letting her parents berate her, often enough to have carved such a hollow.

  Alana’s throat constricted as she swallowed. “I suppose that’s what sent me in the direction of the rebellion. I wasn’t going to rule, but I could save others from the shadows.”

  Cade slanted his mouth over hers. Swallowing the words.

  She kissed him back as she straddled him, naked skin to naked skin. Naked, but for the secrets that still divided them.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They all met in Trick’s quarters. His skin was paler than usual, eyes dull.

  Cade summed it up. “You look like crap.”

  “Don’t push me, merc.” The vampire glided to his easy chair and slumped into it. “I should be sleeping. Instead, we’re all waiting with bated breath to hear your ‘revelation’.” He put sarcastic air quotes around the word, grabbing at the fluted glass of blood that Sapphy had poured, guzzling it.

  Ana ignored her curious friends as they took in Cade’s claim on her hand. She’d never been one for displays of affection, but hadn’t had the heart to shake him off. Not after what they’d shared last night. More than sex, it both thrilled and terrified her.

  How could she hold her shield against something so powerful? Her conviction never to tell him about Liberty’s true identity was crumbling at the foundation.

  When he’d woken her late morning to gather the Hoods, she’d thought he was going to pull her down and have at her a third time. Something she’d have been all for, even if she was embarrassingly sore after the night of sexual gymnastics. Thank goodness they’d had to head out to his rooms to retrieve his backpack, or she might’ve arrived in Trick’s quarters walking like a cowgirl.

  As though he could hear her, Cade slid her a wicked grin. Her insides clenched as if invisible fingers stroked and teased her skin.

  She swallowed, her throat bobbing. She pasted a tight smile to her lips and leaned with her weight onto his right foot.

  Sapphy wiggled her eyebrows as she sat on Trick’s chair’s arm, injuries healed. Her natural hair color shone through, an indication of how much energy her body had used to mend itself.

  Ana made a cross-eyed face at her, towing Cade to the stuffed couch and plopping down. He followed, resting their entwined hands on his thigh as he threw his free arm around the back of the couch. The silly man was beaming, satisfaction oozing from every handsome pore. He couldn’t have said they’d had sex plainer than if he’d strutted in, beating his chest and howling.

  Vander hooted, masculine appreciation curving his lips. “Way to go, merc.” Hazel eyes laughed at her from where he stood in the center, hands shoved into jeans pockets.

  “I will kill you,” Ana warned, baring her teeth. Next to her, Cade stifled a laugh. “Let’s do this already.”

  “That’s what she said,” Vander mumbled, yowling as Sapphy reached over and slapped him upside the head.

  Faer snorted. He turned from the sun-cover over the window he’d checked. Walking over, he dropped onto the other side of Ana. Long legs draped over the arm of the couch, he grinned. “You an’ me, girl. If only our species hadn’t kept us apart.”

  Ana couldn’t help the smile as she replied, “Ah, the stars would have wept.”

  “Okay, if this was about showing us you’ve had sex, I’m going back to bed,” Trick complained. He rubbed his face. “It’s so early.”

  “Baby needs his nap.” Vander yowled again. “Damn it, Sapphy.”

  “What can I say? I enjoy hitting you.”

  About to retort, Vander shut up when she raised her fist. Grumpily, he lounged against one of the walls—far from Sapphy.

  Cade’s lips twitched, tracking the drama as though it were uncommon. Which it was, Ana realized, to him. Mercs were solitary—maybe one reason why he’d chosen that career after everyone he’d ever cared for was lost. His brothers, her.

  She squeezed the hand she held. His eyes went to her in question. When she smiled, he kissed the inside of he
r palm softly. Then he got serious, clearing his throat.

  “I know you’ve been fighting Edward long before I came on the scene—and after, too, before you say anything.” He turned his head meaningfully toward Ana.

  She pointed at herself, a who me? innocence pasted over her face.

  Cade’s compressed lips told of his doubt. But he continued. “Now I’ve joined, I want to be useful.

  “Before I tell you anything, I’ll repeat that going to the Treaty is the best idea.”

  Groans met his statement. Ana couldn’t help the chuckle that rose like a ghost in her throat. If he thought she’d been a hardass about it, he hadn’t seen anything.

  “You fuckin’ brainless?” Faer demanded, squinting as though Cade had suggested killing Edward by throwing a bucket of water over him. “The Committee’d vote for Edward before we even got the chance to tell our side.”

  “The heads of the races would side with one of their own,” Sapphy agreed, troubled. Her hand tapped out a beat on her thigh. “We’d be arrested, and then nobody’d be between Edward and the people.”

  “They’re a bunch of no-balled cowards,” Vander snarled, fingers dancing over the hilt of the sword he perpetually had strapped to his side. He straightened from his slouch. “Concerned with no one but their own. They don’t care about us.”

  “The Treaty have no idea about the Kingdom anymore. They’ve placed all their trust in the men and women ruling it for them.” Trick raised his eyebrows. “We’d have better luck trying to convince them that valkry fly.”

  Ana felt Cade’s attention shift to her. “What?”

  “You got anything to add?”

  “No, I think they’ve all made good points.”

  Cade sighed, putting his free hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching. “I don’t think they’re that bad. As corrupt as Edward is, he should be handed into custody. They’re our government for a reason.”

  Ana shared a glance with Trick, knowing there was one piece of information Cade hadn’t gotten that would flip his stance from “custody” to “kill”. Especially in light of what he’d told her last night.