Chapter 22

Lilith couldn't believe her luck—or rather her stupidity, as that was what had brought her there, in the middle of nowhere, in a cold fortress with nowhere to go to escape Aaden. As furious as she was, she wasn't simply going to let him freeze to death, so she had no choice but to put up with his presence for the night, before she could finally make her escape the following morning.

If the storm has passed by the morrow, that is.

She had every intention of ignoring him entirely and trying to get some sleep, the blanket and the fire providing just enough warmth and comfort for her to manage it for a few hours, but Aaden seemed to have no intention to let her rest.

She didn't want him to talk. She didn't want to hear anything of what he had to say, but it wasn't so easy to convince him, even as he claimed that if she so wished, he would leave her alone.

"I'm nae askin' ye tae forgive me," Aaden said. "I am only askin' ye tae hear what I have tae say."

Lilith's eyes welled up with tears, hot and stinging with salt. She hated that Aaden could reduce her to this crying mess. No one else had managed to do so in the past and it sickened her to think that he had so much power over her now.

I will forget about him. In time, it willnae hurt anymore.

It was the same thing she would tell her sister about Evander. Freya would learn to love again—she had the temperament for it and she would hold onto the belief that she could find true love. Lilith would have good reason to convince her father that she never had to marry. After all this, she even doubted her father would ever insist on it again.

She couldn't help but wonder what was happening back at the castle. When she had left, there had been chaos behind her, no one knowing what was going on, but the truth must have spread by then. Everyone would know Aaden and Evander were not who they claimed to be and perhaps her father would have already forced them to leave.

She hoped that was the case. She didn"t know if she would have the patience to deal with Evander politely if she returned the following day only to find him there after all the pain and grief he had caused Freya.

"Naething ye can say can change any o' this!" Lilith said, her frustration getting the better of her. Her words came out in a raspy shout and she struggled to wipe the tears off her cheeks, a fresh wave pouring out of her with every breath. "Ye never tell me the truth! Why should I believe that whatever ye have tae say now will be any more real than all the lies ye've told me?"

Aaden fell silent, frowning as though he was seriously contemplating that question. Then, he said, "Because I have naething left tae lose. Why would I lie tae ye now? Ye already ken the worst o' it."

His voice sounded distant, choked off by a swell of emotion that Lilith couldn't identify—or rather didn't want to. She wouldn't be swept up in this again. She wouldn't make the same mistake of thinking that he nurtured any real feelings for her.

Aaden did have a point, though, when he said there was nothing left for him to lose. No matter what he told Lilith, she had no intention of forgiving him, so he had no reason to keep the truth from her any longer.

And she would be lying if she said she wasn't curious to hear what excuse Aaden would give her this time.

"Speak," she said after a moment of silence.

Though Aaden had been quick to speak before, now that he had permission, he faltered. His lips parted again and again as he tried to come up with the right thing to say and he stared at Lilith imploringly, as if begging her to understand him without him saying a word.

Lilith only stared back expectantly, her fingers curling around the blanket to pull it a little tighter around her shoulders. She had long stopped shivering, but looking at Aaden, still soaked from the rain and curled up into himself filled her with a phantom chill.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. "I said I would tell ye the truth, so here it is. I told ye me maither is a courtesan an'… it isnae true. It is what everyone thinks, but it's only a lie created by me faither tae protect her an' me. Me real maither is Janice MacEwan. Evander's maither. Ruadh's wife."

Lilith stared at him, wide-eyed and in utter disbelief. Her first instinct was to think of this as a lie, too, but he had no reason to tell her a lie like this, she thought. Why would he say such a thing if it wasn't true? He had nothing to gain from it.

And then there was another clue: the tears that gathered in his eyes, glinting under the light of the fire. He was trying to fight them, Lilith could see, but just like that night on the balcony, he couldn't keep his pain hidden.

She fought the urge to crawl to him, to pull him close and wrap him in her arms. Excising the love that had blossomed inside her was far from easy and she knew it would take time. Despite his betrayal, embers of it still burned in her heart and she longed to provide him with any comfort she could, but she forced herself to remain still.

This explained nothing, after all. The true identity of his mother had nothing to do with all the lies he had told her, as far as she was concerned.

"When Ruadh found out, he was furious," Aaden continued. "He exiled me an' me faither an' that is why I am with the McDowell Clan. I've been with them fer most o' me life. They took us in when we had nae one else. But Ruadh never forgot about it an' he always forced me faither tae dae his biddin'. An' now he's forcin' me."

The more Aaden revealed, the more confused Lilith was. It took her a few moments to connect the dots, if only because Laird MacEwan had seemed like a perfectly good man to everyone in the short time he had spent with them in Castle Stewart.

"He is the one who wants me faither's gold an' land," Lilith said and Aaden nodded, confirming her suspicions.

But that didn't explain why Aaden felt compelled to do his bidding, why he followed Laird MacEwan's orders when he knew how much it would hurt Lilith and her family.

"Why?" she asked, her voice now wavering too. "Why did ye dae it?"

"I had nae choice," Aaden said. "He… he has me maither, Lilith. I dinnae even ken where he is keepin' her but he threatened tae kill her if I didnae dae as he asked."

A fresh wave of tears poured out of Aaden's eyes and this time, he didn't even attempt to stop them. He only buried his face in his hands and sat there quietly, making no sound even as his shoulders shook. Lilith was too shocked by what he had revealed to do anything but sit there with her mouth hanging open for several moments, unable to believe it.

How could someone be so cruel as to imprison and threaten to kill his own wife and mother of his children? Lilith had thought that Aaden and Evander were good liars, but Laird MacEwan was the best of them all, fooling everyone into thinking he was kind and gracious.

"Does Evander ken all this?" she asked. She needed to know. "Is it… is he part o' the whole plan?"

Aaden didn't look up as he spoke. "He only kent he would get a good wife an' gold out o' this. He doesnae ken about our maither. He doesnae even ken I am her son."

"This is…" Lilith's voice trailed off, not knowing how to finish her sentence. There were no words that sufficiently described the insanity of the situation and she doubted that anything she could say would be enough to console Aaden or give him any hope.

Could she truly claim that Laird MacEwan wouldn't hurt his mother now that his plan had failed? She hardly knew the man and it turned out that everything she thought she knew about him was wrong.

Aaden finally lifted his head to look at her and though his eyes still shone with tears, there was a new strength to him, a determination in the tight press of his lips. "It is why I swore tae never fall in love with a lass. I saw what love did tae me faither an' how it trapped him in a life o' despair an' pain. He never stopped lovin' me maither an' she never stopped lovin' him. All they wanted was tae be happy together but she had been promised tae Ruadh an' he didnae care they were in love. He married her despite it. He forced it upon her."

It was a different kind of pain from the one Lilith had witnessed from her own parents, but similar enough for her to understand. Aaden had told her before of his reasons for never wanting to fall in love and she had once shared the opinion, but then she had gone ahead and fallen for him regardless, like a fool.

"I didnae ken I would meet ye," Aaden continued. He shifted a little closer to Lilith, dragging his legs over the floor. "I didnae ken… I didnae ken how helpless I would be when it came tae ye, Lilith. I tried, I truly did. I tried tae tell meself I wouldnae fall in love with ye but I couldnae help it. Ye're so stubborn, so headstrong an' fierce."

This wasn't where Lilith expected this to go. At first, it had sounded like a confession, but now it seemed more like a list of her flaws. She frowned in confusion and made to speak, but Aaden continued before she could utter a single word.

"An' I love that about ye. I love yer smile, I love how kind ye are even if ye dinnae always show it. I love that ye're fearless. I love yer body, I love yer mind, I love the way ye purse yer lips when ye find somethin' funny but ye dinnae want anyone tae ken. I love ye, Lilith. I love all o' ye an' I've kent fer a while I am doomed. I will always love ye, nae matter what."

Lilith was frozen into silence once more. Men had claimed to love her before, but no one had ever said anything like this to her. Aaden hadn't even told her he loved her—this was the first time she was hearing it from his lips and though she would have believed it only a few hours prior, now it only dug the pit in her stomach deeper, this confession that she didn't know whether or not she should trust.

"Why should I believe ye?" she asked him. "Why should I believe ye now, after everythin'?"

"Let me prove it tae ye," Aaden said. He sounded desperate as he crawled even closer, hands resting on her thighs as if in supplication. "Please."

Lilith looked down at him, voice soft when she spoke. "How?"

Instead of responding, Aaden reached up, cradling her cheek in his hand. He pulled himself close and kissed her—a barely-there brush of lips at first before he stopped, pulling back to look at her.

"Can I?—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Lilith nodded fervently and he surged against her, claiming her mouth in a hurried frenzy.