Chapter 12

TWELVE

I followed Faris out of the kitchen and up the stairs, trying not to look over my shoulder. Trying not to wonder what Callum was thinking as he followed us into Faris’s office and shut the door.

He was definitely going to have questions.

When he came to a stop beside me, in front of the desk, I could feel him looking down. Assessing me. Maybe even judging me…

“Are you all right?”

It wasn’t the first question I’d been expecting, but I forced a nod.

“I’m fine,” I muttered. “Perfectly fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? I just came into work for the day and was attacked by an invisible assassin.” My mouth, for whatever reason, didn’t seem to want to stop moving.

“I tried to step on him once,” Callum murmured, “But he’s faster than he looks. Someday I’m just going to eat him.”

Also not what I’d been expecting from my stern, grumpy dragon boss.

“Wait.” I turned to glare up at him. “You actually had an opportunity to get rid of your clearly deranged future brother-in-law and missed ?”

And there I went again. Arguing with people who could kill me.

His mouth opened as if he couldn’t believe what I’d just said.

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. Why was I mouthing off to the absurdly powerful king of the shapeshifters who had the power to make my life miserable?

I was obviously drunk—on adrenaline, stress, and possibly a hefty dose of sleep deprivation mixed with annoyance.

Faris dropped into his chair with a grunt. “Raine is right. You shouldn’t have missed. But if you hurt him now, Kira will kill you.”

I thought I saw the glimmer of a smile beneath that beard. No matter how much he might seem annoyed with Draven, he was obviously proud of Kira. Even seemed to consider her basically his own daughter.

I was desperately curious to know how that could have happened, but this was clearly not the time to ask.

“She nearly killed me the first time,” Callum said dryly. “But sadly, planning Elduvar’s demise is not why I’m here. You said you had an update on the shapeshifters from yesterday.”

“I do.” Faris leaned forward in his chair and placed his elbows on his desk, all hints of humor gone from his face. “You said they didn’t act like typical shifters. That they seemed unused to fighting in shifted form. Couldn’t manage to suppress their instincts.”

Callum nodded once, his own face hardening with the memory. “I roared at them, just to see if it would slow them down, and the wolf rolled over and showed me his belly immediately. Like it was the wolf driving and not the human.”

I remembered that roar. It had physically hurt, and sounded as if it had come from a dragon rather than a human chest. “Was that some sort of shifter magic?”

He shot me a piercing look, and I wondered if that was something I already should have known. If I’d been raised by Idrian parents, would they have taught me these things?

“Yes and no,” he acknowledged. “A shapeshifter’s animal form is instinctively willing to acknowledge authority simply by virtue of superior strength. Most shifters are aware of my position and find me intimidating, whether I’m trying to be or not. It’s part of why they choose their leaders the way they do.

“But most shifters are also far more than just their animal instincts. I was attempting to remind the wolf of the fact that I could crush him if I chose, and he acted as if he’d forgotten that he could choose to attack me anyway.”

That was… actually rather worrying. “What about shifters who aren’t a part of the court? Like… Seamus? Do they react to you the same way?”

His eyes met mine, and I could tell he knew exactly why I was asking. Thankfully, he chose not to reveal those reasons.

“Depends on the shifter.”

Well that was super specific and helpful information.

I shook off a chill and turned back to Faris. “So did you find out why the shapeshifters who attacked us were acting strangely?”

His face had gone oddly blank. “I have a suspicion, but I need Callum to test it. If you’re willing?”

“Explain.” Callum’s expression was now cool and wary. We were clearly tucked away in the privacy of Faris’s office for a reason.

“I have a small basement, with rooms for customers who drink too much or start breaking things. I put your two down there last night. Figured we’d wait for them to shift back and start yelling for someone to let them out. But they never did. I checked on them early this morning and…” He was stroking his beard again, with an agitated frown. “They never shifted back.”

Callum’s posture stiffened instantly. “That’s a long time for an injured shapeshifter. What are you thinking?”

Whatever his suspicions, Faris was keeping them close. “Frankly, my thoughts are so preposterous, I don’t even want to say until I’ve gotten your take on the situation.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

I hadn’t even realized The Portal had a basement, so it was with a cautious sense of curiosity that I followed the two men down a narrow set of stairs. Faris’s description made the space sound more like a jail than anything else, so I was half expecting to see iron barred cells, lit only by torchlight that glimmered off puddles of water on a dank, rough, stone floor.

So much for my imagination. The space was small, but had a concrete floor, with stacks of boxes and shelves filled with various liquors on one side, and a row of three steel doors on the other. Each door had a single glass pane—rather like a school classroom—but otherwise they seemed normal.

Faris started towards the closest one, but he’d taken no more than a few steps when Callum’s hand caught his arm.

“Stop.” He took in a deep breath through his nose, eyes aglow with a flare of power and warning. “Don’t you smell that?”

Faris shot him a look of irritation that suggested he didn’t appreciate being ordered around, but Callum shut him up with a single, harsh word.

“Blood.”

The elemental made a low, furious sound, and it rippled through me like the first warning tremors before an earthquake.

This was his territory. He’d promised to keep these prisoners safe for questioning. The idea that someone might have touched them without his permission…

In the following moments, I could see the difference between the two men as clearly as night and day. Callum moved like a predator who’d suddenly sensed an enemy. Confident and deadly, scanning the room for threats even as he glided forward, allowing his anger to sharpen his focus.

Faris moved like a landslide. No slowing down. No altering course. No fear of who might be watching or what their intentions might be. Whatever got in his way would be destroyed, buried, annihilated—without question and without mercy.

They both headed for the nearest steel door, sharing a quick glance that somehow acknowledged their shared jurisdiction before Callum grasped the handle. Looked through the glass.

He swore. For a moment, I was afraid he was simply going to break the door down, but Faris shoved him aside and unlocked it. The door swung open, and Callum charged through…

Even my human nose could smell it then—the stench of blood and death pouring from inside that room. Part of me needed to know—needed to see for myself what had happened—so I followed them, with a slightly nervous glance towards the darkest corners of the basement.

But there didn’t appear to be any effective hiding spaces other than the rooms themselves. Everything was orderly and well lit. Only glamour would serve to conceal a lurking assassin, but it couldn’t conceal their smell. Surely if anyone else were down there, Callum would have known.

I reached the door and took in the room at a glance—a bed with a sturdy metal frame, a metal chair, and a light fixture flush with the ceiling. Beside the bed was a small shelf with a pitcher of water—plastic, not glass. Otherwise, the room was bare, with nothing that could be made into a weapon.

Faris stood in the center of the floor, arms crossed over his chest, while Callum knelt over a body. Or at least I assumed it was a body. All I could see was gray fur and blood—the wolf, or what was left of it.

I already knew the answer, but I moved almost mechanically to check the next room. The only difference was a much larger body this time—tawny rather than gray, the floor around it drenched in red from wall to wall.

Someone had entered the building, unlocked these doors, slaughtered two shapeshifters, relocked the doors, and then left again without anyone seeing or hearing them. They’d risked being discovered not only by Faris, but by the shapeshifter king and a former fae assassin.

And they’d done it this morning. Right under everyone’s noses.

I returned to the first room, but could only linger in the doorway, feeling the hairs on my neck stand on end with apprehension. Who or what could have that kind of skill? That kind of confidence? Not to mention the opportunity…

Almost as if they’d heard me thinking, Faris and Callum rose in unison from inspecting the body of the wolf.

Turned towards me.

Faris’s expression froze over.

“Raine.” His tone was harsh, almost grating. “Care to tell us what brought you to The Portal this morning?”

I could feel his fury and frustration like a crushing weight—pinning me to the wall. Callum, too, was projecting a palpable sense of rage, and I almost couldn’t move from the combined pressure of their unwavering regard.

But strangely, I felt no sense of physical threat.

I’d seen Callum throw a lion across the room only yesterday, and it was clear he could have torn me to shreds if he believed I was guilty.

But he was holding back. Waiting to pass judgment.

“Just answer him, Raine.” His voice was soft and level. “Did you know anything about this?”

Somehow, that quiet, unhurried question held the same flavor of magic as the roar he’d used the previous night. The words were simple, but they resonated with power and authority, along with a hint of command.

And when I remained silent, he took several steps closer, glowing gaze fixed on mine as the flames rose higher and higher inside my head.

But just as it had the night we’d met, his magic accomplished nothing but adding steel to my spine.

“Last night you said you trusted me,” I reminded him bitterly. “You promised you wouldn’t let them hurt me. Now you want to accuse me of murder? Make up your mind, Your Majesty.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything.” His voice was still quiet and uninflected, but somewhere behind the fury I saw in his eyes, I began to glimpse just a tiny hint of… pain. Something about this was hurting him, and I had no idea what it could be. “We are standing within the jurisdiction of the Shadow Court. Which means it is within Faris’s rights to ask whether you were involved.”

Apparently, he still didn’t trust me enough to defend me. Nor did he say whether he would believe my answer.

“You had access,” Faris stated coldly. “This happened sometime in the last hour, while you were in the building, unsupervised. Why were you here so early?”

“Faris!” Kira’s cry from the doorway finally cracked through the tension in the tiny room. “Stop it. Raine didn’t do this.”

“And you know this how?”

“Declan said…”

“Declan said she meant no harm to you, to me, or to the Symposium,” Callum pointed out. He sounded detached. Unemotional. Like a lawyer in a courtroom. “But these two attacked us, so his statement doesn’t apply.”

Wait, what did their brother have to do with this?

“It isn’t like the door is always locked,” Kira retorted. For some reason, she seemed determined to defend me. “Who else was in the building this morning?”

“No one that we are aware of,” Callum replied heavily. “And I have detected no unexpected scents.”

Kira paled at the implicit accusation in his statement, while Faris very loudly said nothing.

From their perspective, blaming me was an entirely rational deduction. From mine, however…

“It wasn’t her.”

Draven appeared in the doorway beside Kira, arms folded across his chest. He glanced at each of us before shooting Callum a look that I could have sworn was disappointment.

“How do you know?” That was Faris.

While my dragon boss continued to watch me silently, wearing that peculiarly flat expression.

“You asked when I tested her what I thought I was doing.” Draven’s silver eyes shifted to me. “The reason for the test was to determine the source of her instincts and her motivation. When she fights, how does she fight, and why?”

He gave me an oddly serious nod before shifting his attention, not to Faris, but to Callum.

“If you decide after this that you still want her to be your bodyguard—and if you can convince her not to quit on the spot—you should know that Raine is not a killer. Her instincts are primarily wired for defense, not offense. She’ll prioritize neutralization and escape, but not death.”

He’d learned all that when I whacked him with a broom?

“My attack was meant to appear to be in deadly earnest. She didn’t know I wouldn’t hurt her. Once she entered the kitchen, there were edged weapons everywhere. Knives that could have easily gutted me, severed arteries and caused me to bleed out, but her eyes skipped right over them, and her strategy never once took them into consideration.”

Huh. He was right. And just now, I was beginning to realize it might be a weakness. When that fae had attacked, I could have done like Talia and turned the water into shards of ice that could pierce and shred with ease. But I’d made a shield instead, and knowing why didn’t make me question myself any less.

Callum nodded and turned to Faris. “Are you satisfied?”

The earth elemental’s anger did not noticeably abate, but it did shift away from me. “Then who else, Elduvar? Who else had access? Who had motive and opportunity? They not only killed shapeshifters without a sound, they clearly didn’t want us to talk to them. We had a lead, and they silenced it.”

“I don’t know.” The dark-haired man was suddenly no longer relaxed or mild. He turned to survey the basement, and as he scanned the shadows, the air around me crackled with an invisible power that raised the hair on my arms and made my scalp prickle in alarm. “But we will find out.”

I drew in a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Felt the fire of my own anger building in my chest.

Anger at myself more than anyone else. It didn’t matter that I understood why Faris suspected me. Didn’t matter that I even agreed I was the most obvious suspect.

What mattered was that Callum had not been willing to defend me. After we’d survived last night’s attack together, after he’d promised he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, he hadn’t even believed in me enough to tell Faris I hadn’t done it.

And I’d let myself begin to trust him. Caught a glimpse of his protective nature and let my guard down, forgetting that he had the power to ruin me. To destroy everything I’d come this far to find.

This was a timely reminder—Callum-ro-Deverin was a means to an end, that was all. If he still wanted me, I would work with him, because I believed we shared the desire to protect the vulnerable.

But he would never be anything but a danger to everyone I cared about, and I could never, ever let myself forget it.

One of his statements to Kira slowly floated back to me, and my curiosity sharpened to the point of risking a question.

“Not that it matters now, but why was what Declan said about me important?”

It was Kira who answered. “My youngest brother is an empath,” she said quietly. “He doesn’t do it on purpose, but he can’t always shield himself fully. If you’d meant to hurt any of us that night, he would have known.”

She hesitated. “Raine, I’m…”

“Thank you for explaining.” I pushed myself away from the wall and headed for the door, heart pounding as I contemplated what else Declan might have sensed.

Clearly, he hadn’t uncovered anything that made him think I was untrustworthy, or he would have told his family. And just as clearly, he wasn’t infallible. But I didn’t understand enough about empaths to know whether he could guess at the secrets I was protecting.

I was done. Done for the day. Done with secrets, done with suspicious dragon shifters, done with the smell of blood, and very, very done with the fear of being exposed.

So I walked away while I still could. Back up the stairs into the hallway and out the door in a bit of a daze. A cold, October wind cut through my thin jacket, and disappointment was a sharp ache in my chest. I didn’t know where I stood. Didn’t know if I still had a job. I just knew I couldn’t stay in that room with the stench of death and anger and suspicion.

“Raine, wait.”

He’d come after me. But I didn’t stop.

“Please.”

“Why?” I turned around and folded my arms tightly across my chest, partly for warmth, partly to conceal the fact that my hands were shaking. “Tell me why I should wait. Explain why I should waste a single minute listening to you.”

Callum stood alone in the alleyway, a crease of worry between his brows. For once, I sensed no threat, only an earnest… something.

“I’m sorry.”

And that made three times he’d said those words. Was he really sorry, or was he using the phrase as a get-out-of-jail-free card?

“You may not believe me, but I never actually suspected you.”

“Oh please.” I bit out the words. “Don’t lie to me, Your Majesty. Nothing in that room made sense, and I was the only obvious suspect that could have connected all the facts. You think I don’t know that?”

He remained silent and still as the wind ruffled his hair. I saw no sign that he could feel the cold that knifed through my clothes and made my teeth chatter.

“Faris wasn’t wrong to suspect me,” I stated flatly. “I almost expected it. But you… I thought…” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. Not without feeling like crying, and I refused to cry in front of Callum-ro-Deverin.

“You think I didn’t want to defend you?” The words were quiet, but fierce, and in response, my anger finally broke free.

“You’re the king of the freaking shapeshifters! You’re not afraid of Faris, so if you wanted to defend me, why didn’t you?”

“ Because of my title, Raine. That’s why.” He sounded weary, pained, almost despairing.

I shot him a disbelieving glare. “That doesn’t make sense.”

His sigh was long and frustrated. “The only reason Idrians aren’t at war with one another constantly is that we’ve agreed to respect each other’s boundaries. The courts don’t interfere in each other’s business. Faris is an anomaly, but we’ve all concluded that he’s a necessary one, so I can’t throw my weight around on his territory. Not when he’s claimed responsibility. I agreed to cooperate in the investigation, but it was his court, his place of business that was violated. He had the right to question you without my interference.”

“Defending me isn’t the same as interfering,” I told him, fighting to keep my voice level. “What if Draven hadn’t shown up? What if Faris hadn’t believed him and decided I was guilty? Would you still have stood back and refused to interfere ?”

I might have felt better if he’d gotten angry, but he stood there like a rock and let me yell at him.

“And when were you going to tell me that your brother is an empath? That he invaded the privacy of my mind and my feelings without permission?”

That accusation drew a swift denial. “Declan would never invade your privacy on purpose. He’s an empath, not a telepath. He only picks up on strong emotions from those around him, and he tries very hard to shield himself whenever possible. And he only shares what he senses when it’s a matter of safety. He did not betray any of your secrets, Raine.”

I wanted to believe him. I’d actually liked Declan. But even if Callum was telling the truth, it didn’t solve the larger problem between us.

“And no.” He took a step closer to me, amber gaze fixed on mine. “I would not have simply stood back and refused to interfere. But the truth is, I don’t know exactly what I would have done. You’re my employee, yes, but you aren’t publicly known to be a part of my court. There would have been certain limits to my ability to defend you without committing myself and my people to a deadly fight with someone I care about.”

As much as I hated what he was saying, I also understood. Faris was practically family, so if the two of them hurt each other, a lot of relationships would be broken. And Callum had more responsibilities than just me. He had thousands of people to protect, and he took that duty seriously.

In truth, I actually respected him more for refusing to feed me unfounded optimism just to make me feel better. Callum-ro-Deverin might be stubborn, bullheaded, and infuriating, but he would never lie to my face.

“But even so, Raine, I know it probably feels as if I broke my promise to you, and for that, I am sorry.”

And fool that I was, I couldn’t just let him be honest without offering him honesty in return.

“You didn’t break your promise to me,” I admitted stiffly. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but he deserved the truth. “You only said you wouldn’t let anyone else hurt me. But I wanted it to mean more than that. I wanted to believe that you wouldn’t hurt me either. That you trusted me to have your back and would protect mine in return.”

I’d wanted so badly to believe that what Morghaine told me was true—that he protected those who mattered to him, and that I was one of the things he’d chosen to protect.

“I was a fool to think that it was that simple. For someone in your position, trust is never simple. You did what you had to do for the sake of your people, and I can accept that.”

Relief blossomed on his face. I saw when his tension eased. His burden lightened.

“But I do need to know where we stand, Callum. Because from your perspective, it made no sense to trust me back there. Still makes no sense that you’re willing to put your faith in me or my abilities. So I need to hear it straight from you.”

“You want to know why I chose you?” Callum asked, and I nodded.

“And don’t say it’s your empath brother. I know he’s the reason you decided to let me off the hook that first night, but there are enough loopholes in his statement to drive a truck through.”

Callum looked me dead in the eye. “You’re right,” he acknowledged. “I knew it wasn’t enough. But then I saw the way you stood up to Talia. Picked a fight with those teens for the sake of a half-dead kitten. I saw myself in you, and I wanted to trust you, so I made an impulsive decision.”

He shook his head, almost in disbelief. “It’s not like me. I’m logical to a fault. I live by rules and responsibilities. But something made me want to believe in you. When I realized your skills could be a tremendous asset, I saw an opportunity and took it. And even though I’m aware there were flaws in my reasoning—places where I allowed sentiment to interfere with logic—I still believe that I was right. ”

It was everything I wanted to hear, and it still hurt me like a knife to the heart. Because this trust… it was going to destroy him one day. He just didn’t know it yet.

“Raine, I wasn’t wrong about you. I know you didn’t kill them.”

I shrugged with exaggerated casualness. “So what? Logic dictates that you still shouldn’t trust me at your back.”

And he shouldn’t. He absolutely, definitely shouldn’t, but I could never tell him why.

“Maybe not.” He copied my shrug, and a slight smile appeared on his lips. “But as anyone can tell you, I am bullheaded, impossible to reason with, and often a total pain in the ass.”

“Is that a direct quote?”

I surprised a laugh out of him, and his face softened.

“Probably. Ask Kira. She’ll be very willing to provide you with character references to prove it.”

My heart tried to melt right there in my chest. Stubborn, bossy Callum was handsome enough, but when boss mode turned off? The effect was devastating, and my defenses were weak.

“Look,” he continued, “I know our start hasn’t been ideal, but I still want you to work for me. Whether I should or not. Whether it’s logical or not. Please… I hope you’ll consider not quitting your job.”

The truth was, I didn’t want to quit. But if I were going to stay…

“Callum, I don’t trust easily. And even though you never actually broke your promise, I still felt betrayed when you didn’t defend me. How am I supposed to move forward knowing that you won’t stand up for me if we get into a fight with one of the other courts?”

He took a step towards me. Then another. Slow and measured, as if giving me time to run away. And when he stood only an arm’s length away, he held my gaze, amber eyes bright.

“First of all, once we’ve made your position public and official, you’ll be granted some degree of protection as one of my employees. No one gets to attack you without consequences.”

Okay, that was promising, and it checked out with what Faris had told me about why I should work for Callum in the first place.

“But aside from that… Would you believe a second promise if I made it?”

He shouldn’t be making any more promises to someone like me. And there was literally no good reason for me to believe him if he did. But apparently, we were both idiots.

“Yes.”

Our eyes locked. I felt the power swirling between us and held my breath as it snapped into place, like bonds of iron linking us together.

“I promise, Raine Kendrick, that I will never deliberately cause harm to you or to those that you love.”

I sucked in a quick, shocked breath. He’d said those words so easily—to someone he barely knew—and with no idea of the pitfalls they entailed. No idea of what my secrets could do to him.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why do you trust me?”

“I’m not sure I know the answer to that.” He didn’t look nearly disturbed enough by his own lack of certainty. “I still believe what I told you yesterday. You’re a protector. But I don’t know what you would die to protect. And that should bother me, but…” He shrugged. “For right now, I have a murderer to find and a Symposium to host. Are you still willing to help me?”

I knew the answer, as clearly as I knew that it was going to hurt me in the end.

“Yes.” I sighed. Tilted my head back and stared at the sky for a moment before looking back at the unbearably handsome king of the shifters. “I only hope you won’t end up regretting this.”

“I won’t.” He sounded so sure.

But the pain in my chest did not ease, because I knew. I would eventually disappoint him, and he would regret ever laying eyes on me.

It was only a matter of time.