Page 191

My heart stops, but I still hear Lucia’s reply.“Well, yeah. We already know that.”

“Turn it off,” Wicker says, voice barely heard. When Pace doesn’t respond right away, he shouts, “Turn. It. The. Fuck. Off!”

I watch him with wide eyes and frozen lungs. My brother’s secret isn’t a secret. I keep repeating it in my head–just saw the evidence of this fact–but somehow I’m convinced it can’t be real. This information we’ve protected so fucking doggedly since we first learned it, back in middle school, could destroy him. Kill him.

And it’s known by our enemies.

My first impulse is to take Pace and Wicker and drag them away. Run. Hide. Those new lives we spent so much of high school dreaming up? Now’s the time to make them–create them–to become people who won’t be hunted or hurt.

My second impulse is red-hot fury.

I fucking knew it.

It screams in my eyes as I look at Pace. I knew we couldn’t trust her. I knew it from the very start, that her loyalties would never be with us. I knew it, and along the way, I forgot.

I forgot that we were fucking a traitor.

“How did the Princess come to know about this information?” Father asks, his voice oddly calm as it cleaves the silence.

After a moment of his jaw working around an aborted attempt at speaking, Wicker admits, “I told her.” His voice sounds thin and wrecked, eyes still glued to the image of Verity’s face. “I fucked up. I told her. She had me cuntstunned and I just… spilled like a goddamn fucking rookie.” His voice quivers, eyes darting between us. “I’m sorry. I’ll—”

“We have to get rid of her,” I say. This declaration is pure instinct, but the look Pace gives me suggests it’s not without merit.

“Kill her?” he asks, forehead twisting in a strange way.

But Father shoots abruptly to his feet, his posture stiff and straight. “Absolutely not,” he sneers, and when he meets our gazes, the only instinct I feel is to step between him and my brothers. “That girl is your vessel, and I’ll hear nothing more about it. Is that understood?”

“But she knows,” I point out.

“And so do the Dukes,” Father snaps, gesturing angrily at Lavinia Lucia. “What will killing your vessel do to shut them up, hm?” When none of us answer, he reaches down to his white cardigan, snapping it straight. “There’s only one course of retribution here. Only one way of ensuring they all keep quiet about this knowledge.” He looks between us, jaw hardening. “You’ll need to host a Royal Cleansing.”

“A what?” Pace blurts. If possible, he’s paler than before. “You didn’t even order that when Piper got knocked up by someone other than her Princes.”

No one else would know it except the three of us, but my suggestion of killing her was a mercy that we’d afford no one else. There are worse things than death–a lot of those available at our own hands–and no one knows that better than us.

This is one of the things worse than death.

“Piper,” Father says, the word dripping with distaste, “didn’t betray family secrets to the enemy.”

“When?” I ask, dread pooling in my gut, but knowing that Father is right. Killing Verity will just make the Dukes lash out, and with them holding the ticking time bomb attached to my brother, this is going to require strategy.

And I remind myself of this, a litany on repeat in my mind, to avoid thinking of the other reason we can’t kill her.

Soft, tender, green eyes gazing up at me, gentle lips, plush mouth, sweet-smelling and fertile, the perfect body to sink into, the way she looks at me when I give that piece of myself to her, the feather of her blink when it’s over, like she wishes it could be more, the exhilarating quirk of her grin when we ate dinner together that one night…

I shut it all out, like I should have done at the very beginning, because Verity Sinclaire isn’t one of us. No matter how worried she was about Pace, or how gentle she was with Wicker when she took his deposit, or the way she kissed him and then looked at me, as if she was asking me to reassure her that she was doing it right.

I shake it all from my head.

“We’ll do it immediately.” Father walks behind his desk as if he hasn’t just announced the most impossible thing. “Justice should be swift. I’m calling an emergency meeting to have everyone assemble in the throne room in one hour. Pace, go set up the appropriate recording devices.” He makes a few hard taps at his phone screen, mouth pressed into a tight, furious line. “The Dukes will need a reminder of what’s at stake if they choose to speak, retaliate, or attempt to blackmail us.”

Pace goes to the door, but stops when I dart forward. “Father, I…” I falter, unwilling to show weakness, even though that's exactly what this is. With a deep breath, I explain, “I’ve been making progress with my… issues, but under the pressure of performing in front of a crowd—”

“Youwillperform.”

“I can’t,” I burst, seeing Wicker flinch at my side. “I’ve tried everything, but the only time I’ve even remotely managed an erection while awake is when me and her are… together.”

Father’s eyes tighten. “Together?”