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‘But?’ I snapped.

‘I never said I didn’t …’ His eyes flicked down to my red dress; again he seemed to swallow whatever exactly he’d been about to say. ‘I never said I didn’t strongly dislike him. Just that it was never the point of it all. The main thing I’ve always been trying to do is protect Lyn and protect you and—’

‘Protectme?’ My voice shot up again. ‘You were trying toprotectme by being an absolute arse to him?’

Tared hesitated. ‘Well …’

Oh.

Oh, gods help me.

Pieces of the puzzle fell into place with such force that it felt like being slapped over the head with them – Tared Thorgedson, forever the older brother to a young alf he hadn't been able to save, head of a family he’d sworn to guard at all costs. Of course it was never as simple as a broken mating bond. Ofcourseit wasn’t.

‘You were hoping he’d leave again.’ It wasn’t even a question, that sentence stuttering over my lips. ‘You knew I would be too stubborn to go anywhere, so … so you hopedhewould vanish and leave me alone if you just made his stay with us unpleasant enough?’

His cheerless pause said all that needed to be said.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake – Tared, you bloodyidiot!’

‘Look, I’m not saying I disagree,’ he said, rubbing his face with agitated, restless fingers, ‘but could you try to see for a moment what I was seeing? He was obviously trying to keep you close all the time. You were obviously tense as a bowstring whenever I saw the two of you together.Somethingwas making you uncomfortable to the point that you barely smiled for days on end, and you kept refusing to tell me what on earth the matter was. Was I supposed to take all of that as a sign you were totally, blissfully happy to have him around every minute of the day?’

That shut me up for half a second.

‘And Creon continued to be so very much … himself.’ Tared’s voice remained level, but his overly restrained inhalation betrayed the feelings stirring behind the words. ‘The version of him that I remember, I mean. The person who once cheerfully informed me nothing would stop him from using his demon magic to make Lyn simply forget she once cared about my existence. So trusting his good intentions when he seemed just as determined to reopen every old wound between us …’

Those gods-damned letters. That gods-dammed act of the evil fae prince, all arrogant smiles and vicious quips, an eternityaway from the male who would not hesitate for a heartbeat to sacrifice his life for me.

Walls Creon had kept up every waking momentbecauseof the others … but that didn’t change anything about the side of him they’d seen since the day he’d returned.

‘Right,’ I said, clenching my teeth so tightly it hurt. I wanted to curse. I wanted tobreaksomething – stamp on it until there was nothing left of it but shards and dust and perhaps the blazing frustration within me would finally have dulled a little. All those good intentions, all those stupid old fears, and I’d nearly ruined the love of my life. ‘And you changed your mind now because …’

‘When you showed up with that binding.’ Tared averted his face with another deep breath, parting his lips once, twice as he faltered. ‘I … I never imagined …’

Creon’s smile.

Good gods. I’d all but forgotten that moment, the triumph of it washed out by the panic that had followed – but Ididremember now, the memory a defiant warm glow just beneath my midriff. A smile that had bloomed on his face like a flower unfolding its petals, offering its incomprehensibly vulnerable heart to the harsh, merciless world outside.

Not the smile a calculating villain would be able to feign. Nor one that villain wouldwantto feign, for that matter.

‘Right,’ I managed again.

‘I’m not a demon, you see,’ Tared added, a hint of wryness in his voice as he met my gaze. ‘I can’t tell what’s in people’s hearts if they refuse to show me. But I know the face of a male in love when I see one, and even if I still think he’s a self-conceited bastard with too much power on his hands …’ His joyless smile was an apology and an acknowledgement all at once. ‘I couldn’t in all honesty keep believing he was a danger to you once I saw that look on his face. So that changed matters a little.’

‘I’m going to need that sword,’ I said.

His smile broadened into an equally joyless grin. ‘Chest to your left.’

I was already moving. Violent frustration was buzzing in my limbs, or perhaps it was my pent-up anger losing its sense of where to go; if I forced myself to hold still a minute longer, I might end up losing control over my generous supply of red and accidentally bringing down the ceiling.

The chest contained a good number of slightly rusty swords –realones, not the sword-sized training sticks I’d been swinging around at imaginary enemies for weeks. They were old and unused and forged from common steel rather than alf steel … but it still felt alarmingly good, wrapping my fingers around a coarse leather hilt and lifting three feet of whetted metal from its resting place to do my violent bidding.

‘Keep that wrist straight,’ Tared said behind me.

I quickly adjusted my grip as I turned.

‘Excellent.’ He sauntered closer, sword in his hand loosely swinging back and forth with his steps. ‘All set to murder me, then.’

‘I don’t want tomurderyou,’ I said, rolling my eyes without taking my focus off him. If months of training under his guidance had taught me anything, it was that I rarely saw his earnest attacks coming until it was too late. ‘Just hurting you a little will do.’