Page 62 of Ascendant King

Cade frowned, shaking his head. “No. You were the only one who seemed distracted during the walk. Did it happen yesterday when we were approaching the dryad village?”

I shook my head. “No, just when we were tracking Oak.”

Reaching out, Cade hesitated before putting a hand on my arm, tracing his fingertips down. I closed my eyes, my entire world condensed down to that touch. It was so overwhelming I almost missed his question.

“But you’ve been distracted for days. Ever since we got back from Flores.” Cade rubbed a soft circle on the back of my hand, his fingertips pressing into the soft skin.

“Don’t tell him,” Declan said. But when I looked around sharply, he wasn’t here. He wasn’t ever here, but somehow, it was worse that now I was hearing him and not seeing him at all, almost like he was sinking into my skin, as though I was becoming him from the inside out.

“Don’t tell him,” Declan repeated. “He’ll think you’re cracking up, Miles. He’ll tell everyone else that you’re not fit to be alpha, and then you’ll be alone, a packless freak. No one will ever want an alpha who’s hearing voices.”

I jerked my head, checking behind me, but he wasn’t here. This was all me. I was losing my mind, and Cade was a front-seat witness to Miles dropping every marble in his collection.

“What are you looking for?” Cade followed my eyes, but there was nothing to see. “Is it the forest again?”

I had to tell him. I had to admit what was happening, but my mouth was stuck, the words caught in my throat. Ihadto tell him.

“Don’t you dare,” Declan whispered. I could hear his hiss in my ear, the sharp snark in his voice, the cut of it, like he was going to slice through my skin straight to the bone. “He’s going to think you’re nuts. He’s going to?—”

“I’m hearing Declan,” I said. “I’m seeing him too.”

Cade’s expression twisted, a frown catching between his brows. “What?”

“Ever since we got back from Flores, I’ve beenseeinghim. He says he’s real, but it must just be my mind.”

“We’re living in his house,” Cade said carefully. “Maybe you just expect to see him, so you are.”

He didn’t draw away, and my whole body reacted, my shoulders slumping, my neck dropping.

“If anyone else knew, they’d think I was losing it.” I couldn’t make myself look at his eyes, so I focused on his mouth, his plush lower lip. I could bite that lip. I could suck on it until Cade was whimpering and moaning.

“Do you think you are?” Cade asked quietly.

“I—” I was. Declan was only in my head. He was only in my head.

Except something told me otherwise. Something in the way he talked, something in how he reacted. He didn’t want me telling Cade about him, and that had to meansomething.

“Sometimes I think it’s real. He says things I know he would say, but if Declan was in my head, I don’t think he’d say them like that.” I shook my head. “He tried to convince me he was real using things I wouldn’t know.”

“And were those things real?” Cade drew his hand back up my arm.

“I don’t know. I didn’t check because if they weren’t real, then I really was hearing voices.” I closed my eyes, everything in me aware of the drag of his fingers, the way his soft fingertips caught on the hair of my arm. “I wasn’t worthy of being alpha.”

The words were so brutally honest that I couldn’t bear them. All of my mother’s faith, all of my work, everything would be fornothingif I really was cracking under the pressure of being an alpha.

“No.” Cade’s words were sharp. “I don’t believe it.”

I blinked open my eyes and found Cade glaring at me, even though his touch lingered on the curve of my throat. “What?”

“You’ve gone through so much, you’ve worked so hard, and what takes you down in the end is that you get what you want?” Cade’s eyebrows arched in exaggerated disbelief. “You lied to me all those weeks, you dragged me from safe house to safe house, andoh, no, now you’re a powerful alpha.That’s what makes you start hearing voices after a lifetime of, I assume,nothearing them?” Cade snorted, and the disdain was clear in his blue eyes. “No. You’re not going crazy.”

My mouth fell open, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Finally, I settled on, “But I still amhearing him. Leon killed him, and I’m hearing his voice.”

“So he’s a ghost,” Cade said, clearly annoyed. “Or he’s not dead. You have plenty of options, none of which are that you’re losing your mind.”

I couldn’t help the bark of laughter, and Cade’s answering grin was fierce. “Miles, after all we’ve been through, if you think that I’m going to let you off that easily, then you’ve never met me at all.”

“I would never accuse you of letting me off easily,” I said. “Everythingbetween us has been hard.”