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CHAPTER NINE

NEAH

B reakfast had been an odd affair that morning. She’d expected it to be a private audience between the king—or Wren as he’d insisted Zennon call him—and Zen, so she’d been taken aback when Zennon had insisted that Neah join them.

She wasn’t sure what to make of the king yet. He was petulant one moment, magnanimous the next, and the way he’d watched her…

Neah shivered. It wasn’t right. There was too much in his gaze for a man who believed he was mated to another and, despite Zennon’s protests, likely truly was.

The halls of the palace were relatively quiet and Neah felt more alert than she had in days, thanks to the long sleep she’d managed the night before.

She barely remembered drifting off before Zennon had woken her for breakfast. It had been needed.

Tired spies were sloppy spies, and sloppy spies ended up dead.

She passed by several windows before turning a corner and walking a path she knew well. It was the corridor of her childhood and she hadn’t seen it in many years. She wasn’t sure if it had always been so small and narrow or if she’d just grown up since last she’d walked the hall.

Before long, she’d reached the familiar arched door and used the metal knocker above the handle to signal her presence, smiling when a deep voice called for her to enter.

Golden eyes, a match for her own, widened beneath the short dark hair, stubborn chin, and strong brows of the Captain of the king’s guard. Full lips that closely resembled her own pushed into a grin as he saw her standing before him.

“Neah.”

“Hi, Dad.” Her smile made her cheeks ache but she couldn’t help it.

She’d seen very little of her father since she’d become his spy.

Most of her time was spent travelling or lingering at other estates around the kingdom.

What she had seen of him had been harried, information given first and pleasantries exchanged after if they had time.

They often didn’t.

Her resemblance to her father was obvious if you knew him well enough and particularly evident when they stood together, making some of the particulars of her job difficult—but, for the most part, if she showed the world a Lady then that was all they saw.

Not the daughter of the famed Captain Jamison Fallon.

Jamison rounded his desk and engulfed her in an embrace that lasted forever and also nowhere near long enough. He pulled back and cupped her face between his palms as he looked her over, scanning for injuries, and then her dad faded away and the captain stood before her.

“You’re here.”

She nodded. “I have urgent information to share. I was on my way here when the assassins attacked Zennon.”

“I assumed as much.” At her surprised look, some humour bled back into his face. “You think I wouldn’t recognise my own daughter’s handiwork?”

Her laugh was quiet and he softened hearing it. “I’m worried for her.”

He nodded. “I am too. If someone attacked her once…” He pulled away and reclaimed his seat behind his desk, gesturing for her to join him in the chair opposite. “You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“Of course. What are sisters for?”

Jamison smiled but there was a weariness to it that Neah hadn’t seen on him before.

Zennon’s connection to their family was a closely guarded secret, one Neah had killed to protect despite her being the youngest child.

Zennon had been born out of wedlock, a result of a young soldier’s fling with a noblewoman looking to take a walk on the wild side.

Her father hadn’t even known of Zennon’s existence until she was five and her mother ran into some trouble only Jamison could solve.

The truth, as it often did, came out, but their father agreed not to claim Zennon as his own so that she could keep her title as the noblewoman’s only heir.

Neah wasn’t sure if the noblewoman’s husband had known that Zen wasn’t his. Not that it mattered now, seeing as Zennon’s parents were both dead.

Jamison switched gears, the tiredness fading behind the strong persona of the captain. It was a shift that never failed to amaze Neah, the way he could compartmentalise the different facets of his life. “You were with the Pembrokes?”

She nodded. “Someone was willing to pay a fool’s worth in coin to the hunter’s guild for a hit on the king.”

His brows rose and she understood the sentiment. The king had allies of his own within the guild of assassins, no hit placed there would ever reach his door, but that someone had tried… “Bold.”

“Yes. And if they’re willing to do this through official channels then I’m nervous about what they may be offering those who operate under the radar.”

Jamison grumbled his agreement, displeasure sharp on his face as he pulled a stretch of parchment towards him and dipped a quill into a pot of ink. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How?”

The sudden darkness in the bright gold of his eyes was disconcerting as he considered her over the top of the quill’s tip. “The guild has authority over its own. They will be best placed to hunt the hunters.”

She shivered. She couldn’t help it. Neah was good at what she did, there were not many people she couldn’t outfight or outwit, but some of the monsters caged within the confines of the guild made her look like a Goddess-blessed priestess.

To have those people on your trail was a terrifying enough thought that she felt a moment of pity for anyone who might have taken their enemy up on the offer of gold.

“What I don’t understand is why Zennon was a target,” Jamison muttered, blowing gently on the ink and folding the paper into quarters that he sealed with wax and his ring. “Do you think someone knows of her connection to me?”

Her teeth worried her bottom lip as she considered his question. “I think it has to do with the king. He’s under the impression that Zennon is his mate.”

Jamison froze and then pushed to standing in a move so fluid that she recoiled, the beast locked beneath her skin recognising the power of a fellow predator. “Of course. Midmyr Forest. I should have realised.”

She hesitated and then decided he deserved to know the full truth. “Zennon doesn’t believe it to be true.” The lump in her throat felt impossible to swallow as she gulped. “Because I was there too.”

The confession seemed to suck the air right out of him and Jamison slumped back into his chair, deflated. “And you? What do you think?”

“Zennon is the more logical choice for a mate.” Neah looked away, glancing around the room and inspecting the new piles of books and scrolls that had crept into the space since last she’d visited, illuminated only by the streams of light that came in through the small circular window set high in the wall. “But she does seem certain.”

“This is not a fate I would have chosen for either of you.”

“Why? One would think we could do worse than a king. Unless… is he an unkind man?” Her thoughts were bordering on treasonous, but Neah couldn’t help it. If the king was a threat to Zennon, then she would deal with him. Treason or no.

Jamison waved the words away. “No, nothing like that. It’s complicated.

For now, you will observe. I will investigate Zennon’s estate further, perhaps there was someone else there that night that the king’s spell detected,” he added the last in a mutter but her heightened hearing caught the words all the same.

“And if it’s true? If the king is mated to one of us?”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes, glancing around the room and eventually settling on a point just beside her head. “Then we’ll deal with it as best we can. But being mated to the king brings more danger than you could know. His enemies will become your enemies, and there are many.”

This, she knew too well. “You would have us refuse the bond?”

He hesitated and then sighed deeply, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders and she’d only added to the load.

“It is not my decision to make, my darling. For now, let’s focus on finding whoever placed the bounty.

Once the guild takes care of its own, they may try again—perhaps within these very walls if they hold the influence that I suspect they do. ”

“I’ll have Zennon moved to my room.” She stood and then faltered, her roles blurring until she asked in a small voice, “How is she?”

Jamison brightened, the weight of his years lifting. “Your mother is fine. She misses you. Both of you.”

Neah’s throat tightened but she nodded jerkily.

Her mother might not have been Zen’s by blood, but she loved Zennon all the same.

Neah’s parents were both shifters and so benefited from the extended lifeline that came with their nature but Zennon was more human than shifter and likely wouldn’t live as long as they did.

It made the time they could spend together all the more precious. “Can we see her?”

The softness to her father’s face had returned as he stood and reached her in two steps, wrapping his arms tightly around her and squeezing until she could hardly breathe. “Of course. I’ll make the arrangements.”

Neah squeezed him back almost as hard and then released him, spinning away before he could see the dampness in her eyes.

It wasn’t weak to cry, but she didn’t like to worry her father and if he knew how much she’d missed this, missed them , he might not forgive himself for keeping her active in his network of spies.

“I’ll keep you updated,” she said tersely and didn’t wait for his reply as she strode out of the room and back into the corridor. Only then did she allow the tears to slip free.

By the time she reached the more populated area of the palace, her eyes were dry and her mask was in place once more.