Page 89 of Exiled Heir

“I thought you didn’t pay me to deal with nightmares,” I said.

Cade chuckled darkly. “Sometimes I think that the council set me with an impossible task, forcing me to choose a consort. They know how I react to werewolves… Maybe it is Sonja behind everything. Because shehasher wolf. She doesn’t try to kill him with her nightmares.”

“What…” I licked my lips. “What do you dream about?”

“Blood. There was so much blood. And teeth. And Leon saved me. After my mother gave her life to protect me while I was locked in that closet,hekilled them. I think that’s why he’s overprotective. That’s why he feels like he still has to protect me now, because he’s protected me since then.”

I kept my hand circling on his back, Basil’s scales coolly sliding across my arm.

“Come on. Let’s see if we can get any more sleep,” I said.

Cade allowed himself to be pulled up, and I couldn’t let go of him, couldn’t seem to stop touching him. I needed more information, more details, but now wasn’t the time. He looked fragile and defeated.

When we were both back in bed, I started to settle on the far side, watching the line of his back. I wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. In fact, I doubted I would be able to sleep again in the same room as him.

“Miles?” Cade whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

Swallowing, I realized he couldn’t hear the rapid beat of my heart. He couldn’t feel the tense line of my body, ready for the next attack.

“Terrified.” I tried to turn the word into a joke, smiling as I said it, trying to make it just as sarcastic as it should be.

But somehow, this mage who would want me dead if he even had an inkling of who I was had wormed his way into my heart. I couldn’t leave him, even if it meant staying awake for the next year.

Cade curled further in on himself, his shoulders shaking, and I smelled the sting of salt.

“Cade…” I scooted forward, wrapping my arms around his waist, letting the heaviness of my body weigh him down.

“You should be afraid of me,” he said.

“You?” My lips brushed his soft white-blonde hair. “Do you think there’s anything you could do to me?”

The words echoed our first meeting, which seemed like it was a hundred years ago. Back then, Ihadbeen scared of him.

“Thank you.” Cade swallowed, tucking his head into his pillow.

His body was warm, and before I knew it, we had both fallen asleep.

Pounding on the door woke us. The light streaming in through the window indicated morning, possibly even late morning.

“Cade!” Isaac shouted. “Something is attacking the dryads!”

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Ifollowed Cade and Isaac through the house, a rush of people coming in and out, although I didn’t see Jay anywhere. They stopped in front of the closed doors to the formal dining room.

Cade closed his eyes and grabbed hold of the doorknob. Under his hands, the doorknob changed, going from the stylish brass of the rest of the house to something older, made of silver. The door itself transformed into a massive wooden structure that resembled the chairs in the council chamber and the doors of Cade’s bedroom.

He threw them open, revealing a room I had never seen before. Inside, several council members and their werewolves sat at a large, circular wooden table, examining a detailed map of House Bartlett lands. Younger mages I’d never seen before stood around the room, awkwardly clumping together, some gaping at the array of weapons on the walls. They stilled when Cade entered.

“What’s going on?” Cade demanded, turning to two of the younger mages.

They both snapped to attention, their eyes wide. They were dressed in what looked like military garb, black and flexible, but with zippers in odd places and knives and guns strapped to their waist and legs.

“We were escorting the dryads from their territory. It was just the four of us, but then we were attacked. Finley said for the two of us to jump here, alert the compound so that protections could be set up.”