Page 56 of Kingdom of Betrayal and Unknown (Kingdom of Bellhollow #1)

“ W hy are you wearing a scarf?” Skylar asks when I stand in front of her shop.

I sigh and shake my head. The bruising has only gotten worse two days after Prince Archie choked me. I tried putting on the salve Henry gave me from Zahra, but it doesn’t seem to work very well. Maybe she was lying to me this whole time and wanted to see if I would trust her or not.

“Come on, Adeline. You can’t lie to me. What happened? You never wear scarves, even on the coldest days,” Skylar points out. “Agnes! I’m going on break for a couple of minutes, but I’ll be back soon!”

She doesn’t wait for Agnes to reply before she links her arm with mine and drags me away from the store. I follow, not wanting to fight with her. Ever since I ran through the forest from the prince, I’ve been exhausted. My body is trying to heal my neck and it’s taking a lot out of me.

“Tell me what happened.” She pulls us into an alleyway between two houses.

We are close to the forest, and nerves run through me as I look over. There are several Fae walking around, working like they are supposed to. Do all of them know I’m hurt or were the people who saw keep it to themselves?

“I really can’t,” I whisper, not knowing who is listening.

What if someone walks by and reports it? Prince Archie’s warning still plays in my head every single day. I don’t want to do anything against him now. What happened changes everything.

“You can tell me anything. I’m here for you. I’m not going to tell anyone else,” Skylar gently says. “You know that.”

I do, but there is just something inside me telling me not to tell her a thing. What if this is a test and she’s going to report to Prince Archie whenever we are done talking?

I look at her, weary, not knowing if I can fully trust her. Was Kieran right the whole time? Should I not trust her one bit?

“Who am I going to tell?” she asks. “What you tell me, it stays between us. You know that.”

She has a point. The prince hasn’t talked to me about anything that I’ve told her, so maybe she is telling the truth.

“I got hurt,” I mumble.

I’ve been careful not to use my voice a lot to give my vocal cords a rest. That’s what my mother told me, at least.

“How?” she asks. “I can tell you got hurt by the way you are talking, but also because you are hiding your neck.”

Sighing, I take a deep breath and look at her. “The prince did it,” I quietly reply.

Her mouth falls open as she looks at me. “What do you mean?”

“I told him that I wouldn’t marry him and he chased me through the forest and choked me,” I explain.

Deep down, I know I shouldn’t be telling her this. Prince Archie told me not to tell anyone, and I’ve told two people now. I have no doubt some of the Fae saw it and told Kieran, but he can’t do anything. I won’t allow him to.

“He wouldn’t,” she mumbles.

I pull the very top of the scarf down and show her the deep blue, almost purple-looking bruises that wrap around my neck. “He did. I wouldn’t lie about it. He didn’t like me telling him no and suggesting you. This is the consequence of it.”

I wouldn’t change a thing, though. If I could go back in time, I would do the same thing to show him that he shouldn’t get everything that he wants.

We aren’t property for him to pick and choose without hearing what we have to say.

But I don’t think he’ll ever learn that, but I can show him every chance I get…

as long as the consequences aren’t too severe.

“He really did that?” she whispers.

I nod. “He did.” I place the scarf back around my neck, hiding the evidence.

It’s already enough that the townspeople see my hand and know something is going on.

I don’t need to give them another reason to talk about me.

I want to live in the shadows for the rest of my life, peacefully and without prying eyes.

But if the Fae get the curse broken, I will be standing right next to Kieran as High Lady… in the public eye.

Several Fae walk by, not paying any attention to us, and my shoulders relax a little more. Maybe they don’t know who I am, or maybe they are just pretending. Either way, I’m thankful because I don’t need Skylar trying to figure something out.

“He just randomly did it after you told him no?” she asks again.

I nod once more. Does she not believe me?

“I can’t believe he did that to you. I thought he would have taken that news better,” she mumbles toward the end. “And nothing happened before that?”

“No, he told me we needed to talk about the marriage, and I said I didn’t want to marry him and never will. Then I told him he should ask you since I know you want it and you would be so much better at it than me,” I explain.

Kieran says I will be an amazing High Lady, and so did Zahra, which is like being queen. But I don’t want to be queen with Prince Archie. He is a cruel man, and I want no part of that, but Kieran on the other hand. It feels natural and like it was meant to be. It comes easy with Kieran.

Several more Fae walk past, but now they are looking straight at me. One man in particular has a smile on his face, and I grow uneasy.

“High Lady.” He bows and makes eye contact with me.

My eyes go wide as I stare at him. What is he doing?

Why is he bowing in front of me and calling me High Lady?

Thankfully, he walks away quickly, but Skylar turns toward me, her eyebrows pulled together.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see one of the other Fae smack the man on the back of the head.

“What was that?” she asks, looking back at the now-disappeared group of Fae. “Why did he just bow to you and call you High Lady?”

I shrug my shoulders, pretending I don’t know. What am I supposed to say to that? She can’t know the truth.

“Do you know him?” she inquires, grabbing one of my shoulders.

I shake my head. “No, I don’t. Maybe he thought I was someone else. You know there are other people who look like me.”

Lie.

“You are the only young person with white hair in this town,” Skylar points out. “While some may look like you a little, the white hair changes a lot.”

Right.

“I don’t know. I don’t know him, never talked to him in my life.” I’m not lying.

There are so many Fae who know who I am, but I have never met any of them before. It’s kind of creepy, but I know they are Kieran’s people, or as he would say, our people.

“Maybe we should go tell a guard about him.” Skylar grabs one of my hands and pulls me forward.

I yank my hand back and shake my head. “No, we don’t have to do that. It was harmless and they are gone by now. It would be a witch hunt and we don’t need that.” I wave my hand in the air.

“Are you sure?” She eyes me.

“Positive. They are going to ask me a lot of questions, and then the prince might come and talk to me. I don’t need that right now.” I sigh. “I’ve got a lot of things to do and having the prince and guards asking a lot of questions will only slow that down.”

“If you’re sure. We can always go later if you decide to report it. I remember what he looks like,” Skylar offers.

I force a smile. “I promise I’ll let you know.”

I look over at the forest and take a deep breath. I need to talk to Kieran about what happened so he can get my side of the story. I just don’t know when I’ll be able to speak to him when I have so many pairs of eyes on me.

“Great! I really think you should report it, but I’m a lot harder on that stuff than you are, so don’t mind me.” She chuckles.

“I know.” I laugh with her, forcing a smile on my face.

That is another thing we don’t have in common. She detests Fae with her whole body, but I never really have. There was a time when I was cautious of them and knew they were bad, but I was wrong.

As I’m looking back toward Skylar, Kieran catches my eyes. He’s standing at the edge of the forest, looking directly at me with fury on his face. I can feel it through the bond, but I know it’s not directed at me.

He heard me.

“I have to go. Agnes is going to shout at me if I don’t get back to work on time, but we need to meet up this afternoon to talk about things.

” Skylar grips my forearm, giving it a little squeeze.

“Maybe we both can come up with a solid plan on how to get you out of this marriage. Maybe we both can talk to the prince about it and convince him he would be better with me.”

Nodding, I stand. “I would love that, but I don’t know how he’s going to take the news of both of us trying to change his mind. He got mad enough at me to do this, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She waves her hand in the air, dismissing that thought. “He won’t do it to either one of us if I’m there. He shouldn’t have done anything like that when it was just the two of you. It was wrong and I think I might talk to him about that.”

My eyes go wide as I take a step back from Skylar. “Don’t you dare do that!”

She cocks her hip to the side. “And why not? You have to wear a scarf to hide the hand bruises he left behind. I bet he told you not to tell anyone and to cover it up.”

“And that is one of the reasons why you shouldn’t go talk to him. He can’t know I talked to you about this,” I desperately reply. “I don’t want anything to happen to my mother.”

Her eyebrows pull together. “And why would he do something to your mother?”

“Because he?—”

She doesn’t know about him killing my father. She thinks it was a hunting accident gone wrong, but I know differently.

“Skylar!” Agnes yells. “Your break is over.”

“We’ll talk about this later.” Skylar gives my forearm one last squeeze before she makes her way back to the store.

My shoulders drop as I let out a breath, my head tilting up to the cloudy sky. I can’t tell Skylar about Prince Archie killing my father. I have no proof, and she won’t believe me since she is so close to him. I’m surprised she even believed me now with him harming me.

The tugging sensation fills my stomach, and a smile blossoms across my face before it quickly disappears when I realize why he wants to meet up.

Kieran wants to meet up and hear about what happened.

I quickly look around before making my way across the cobblestone road and toward the forest. It doesn’t take me long to get to our little meeting place and find Kieran standing in the middle of the clearing.

“Tell me what our people have been telling me is wrong,” he says.

I stay quiet and take several steps closer to him.

“Tell me the prince didn’t actually chase you in the woods and you told our people not to interfere.” His voice grows harder.

“I can’t.” My voice is soft as I look into his eyes.

“Why?” he asks.

I shrug, but I know why.

“No, you don’t get to do this. I want to know why you told our people not to get involved when you clearly needed help.” He grips my chin.

“Because I didn’t want them to get into trouble. I didn’t want one of them to die. I don’t want them to start a war before we can break the curse,” I whisper.

“That is not a good enough reason.” His eyebrows pull together.

“It was my reason, and I stick by it. I would do it again and again. I don’t want them to get hurt because of something I said,” I mumble toward the end.

Kieran just stares at me for several seconds, searching my face. He gently moves his hand to pull my scarf down, his eyes narrowing on the dark purple handprint on my neck.

“Was it the prince or one of the guards?” he asks, his eyes still on my neck.

I don’t answer.

“Adeline.” He makes eye contact with me. “Who the fuck did this to you?”