"The Guild will hunt us now, for breach of contract."
"No, I filed a report that said we knew the entire time. Marie had me run those tests on you and that boy, she saved us—even then she was protecting us. That woman stopped me from blaming you, when I found you covered in blood," he stopped clearing his throat his throat from where tears had grown thick inside of it, "I thought it was you and then I realized what you were doing, trying to put her back together." He stopped rubbing his eyes. "You were so young Synthia, you couldn’t have saved them. You would have just died with them," he finished.
"I did die with them Alden," I sobbed no longer caring that I looked weak. "I never left that house that day," I finished and wiped my eyes again before letting a shaky exhale out slowly.
"I know I'm the one who carried you out Syn. I took you to my home and then Adam showed up. He was young and left on the steps abandoned and alone like you. He held you for hours and eventually you both slept. When you woke up the next morning you were no longer a child," he smiled and narrowed his eyes on me, "You wanted to know how to fight, how to be stronger. Here was this little five year old girl who wouldn't talk, but was working harder than most of the graduating class that year. You did everything right down to tapping a Leyline and pulling it to the Guild, which was the first indication that you were different Syn."
"They said I was allergic to the lines," I sad incredulous.
"You weren't, oh I know they said so," he held up his hands to stop me, "But you are Fae Synthia, if they were hiding you, then they would have had to keep you from connecting to a line. Every time one is tapped by a caste of the Fae, it sends out a trail that would have been made it possible for someone to follow it back to you."
"What if I tapped one, when I was young and it sent whoever I was hiding from a signal?" I was thinking out loud.
"It's possible Syn, but we could play what ifs all day long. My sister is dead. She wouldn’t want you to be suffering still. I admit that I blamed you for a long time, but I let it go, you need to now as well. She wouldn’t want you to live like this Syn and if she died protecting you—she had a damn good reason for doing so."
"Aren't you supposed to be in lock down, Alden?" I said coming out of my stupor and noticing the twelve Paladins standing around us. Their white metal armor and wicked silver weapons challenged any threat to Alden openly.
He laughed, "I knew I would find you here and I knew you'd have questions. I don’t have the answers Synthia, hell. I've probably as many questions as you do now. But I knew you'd need family and you're all I have. Also, Ryder has threatened the Guild with payback for the killings at his club. I issued no orders for an attack, it didn’t come from us and you have his ear girl, use it."
I snorted, "Have you met Ryder? That man makes my stubbornness look like nothing. Besides that, I don’t have his ear. I may be under contract with him, but I’m his enemy right now—right along with the rest of the Guild." We were talking. We'd never spoken about his sister before. Hell, we didn’t actually talk to each other unless he was training me, or giving me an assignment. It was awkward, but I needed it more than I could admit.
"He's planning something, we're evacuating the Guild. Only the Keepers of the Guild will remain. The books and records have to be protected. Syn…" he hesitated running his hand through his messed up hair, he looked as if he'd been doing it for a few hours, "I don’t know all the ins and outs of it with the Fae, but now I know you're gonna need to feed eventually. Marie thought Ryder could help you. Before it made no sense, but now it's starting to. She left us instructions in case anything ever happened to her. She told me you would need to seek him out. I figured when they requested our help that it was the perfect time to carry out her wishes and see what came of it," he shrugged his wide shoulders, "Figured if nothing happened, or if Ryder wasn’t able to see anything different inside of you that maybe everyone had just been worried for nothing."
"So you think I should feed from Ryder?" I asked narrowing my eyes.
"No," he turned bright red as he responded, "No of course not Syn," he rubbed the back of his neck and laughed uncomfortably, "I just think that the first time you do…you should be with someone you couldn't hurt."
"Or kill," I said what he hadn't.