“What else have you done?” I asked, turning my face further up so that I could see his eyes.
“I made Alden send you to me. I knew Arianna wasn’t the Light Heir, but I knew that asking him for a decoy would get you close. I asked for the best, because I knew he’d send you to me. I had my men watching you and Adam from the moment you pulled up outside of the towers, but you were smart enough to figure that part out. I watched your eyes as you told him to abort. You already knew I had your team, but you just couldn’t let it enter your mind. I watched you sleep inside your bedroom before that. I watched you touching yourself, soothing the need you wouldn’t allow another to fulfill, because you were still mending from a broken heart; one I had created.”
“The wards inside my room,” I said. He’d been in my room watching me. How many times had he done it? It was unnerving to know how easily he’d gotten inside, and not to have known I was in danger at the time.
“I changed them to think of me as an exception, a non-threat. I’m Fae. Your wards were child’s play for me and easily manipulated.”
“Larissa?”
“I had nothing to do with that. I liked Larissa. I’d already watched you suffer from grief once by that point. I’d never be a part of it again. I meant it when I said I’d protect you. I’m not going away just because you want to leave me.”
He wiped the tears from my cheek, and I let him. I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly and evenly. He was right; I was going to leave. I was leaving this world and going back to mine, one way or another. I needed time to think, to process. He’d done too much; he’d given an order for something that could never be undone. I wasn’t sure it could be forgiven either.
“Anything else?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“Isn’t that enough?” he responded, wiping away another tear.
I shook my head, not because it wasn’t enough, but because it was too much. He’d done too much to get me right where I was, in his arms. In his world, this was how you got the woman; while in my world, it’s how you made them run screaming for the hills. I punched him in the arm, and he growled, but took it.
“What about the way you treated me, Ryder? You hated me as much as I hated you.”
“I punished you, because I wanted you. I’ve never wanted anything I couldn’t have. You were the first woman to tell me no, Synthia. You called me names with that sexy fucking mouth, and all I wanted to do was kiss it shut. I hate that you got beneath my skin, where no one else has been.”
“You lied. You’re Fae, and you lied to me. You told me you didn’t know he was alive,” I said, struggling to get out of his arms and upright on the bed.
“I didn’t lie, I played with words, Syn. Adrian wasn’t dead. He’s undead. He got what he wanted; he has more power now. He is no longer regretting his decision to change. In the end, he got what he wanted, what he craved, it just turned out he wanted it more than he wanted you. You ended up being the only victim with the way this played out, and I failed to see that as a possibility. I never expected you to break, and I’m sorry for my part in that. Fae do not grieve the same way humans do, and I didn’t know how to react to what I had done. You broke, and I wanted to pick you up and put the pieces back together. In the end, I just watched you do it on your own, and it drew me to you more than I could have ever expected.”
“Exactly how long have you been watching me, Ryder?” I asked, narrowing my eyes as I sat back down beside him.
“Since Marie sent me the letter a few years ago. At first, you were young and looked just like the other humans. I watched you train, and I watched you grow into a woman. It wasn’t until I saw you in the arms of Adrian that I knew that I wanted to know how it would feel for you to touch me like that. I should have realized then that it had become more than just some twisted infatuation. You wanted my secrets, Synthia, and I warned you that my past was messy. I told you that you’d end up hating me if you knew.”
He had. He’d warned me about this. I didn’t hate him, though. I couldn’t believe the lengths he’d gone through just to have me, but, at the same time, I couldn’t hold him to the same sort of accountability that I would hold a human to. He wasn’t human, and everyone had been warning me this entire time to stop thinking of him as one. He’d crossed the line, though; one I wasn’t sure he could come back from.