I had a sick feeling in my stomach that said he wouldn’t this time. That, even though he’d said I was his, with the fate of Faery in the balance, he’d let me go. Hell, he’d probably hold the door for me and help me pack what meager belongings I had. We’d become more than just lovers over the past week, and it was breaking my heart to even think about leaving him. When the hell had I started thinking like that!?
Tears welled up in my eyes again, and I allowed a few to drop. I wasn’t sure I could do this. I loved Adam, but not in a way that this would ever make sense. I couldn’t honestly walk away and let children die either. What the hell kind of a person would I be if I did so? Was it bad that I wanted to be that person who could walk away, and say, not my problem? It was overwhelming and just plain sucked!
I was still awake when Ryder came into the room. I sat up slowly, wondering if he’d heard the news. He wouldn’t look me in the eye at first. That alone told me that he did, in fact, know what had occurred.
“Ryder?” I asked, pushing the covers off and throwing my legs over the edge of the mattress. He turned those beautiful eyes on me, and my heart dropped at what I saw. He wasn’t going to help me. “I can’t marry Adam, Ryder. There has to be a different way to save Faery.”
“Don’t you think I’ve fucking tried, Syn? I’ve been searching for it since I got here.” He dragged his fingers through his hair and let loose a string of curses before he turned and sifted out of the room, leaving me to stare at the empty space he’d just been standing in.
He wasn’t going to save me, and, even though I knew it. It hurt. I crawled into a ball on the bed, and silently cried myself sleep.
~~~~*Ryder~~~~*
“Ristan,” I growl, letting them hear the inner rattle of the beast as he tries to get out.
“I can’t change what I’ve seen, Ryder. Syn and Adam secure an heir together. I’ve seen him with her and the child. You did the right thing by telling Kier the truth of it,” Ristan said.
“You said you couldn’t see her future, and now you can?” I snarl, barely resisting the urge to throw the Demon across the room.
“I don’t control how this works, or what I see. I can only tell you what I see. I do wish it were otherwise. I know how much you want to keep her. It’s best you let her go. This is part of what we came here to do. We know the Mages are working within the Guild. We have identified most of the other groups they are hiding behind. We just have to flush them out and kill them now.”
“I fucking know that! She wasn’t supposed to be the fucking Light Heir. She was supposed to be some nobody I could keep. And you’re positive it’s Adam’s child she has?” I ask carefully.
“They are in a room together, and she’s presenting him with a son. It’s Adam, not you, and it’s not as if I would be giving you this shitty news if I had another option.”
“You better be fucking sure, Demon. I don’t like to lose. Period. Does it give Faery a fighting chance to heal?” I want to break shit. I want to tear the fucking club down around me. Mostly, I want to sift back to that room, and wipe the uncertainty from Syn’s beautiful face and hold her. I want a lot, and with every fucking word the Demon spews out, I want to sift back in and take her away from it all.
“It’s two interlocking pieces of a bigger puzzle. We don’t know what the future holds even with this new development. We can only pray to Danu that it works. If we don’t allow this to play out, we may be taking away the only chance Faery has. So far every vision she has given me has turned out to be the right path—well not as we thought the path was going to turn out, but the end results of following the visions were successful. We still need the relics, but if Syn and Adam produce an heir that lives…they could save Faery. We could do exactly what we came here to do by giving her to Kier, and washing our hands of her and Adam in the process.”
“And the Light Fae? What part do they play in this? Can they even be trusted to be close to her? She’s potentially preventing Dresden from producing his own heir. We have been hearing the rumors for years about the assassins who are after the Light Heir, which was why I did not think anything about Arianna’s guards asking for more assistance,” I growl. She’s mine to protect. I won’t send her in to be slaughtered by those presumptuous, self-serving bastards. She’s right; the Horde is better than those egotistical pricks.
“Dresden would want her dead, in a very bad way, yes. She can never be alone with them, which is a no brainer. He’d kill her without remorse and without so much as blinking an eye. As it stands, Tatiana will be lucky if he allows her to remain as his Queen.”