Page 133 of Renegade Kingdom
Arik was walking toward me. Not rushing. Walking. Because why would he rush? He’d just demonstrated the gap between uswith casual, dismissive ease, and he wanted me to sit with that knowledge. Wanted me to understand the futility of what I was attempting so that when he made his offer again, I’d be more inclined to accept.
That was what Holden would have done. Break you down first. Show you where the weaknesses were. And then, when you were at your lowest, extend a hand and tell you he could make you better.
I spat blood onto the frozen ground and got to my feet.
“Still getting up,” Arik observed. “That was always your best quality.”
“It wasn’t yours.”
His stride faltered. Barely. A hitch in his step so slight that anyone who hadn’t spent years watching this man move wouldn’t have noticed.
But I’d spent years watching this man move. I’d memorised his gait, his stance, his tells. Because he’d taught me to, and I’d been a very good student.
“Your best quality,” I said, and my voice was steady now, the ice settling into something calm and sharp, “was making people believe you gave a damn about them.”
The words landed. I watched them hit, watched the ripple of something dark cross his face before the mask smoothed over it. And I pressed the opening because that was what he’d taught me to do.
“Did you ever?” I asked. “Or was it always just raw material?”
He stopped walking. The magic around him pulsed, agitated, and for the first time in the fight I saw something underneath the composed exterior that wasn’t Holden and wasn’t entirely Arik either. Something wounded and furious and very, very old.
“You want to know if I cared,” he said, and his voice had lost the warmth. “You want me to tell you it was real so you can holdonto that when this is over. Fine. Yes. I cared. About all of you. Is that what you need to hear?”
“No.” The ice solidified on my arms, thicker than before, drawing from the frozen ground itself. “What I need is for you to tell my brothers what you did. Because they’re listening.”
Arik’s head turned.
They were there. Behind me, spread across the battlefield in a loose arc, close enough to hear every word. They’d fought their way toward us while Arik and I circled each other, drawn by the bond and by something less magical than that. Something purely human. The instinct to be together when everything was falling apart. Soldiers protecting what they loved the most.
Ryder, storms still crackling around him, his face stripped of every trace of humour. Maddox, fire burning in his palms, his expression raw and open the way it always was when emotion hit him hard. Damon, shadows pooling at his feet, the wolf a silver gleam in his eyes, watching the man who’d sent him to Nymeria to die.
Arik looked at them. Looked at me. And I watched the calculation happen in real time, the shift from fighter to manipulator, the moment he decided to use the truth as a weapon instead of a secret.
“Did you tell them?” he asked, and his voice carried across the battlefield with a clarity that had nothing to do with volume. Magic amplified it. Made sure every word reached every ear. “When youfirstfound out. Did you tell them whose side you all were fighting for from the very beginning?”
The fighting around us didn’t stop. The battle still raged. But in the space where we stood, something hung in the balance that was heavier than any tactical advantage.
Arik looked past me. At Ryder. But there was nothing but silence from my brothers. The kind of silence that precedes either collapse or detonation.
Arik’s gaze came back to me. Triumphant. “Did you tell them, Dean?”
Every eye turned to me.
I met Ryder’s gaze first because his was the one I was most afraid to face. Ryder, who’d spent years believing he was “just the beta.” Who’d built an identity on being underestimated and used humour to hide how much it hurt. Who had clawed his way to an Autumn King’s crown through pure, stubborn refusal to be what other people decided he was.
If the Holden reveal was going to break anyone, it would be Ryder.
“I knew,” I said. “I’ve known since the fifth court.”
“So easy to manipulate. To mould. Such beautiful shiny puppets. Even with your freewill still intact you did anything you were ordered to without question. My own little strike force. Changing the direction of fate. Moving the pieces she needed far out of reach until you four were her only option.” Then his eyes cut to Tank fighting across the battlefield. “Well, almost all of them.”
Ryder stared at me, ignoring Arik’s monologue and all the terrible implications of the things we’d done. I watched the information process behind his eyes, watched the betrayal register and the anger flare and the hurt cut deep. Watched him look at Arik, then back at me. Watched him weigh the two betrayals against each other, the man who’d engineered their suffering and the brother who’d hidden the truth to protect them.
“Yeah,” Ryder said. “I figured.”
I blinked.
Ryder’s mouth curved. Not a smile. Something harder and more honest than that. “You’ve been carrying something since the Fifth Court, Dean. Walking around with that constipatedlook you get when you’re trying to keep something contained. I’m observant. People forget that because I’m funny.”
