“That’s what she tells you and everyone else, but it’s a lie,” I bit out the last word as the anger and pain I had been carrying for months threatened to spill from me. “She wants to close the barrier to protect her secret, to keep people from finding out about the horrible thing she did.”
“Jesse, I fear the stress of imprisonment is affecting your mind. I think I should summon a healer.” He tried to pull his hand from mine, but I refused to let him go.
“I don’t need a healer. I need you to listen to what I have to say.”
He sighed and assumed a placating expression. “Okay. What is this awful thing my mother did, and how do you know about it?”
I took a deep breath. “I know about it because she did it to my family.”
I didn’t know what he saw in my eyes, but he paled and spoke in a hushed voice. “What did she do?”
“Twenty years ago, Queen Anwyn stole something precious from my parents, and it nearly destroyed them. They’ve never gotten over it.”
Rhys’s hand flexed in mine. “Twenty years ago? That’s the year I was born.”
“I know,” I said softly.
He swallowed convulsively and covered my hand with his other one. “What did she take from them?” he whispered urgently.
“My brother.”
Chapter 21
Rhys pulled away from me so fast he fell backward. He scrambled to his feet and stared down at me, words of denial already forming on his lips. His eyes, however, conveyed a different emotion. He knew, maybe not consciously, but a part of him knew the truth.
“My brother’s name is Caleb,” I went on as if nothing had happened. “He was two months old when he died suddenly in his crib. Or so everyone believed, except for our mother. She tried to tell people that the dead baby wasn’t hers, but they dismissed her as a grieving mother.”
I tugged the blankets tighter around me. “I was born later, so I never knew Caleb. Whenever Mom and Dad talked about him, it made them sad, so I tried not to mention him often.”
“You were unhappy?” Rhys asked.
“No.” I sniffled quietly. “I had a very happy life, but there were moments when one or both of my parents let their guard down, and I could see their pain. I think Caleb’s birthday was the hardest for them. We go to the cemetery to visit his grave on his birthday every year.”
Rhys came back to join me on the pallet. “I am sorry for your loss and the pain your family has suffered. But nothing you have said implicates my mother or proves your claim that I am your brother.”
“I’m getting to that.” I swiped away the wetness on my cheeks. “Do you remember when those photos of you were leaked weeks before your debut?”
“Yes.” His brows drew together, and I could almost hear him wondering where I was going with this.
“The photog who took those pictures is a friend of my family. You met him the night the paparazzi cornered me at Navi. He showed the photos to my parents, who had never laid eyes on the Seelie prince.”
Rhys sucked in a breath. I kept going.
“My mother recognized you first. You have blond hair instead of Caleb’s red, but you look too much like my father at that age for it to be a coincidence.” I let that sink in for a few seconds before I continued. “They found out you were at the Ralston, so they went there to see you in person.”
“I never saw them,” Rhys said in a small voice.
“Some of the queen’s guards were with you, and they got to my parents before you could see each other.”
“I remember that night.” Rhys stared past me. “Mother… she insisted on Aibel and Conard coming with us for our first trip. There was a commotion outside the room where we were doing a photo shoot, and they told me they’d taken care of a security breach. They made me return to Faerie immediately after.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, they took care of it. One of them told my parents they should have killed them twenty years ago when they took you. Then they called a goren dealer to do their dirty work for them and to dispose of my parents. It was sheer luck that someone else took the call and kept my mother and father alive and hidden by drugging them with goren. My parents had to spend months in rehab after I found them, but at least they’re alive.”
“This cannot be real.” Rhys ran his hands through his hair, and I couldn’t tell if he was upset or in shock. He moved suddenly to put his hands on my shoulders. “Why did you not tell me? Your parents never tried to see me after that. I met your father, and he said nothing.”
My heart constricted at the hurt and confusion in his eyes. “At first, they didn’t remember what happened because of the goren. When they did get their memory back, we were too afraid of what Queen Anwyn would do if she found out. You have no idea what it’s doing to them to know you’re alive and not be able to tell you. Mom nearly had a relapse when she remembered.”
“Why are you telling me now? Are you no longer afraid of what my mother would do?”
“I’m terrified,” I admitted. “But I wanted you to know in case…something happens to me. You deserve to know that you have a whole family out there who loves you. Lukas…Vaerik has them hidden for now. I hope you can help to keep them safe from the queen.”
“Prince Vaerik knows about me?” Rhys asked.
“No.” Guilt and sorrow sliced through me, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I’d carried the burden of my family’s secret all this time, and my fear had kept me from confiding in the one person I should have.
Rhys got up to pace the room again. “My…mother… she wasn’t always affectionate like other mothers. She treated me well and gave me everything I wanted, but I always felt like something was missing.”
“What about your…father?” I asked. I’d never thought much about the queen’s consort. Was he in on this, too?
“My father is a quiet person. He does his duty as consort, but outside of that, my parents are rarely together. He is a loving father, but he did not have much input into my upbringing.”
I tried to imagine what it had been like for him growing up here with an absent father and a mother who didn’t show him the kind of love I’d known. He was a prince raised in absolute luxury, but I felt like the one with all the riches.
He went to one of the windows and stared out into the night. I watched him for several minutes, wondering what was going through his mind. When Dad had told me Rhys was Caleb, it had shaken my world. What must it be like for Rhys to discover his whole life was a lie, to learn not only that he was stolen from his real family, but he was not even from this world?
More minutes passed, and the silence in the room became too much for me. I cleared my throat. “Rhys, are you okay?”
“No.” He turned to look at me with bleak eyes. “I cannot believe my mother is capable of the things you said.”
My heart sank. I’d hoped he would believe me, but I couldn’t blame him for siding with the only mother he had ever known. It was too much to ask of him.
“From our first encounter, I felt inexplicably drawn to you. Bayard teased that I was infatuated with a pretty human, but that wasn’t it. I felt connected to you somehow, and it grew stronger every time I saw you. When I met your father, I felt it with him, too, and I assumed it was because of my interest in his work.” Rhys let out a ragged breath. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”