“Did you tell anyone that I was pregnant?” I asked, watching him closely. A muscle twitched near his right eye. “And I’m not suggesting that I think you told someone thinking they’d do what they did, but I know I told you to do whatever was necessary to make sure Caden chose a fae as his Queen, and I don’t think you would’ve told just anyone because of the panic or risk it could cause. I know you would do anything to protect your Court, and maybe that included telling someone that I was pregnant. Maybe so they’d pursue Caden, knowing that Caden would eventually find out that I was pregnant.”
Tanner stared at me in silence for several heartbeats. “You think I spoke to Tatiana?”
I nodded. That’s exactly what I suspected—that he’d told Tatiana, maybe even her brother. “It would make sense. Tatiana and Sterling already knew what was happening in terms of the engagement. They would have a reason to view the child as a real threat. I don’t want to believe it,” I quickly added as Tanner’s eyes widened. “I honestly think that Tatiana came to me in the beginning out of concern and not to get me to leave Caden. So, I’m not saying this out of jealousy or anything like that. Caden loves me.” Even if he wasn’t quite sure about that now. That thought hurt, but my suspicion wasn’t coming from making the other woman who wasn’t even really the other woman the villain. “It just makes sense.”
Tanner leaned forward. “Tatiana would never do such a thing. Neither would her brother. I know you don’t know them well, and I can even understand why you’d think it was them, but those misdeeds cannot be placed on them.”
“Are you sure? How well do you know them?” I asked.
“I don’t know either extremely well.” Lifting a hand, he dragged it over his head, clasping the back of his neck. “But I know they had nothing to do with this tragedy.”
Tragedy? As if what had happened was due to an unexpected car accident. “You mean attempted murder?”
His silvery skin paled as he tipped back, recoiling from what I’d said. A moment passed. “You’re right. It was attempted murder. I…” He dropped his hand to the arm of the chair. “Caden gave you the Summer Kiss. He did this years ago?”
Caught off guard by the change of topic, it took me a moment. “Yes. When I was injured by Aric and the other fae. It was why I didn’t die then.”
“You are his mortuus,” he said, his voice thickening as his gaze roamed over my face. “You hold a piece of his soul. That makes you a far more worthy choice than any fae that could be presented to him. The entire Court, once they are aware, will not only support his choice but will celebrate such a union. It is rare for one to find their mortuus.”
“That’s what Caden told me.” Emotion clogged my throat, and I couldn’t think about how things were now. “I didn’t know what it meant until yesterday. He hadn’t wanted to overwhelm me. If I knew, I never would’ve tried to hide my pregnancy from him, and I wouldn’t have asked you to do that or to help make sure he chose someone else.”
“I know.” A small, sad smile appeared as his eyes glistened. “I wish he had told you. I wish I had paid attention enough to realize what you meant to him. Looking back, it was obvious. I should have known. I found my mortuus once, but I lost her.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“It wasn’t Tatiana or her brother.” A tear slid unchecked down his cheek. “It was me.”
Chapter 17
“I can barely live with myself now,” Tanner said. “I can’t let someone else take the blame for my actions. Not when this reckoning was always coming.”
Blood pounded in my ears as I stared at Tanner in disbelief.
“When I saw him with you, I thought you’d changed your mind. That he’d convinced you to stay with him,” he explained, staring at his open hands. “And I believed that after everything I’d done, the dirt I’d sunk my hands into, that it was all for nothing. That our King was going to forsake our entire Court.”
I couldn’t think.
“I didn’t know if you’d already told him about the baby. I thought you hadn’t, because if you had, I couldn’t imagine that he’d allow you into the room with that poor youngling,” he continued. “I thought that if I could at least end the pregnancy, it would cut one of the threads that bound him to you, and you to him. After all, it would not be the worst sin I have committed to protect the Court.”
I couldn’t move.
“In the beginning, I thought you were just a passing fancy and then a distraction. I knew he cared for you. Deeply enough that even if I hadn’t known you were his mortuus, I saw that he would not easily choose another.” His voice rasped, barely audible. “Aric lied to you, Brighton. There was no Summer fae willing to work with the Winter Court to release that monster. There was only me.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“I knew I could get a message to him through Neal, and I did. I met with him twice, and there was a moment when I considered killing him. I’d brought a sheathed dagger with me. I could’ve done it. The Ancient was so arrogant. I had a window of opportunity.” He continued staring at his hands. “But I didn’t take it. Not the first time when I told him that…that you were important to our King, and not the second when he told me that he planned to use you to force Caden to open the gateway. I didn’t know then that was possible. I thought…”
The shock of what he’d admitted snapped me out of my stupor. “You…you’re the reason Aric came for me? You knew that he had me alive? That he was keeping me there, torturing—?”
“I thought he would kill you. I didn’t know he’d keep you alive,” he said without looking up.
“You thought…he would kill me. As if that makes a difference, makes it better,” I whispered, disbelieving what I was hearing.
This was Tanner.
Prim and proper Tanner, who wore polo shirts and khaki pants. Who I could easily imagine playing golf on the weekends. Tanner, who was nice and always calm, who I knew had harbored a crush for my mother and had been genuinely upset over her murder.
Murder carried out by the Ancient he’d later all but handed me over to.
And now he’d tried to kill my child.
“How could you?” I demanded, hands shaking. The betrayal cut so deeply that it was all I could feel. It hurt, because never in a million years would I have expected that he’d do something like this. It hurt.
“It wasn’t personal.”
“Are you serious?” I cried. “How could this get any more personal?”
“I know that sounds absurd. I like you, and you know I liked your mother—”
“How could you do this? I trusted you. My mom trusted you.” A rising tide of anger chipped away at the pain of his betrayal. “Caden trusted you.”
“I know.” He lifted his head then. Tears tracked down his face, and seeing them made me even more furious. What right did he have to be upset? He’d tried to kill our child. He was responsible for my seemingly never-ending weeks in hell. “I thought I was doing the right thing.” He sat back, arms limp at his sides. “Caden thought he was doing the right thing by not telling you everything. You thought you were doing the right thing by pushing him away and not telling him about the baby. And I thought I was—”