A Court of Innocents

13: Anger

Within the span of a heartbeat, Tamlin and Lucien were on the ground. The smell of blood flooded the room as my cousin's fist connected with the High Lord's face again and again and again. I was frozen, unable to do anything but watch as my cousin pounded Tamlin to death. And then, when the shock turned into reaction, I stepped towards them—

Only to catch a glimpse of the look on Lucien's face.

Suddenly I wasn't in the room. I wasn't in Rosehall. I wasn't even in the Spring Court. I was an entire court away, remembering the last night I spent in my home court—remembering how Lucien had spent his last night there, too.

A sidenote: When Tarquin, High Lord of the Summer Court, fell into his title at such a young age, he was in need of a wife to stand by his side. My father and Beron had traded me off to the High Lord in exchange for an alliance between our courts. But we had never been married, because on the night Tarquin had come to take me to his court, I was nowhere to be found. And by the next day, I was halfway to The Continent.

My cousins—the power-hungry ones with bloodlust in their hearts—had no intention of letting me marry Tarquin, of letting me—and, by extension, Lucien—gain more power than they could while stuck in Autumn. They knew that a marriage to Tarquin wouldn't just grant us safety, but also make me a High Lord's wife, meaning I could put their heads on spikes if I so wished. So on the night Tarquin came to take his wife, my cousins planned on ruining me so thoroughly that Tarquin would deem me unworthy. I didn't know of their plans at the time, and wouldn't find out until years later.

But Lucien had known.

He had strategically sent me on a hunt to the other side of our court, telling me he needed me to pick up the ring he planned to give to the woman he loved, Jesminda. In sending me away, he had protected me. And when my cousins couldn't find me anywhere in our castle, they came for Lucien. Demanding answers. Demanding he point them in the direction of where I was.

He didn't. Even after they beat him, he didn't so much as hint at where I was. They all grew frustrated at that, but it was Eris—the eldest child of Beron, the future High Lord of the Autumn Court— who had the grand idea of dragging Jesminda into it. They gave Lucien one last chance to reveal where I was, and when he still refused, they held him down and forced him to watch as they murdered the love of his life right in front of him.

Lucien never said a word of what had happened that night, only insisted that we needed to get out of the court for good after that night. So he went to Tamlin, a childhood friend of ours, and found refuge in Spring. While he went south, I headed east, not daring to stop until I made it safely to The Continent.

I didn't find out the truth of why we'd fled our home until centuries later, when Lucien and I finally reunited in the Night Court. That night, he'd dreamed of the worst night of his life. And I'd been dragged into the dream, forced to see every horror unfold and unable to do anything.

The look on Eris's face as he killed Jesminda was something I could never forget. It was heartless, merciless, darker than the lowest depths of the Court of Nightmares.

Lucien—he had that look on his face now. It only grew as he continued to beat Tamlin into the ground, who did nothing to stop the attack. The sight of Lucien like that—seeing the monster deep inside get unleashed, a monster I had no idea he'd been hiding—scared me. And if Tamlin hadn't been my mate, perhaps I would have let Lucien continue to beat him. I was a soldier, yes, but beneath that, I still wore the skin of a terrified girl who had learned too young to fear a man's wrath.

But a preternatural instinct rose from somewhere deep inside of me, and all I could see and hear and think was someone is hurting my mate. I felt what he felt, the burning pain that came with each blow, and I couldn't breathe. A wild, unrelenting rage clawed up my throat at the thought of anyone laying a harmful hand on him—