Trial by Heart (Trial Series Book 4) (3 page)

“Is it possible you don’t know who he chose?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “It’s possible. I’m somewhat vulnerable during the transition period. He would’ve had to have gone to great lengths to deceive me.”

“That wouldn’t make sense.” I frown. “Of all the things to lie to you about, it doesn’t seem like it would’ve been worth the effort to hide which candidate he wanted me to marry.”

“On the contrary, it’s the key.”

“To …”

“Repeating the past and the choices I made that landed us here.” The quiet note is back.

I set the notebook aside, intrigued. “You’re telling me you sold out our family and the Community for a
woman
?”

“I’m telling you that your fated husband, who should be among the candidates, isn’t here,” he replies without missing a beat. “I won’t know who to exile.”

Coldness races through me. “You killed her? This woman you loved?”

“Accidentally.”

That word makes me feel … icky. I don’t want to know what happened, or why he claims every death he caused was
accidental.
My instincts are tingling, and I pick up the notebook again and gaze at the names of the three candidates.

My father claimed there was only one of them he’d entrust to kill me. What are the chances the man Erish seeks, and the one my father trusted, are the same one?

“How do you know he’s not among these three?” I ask, puzzled as I try to unravel the latest mystery.

“The bond you felt with each disappeared when your time was up. If one was supposed to become your husband, you would’ve remained whatever supernatural creature was destined to become your mate.”

About a billion questions cross my mind, but only one sticks.

“Oh,” I breathe. “But my father loved my mother. You’re saying he loved someone else more and you killed her?” Was the woman who looked at me with such warmth stuck in a loveless marriage and then killed by her own family?

In the memory Myca showed me, she was happy, and she loved me. She admitted there were rules that had to be followed, but she didn’t seem miserable.

“You care for all the candidates, don’t you?” Erish answers. “Your father did as well. But yes, I killed the one he was meant to be with. Rather, he killed her while I was in charge of his mind. The candidate exiled is your destined mate. Once he’s gone, you choose another and the final becomes the Community leader.”

“How can you not want this curse to end?” I shout, my temper snapping. “How can you torture every generation of Kingmaker and the Community when you went through what it feels like to lose someone you love?”

“I never said I don’t want it to end.”

“Stop fucking with my head! Answer my question!”

The shadow stills and moves closer to me. “My sole purpose is to continue the curse that’s trapped our family for so long. I am not fully the man I was, not fully the soul-less entity I will become. I am here for one reason only. What I can do is limited to the rules of the curse. What I
feel
, and what I
want
, Leslie, have not mattered for two thousand years, since the day the curse fell and I lost the woman I loved.”

Is it possible for a creature with no soul and no form to suffer from heartache? I feel it then … it’s instinct only, perhaps leftover from the fae or wolf experiences.

Two millennia is a long time to suffer a broken heart. I don’t want to pity the man who put us in this situation, but my anger fizzles to realize he’s not only trapped in a vicious cycle of reliving his mistake, but in reliving the pain, and will probably be so forever. His mistake or choice – whatever it was – has fucked up the world and left him broken.

I turn away with a shake of my head. “Leave me alone,” I order him.

He doesn’t deserve my sympathy and I can’t find it in me to resent him at the moment.

Erish doesn’t speak, and I glance back to see if he’s present. He’s not. I sigh and shrug my shoulders. My hands are trembling from the emotion of hearing his tale – and the distress of imagining my mother in a world where she, too, was trapped. I’ve learned during the trials that my father was stuck, and I don’t want to believe the same was true of my mother.

I have to believe my father loved her and me. His inconsistencies, and the bizarre writings he left, I will gladly attribute to Erish.

Retrieving my notebook, I stare at the three names listed on my
Potential Husbands
list. I’m not buying Erish’s explanation about being destined to marry someone in particular. Maybe that’s what a soul mate is in the human world, but I’m a supernatural under a curse. Even if it were possible for me to be fated to marry someone, for the sake of continuing the curse, I can’t imagine someone else out there being fated to marry
me
. No one deserves that level of punishment.

My phone vibrates.

We still on for this morning?
Ben’s asked.

“Dammit.” I glance at the time. I’m not late, for once, but I’m not feeling mentally prepared to go.
Yeah. I need a ride though,
I type. Considering my note, I sigh. They all know I’m poor as shit, and a biscuit from McDonald’s isn’t going to break the bank for a multi-millionaire.
And breakfast.
I add before sending.

Ben answers with a thumb’s up emoji.

I roll my eyes.

Erish leaves me alone for the rest of the morning. I’m not entirely certain I believe his explanation yet about not being a threat to the others, but … if Erish doesn’t know which candidate he’s supposed to kill, I assume he won’t kill any of them until he does know. I just need to remain diligent and warn whomever he picks before he acts.

Chapter Three

The driver has a gourmet breakfast sandwich and hot mocha waiting for me in the car. I wolf my food down on the way to the lake. We arrive half an hour later to an unfamiliar home on the side of the lake Ben owns.

Whereas Ben’s house was one story, this one is two stories tall. The differences seem to stop there, for there are as many windows in this log home as Ben’s, and the secluded estate is likewise tucked away from the road in the forest.

Four large dogs run to greet us. I start to smile as I get out of the car, tickled by the idea of a werewolf with pets. The driver shoos them away, and they run to the forest.

Ben is waiting in a picnic area near the side of the house. He’s not alone; Jason and another man, whose back is to me, are standing farther away, heads bent as they talk.

Ben offers a half smile as I approach, his sizzling golden gaze moving past me to the driver, who returns to the car. Tall, muscular, and every bit the sexy alpha, Ben’s features are tight and his stance unusually closed.

I glance at my feet to see if Erish is with me, as usual. The second shadow is present, even if he’s quiet. He’s probably spying, and has been my entire life, a realization that gives me the creeps.

“You okay?” Ben asks in his low growl. His eyes are on my second shadow, too, and I know without a doubt he understands what it is.

It kind of hurts to know how much he and the others kept from me.

“Awesome, considering I’m being stalked by a ghost,” I reply sarcastically.

“It’s about to get worse.”

I lift my eyes to his.

Ben clears his throat. “I want to tell you what I lied about, before you find out the hard way.”

I hold my breath. I want to know – but not really. Everything I learn crushes me. I don’t think I can live with the idea of Ben betraying me horribly. I need to believe in the candidates, to know I haven’t made the worst mistakes of my life by trusting them.

Be strong, Leslie. Ben’s watching, I tell myself.

“Jenny wasn’t my fiancé,” the werewolf starts. “She was my mate.”

My mouth drops open.

“We mated in secret soon after your father chose the candidates,” he goes on. “The circumstances were … complicated.”

“Oh, god!” I exclaim. “She wasn’t pregnant or something was she?”

“No. Nothing like that. She threatened to leave me otherwise, and when it came to her I was blind. Always. In every way,” he answers. “This was the clan’s opportunity to obtain equal footing in the Community. It’s all we’ve wanted for thousands of years, and Jenny knew that up front. She promised she was okay with me going through the trials, so I agreed to marry her.”

I nod, aware of how important winning the Community leader position is to the werewolves. There’s a small part of me that’s almost relieved to learn of his betrayal, because I feel less embarrassed about how I treated him. We aren’t even, because I was a bitch during our trial, but it’s nice not to feel alone in making mistakes.

“In hindsight, I should’ve asked her to explain her motivation and timing,” Ben continues. “You don’t think about that when you love someone. I assumed she wanted the curse broken like I did. A week with a fucking Kingmaker, and the hope of breaking the curse, were small prices to pay for us to be able to have children one day.” His smile is tight and softens the impact of his words.

“You hate me,” I murmur. “
I
hate me!”

My father, or Erish, whomever’s turn it was to write Ben’s biography, expressed how sacred the mating bond is for werewolves. After experiencing it with Ben, I understand it all too well. If he were willing to sacrifice his own bond to be with me, and betray his mate, even for a week with her permission, he was desperate to do his part to break the curse.

But I killed his
mate
. What has that done to him? To have hoped to have children with her one day then to lose her to a Kingmaker, of all people?

“It doesn’t change the fact she betrayed me. One of her confidantes claimed she thought someone was about to find out about the drugs, and becoming my mate would offer her the highest level of protection.” Ben’s voice is quiet. “There was more than one issue she hid from me. The others made the drugs look harmless. And she was right. No one in the clan could’ve touched her once she was my mate. No one but the Kingmaker she attacked.”

I search his features, sensing his pain, even if he’s hiding it. It’s one of the rare occasions in my life when I’m speechless. I can almost convince myself I did him a favor, but this seems so wrong to consider when he’s hurting.

“You knew it when you met her,” he adds. “You saw what I couldn’t after a hundred years of knowing her intimately.”

“Ben …” My voice cracks. I don’t know what to say. Nothing will make this better for either of us.

“Don’t,” he says firmly. “I’m not telling you this for you to apologize. I made my choices, and she made hers. We both made mistakes. It never felt right to keep the truth from you, rules or not. I owe you this explanation. And no, Leslie, I don’t hate you. You showed me what having a mate is supposed to be like. I knew something was off with Jenny the day you and I bonded.” He’s earnest, his gaze steady. “I’m grateful for the experience and almost relieved I don’t ever have to worry about having a mate ever again.” These words are bitter – but honest.

How can he be so calm about losing the woman he was supposed to spend his life with? Why isn’t he ripping off my arms and legs?

As always, he seems to read my mind.

“I did what I had to in order to help break the curse,” he says quietly. “I have no regrets, Leslie. I’d make the same choice again, if I had to do it over. The past couple of weeks have been hell, but you being in my life has taught me more about truth and loyalty than I learned my first two hundred years. I’ll always be grateful for this.”

I swallow hard. I wouldn’t think so well of me if our positions were reversed.

We stand in silence for a long moment. I want to say something, anything, to help. Ben appears calm, though I can almost sense the turmoil beneath his surface. His anger and volatile emotion from our trial make more sense in this light. It couldn’t have been easy for him to cheat on his mate, even if she gave him permission, and he was hoping to break the curse. The greater good and realizing the werewolves’ ambitions aside, this had to have been the most agonizing decision of his life.

“Moving on.” He motions to the shadow. “Tristan and Myca feel we’ve defanged the curse. We’ve done all we knew to do in order to give you a leg up. Just promise me none of the sacrifices we made will be in vain. Promise me you’ll fight until it’s over.”

I barely hear his words. I can’t get over the idea he forgives me for murdering his mate. I’m not about to tell him that technically, Erish did it. These details are inconsequential, but one thing isn’t. He, Tristan and Myca made horrific sacrifices. For Ben, it cost him his mate. What kind of pain did the trials inflict upon Tristan and Myca?

I can’t stop staring at Ben and replaying his words in my head. Realizing he’s waiting for me to respond, I nod. “I swear I’ll be strong enough to break the curse.” But I don’t know if it’s true, no matter how much I need it to be.

“The past two weeks have been the hardest of my life. I lost two mates at once. But I want you to know I have no regrets, and I don’t blame you at all.”

God, he is so honest, so understanding, so
good!
My heart breaks for him, but he seems somewhat at peace with everything he’s told me.

“You deserve so much better. I’m so sorry, Ben,” I manage after a prolonged pause.

“That’s the other thing.” He shifts his weight between his feet and starts to give one of his cunning smiles. “My name’s not Ben.”

I can’t be hearing him right and struggle to decipher what exactly he said.

At my silence, he twists and motions Jason and the third man over. The minute my eyes fall to the stranger …

“Holy fuck,” I breathe and blink several times to clear my gaze.

Ben has an identical twin. Same size, same muscles … but different eyes. His twin has gray-blue eyes instead of whiskey-hued. They’re almost silver.

“My name is Nathan,” Ben continues. “We’re twins, born five minutes apart. This is Ben. He’s firstborn and the leader of the wolves.”

I keep looking between the two of them, unable to process what he’s saying.

They’re all watching me, waiting for me to speak while I stupidly stare at them.