Trial by Heart (Trial Series Book 4) (6 page)

It’s starting to look like his story checks out. He’s the puppet master.

“You didn’t think your dad was the mastermind, did you?” Erish asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. “Well, sorta. I thought the candidates were working together for the most part. I figured, if there were someone in charge, it was Daddy, before he died, and they were just following his instructions.”

“It wasn’t your father. He couldn’t have done this much without my interference.”

“Because you really
don’t
want the curse broken?” I ask him again.

“Because I’m duty bound to ensure it’s not, even if I might want it broken for the sake of the many lives it’s cost,” Erish answers.

Does he ever tell the truth? Or is this the truth – that he wants to break it but can’t?

I start to read through more messages. There are far too many for me to spend much time on every exchange. I scroll and pause at random points. Maybe it’s masochistic, but I decide to read the texts sent on the dates when I was endangered on each trial. The messages are spread out across three separate texting threads, so I end up taking pictures of the messages on dates and times I’m interested in then return to review them in order of the trials: Nathan, Tristan, Myca. My chest grows almost too tight to breathe as I begin to swipe through the pictures and read.

Not Jenny … I can’t lose both of them …
reads the tortured note from Nathan the day they found Jenny’s body.

Ben, I can’t find her … I can’t FEEL her … it’s like my soul has been ripped out …
read the flurry of three frantic texts from Tristan when I disappeared and was put under by his people.

I may have killed the council … I know you and my father had an agreement but … god it felt so good … I need your snout, Ben. It’s against the rules, but she’s been put to earth. I’ll never reach her in time …
these are from Myca.

Even understanding the power of the temporary mating bonds, I’m still humbled by how deeply each of the candidates cared for me as well as distressed by their pain. How did any of them survive the trials with their sanity intact let alone follow the plan they’ve created? How can any of them have faith in me? How can they want anything to do with me at all?

I destroyed them, and each of them turned to the only person they could, the one running this elaborate scheme.

I don’t want to read Ben’s responses, don’t want to acknowledge he might have a good reason for being so involved in the most personal details of my life. I’m afraid to acknowledge the presence of someone else in my tortured world of the past few weeks, even if he got there before I ever arrived. It’s embarrassing to admit someone else knows everything I don’t, and I didn’t know he was alive until yesterday!

Reading real-Ben’s notes to the candidates during the darkest days of the trials makes my insides shake with emotion I can’t identify.

To his brother:
You’ve got me and your family. We’ll make it through this together, like always.

To the fae prince:
Stay strong, Tristan. We’ll find her. Use that huge brain of yours – you said she was in danger. Who’s the most likely to grab her?

To Myca:
On my way. Council probably had it coming. I’ll handle your father. Call Tristan and meet at your place.

“This is … crazy.” I reread the messages, stunned by how involved Ben has been in every step of the trials. He admitted to being in contact with Myca’s father, but it seems ballsy, if not suicidal, for him to be stepping between Myca and the vampire king.

Apparently, he was successful. He’s still alive, and so is Myca.

I scroll through more of the texts, this time focusing on Ben’s responses in each exchange with the candidates. I find the long discussion he had with me, too. Occasional wry humor is mixed with quiet strength, patience and unwavering support, no matter what the candidates reveal to him.

Even so, something bothers me about this level of insight into the invisible leader, whose influence has been present in my life for two months at least without me suspecting. Every exchange is thoughtful, smart and confident, but what he
feels
is impossible to tell from his messages. He doesn’t have Nathan’s moodiness, Tristan’s layers or Myca’s direct yet easygoing nature. Ben has the laser-like focus to check his emotions at the door and persevere with a plan I can’t yet figure out, no matter what happens or how he feels about what his brother and friends are going through. I can’t get a solid read on who he really is beyond the calm, strong leader the others turn to and rely on. He gives no indication he’s worried or stressed, and he always,
always
responds.

The more I read, the more flustered I become. They told him
everything,
down to certain details of sex, when I cried and what made me happy, and anything I told them they thought might be linked to the curse.

This man knows everything about me. But
why
does he need to know some of this shit? He definitely scores points for being an effective private investigator. It hits me that a man this rational, thorough and calculating doesn’t stake the fate of his entire clan, or the Community, on a
feeling
!

What else can he possibly be hiding? Can I handle learning more?

“Nothing interesting yet,” Erish observes, uninterested with discovering who Ben is like I’m trying to. “We need to see the earlier texts to see their plan.”

“No,” I whisper. I’m close to a panic attack.

“We need to know what their end game is!”

“I know what it is!” I all but shout at him. “It’s to get rid of you!”

“And if they don’t know how to do it right? Are you willing to risk spending the rest of your life with me?”

“Even if they fail, I won’t be stuck with you long, and there’s no way in fucking hell you’ll haunt the next generation, because there won’t
be
another generation of Kingmaker!” I place the phone on the counter and go to the pantry.

“What’re you doing?” Erish demands.

“I’m hungry, you ass.”

“You can’t eat at a time like this! We have to find out how far they’ve gotten!”

“The less I know, the better their chances are, right?” I counter. “You can’t outsmart them if
I
don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Unless they’re on the wrong track.”

My hand pauses in the air, halfway to a jar of caramel sauce on the shelf before me. My sweet tooth gets worse when I’m stressed and right now, I’m fucking stressed.

“You wouldn’t tell me if they are,” I reason aloud.

“If your ancestors and father leaked secrets, then obviously I have limited ability to help.”

My insides are shaking, and uncertainty tears through me. I can’t tell the difference between when he’s fucking with me and when he’s telling the truth. What if he’s right about something, no matter how small, and I’m too twisted up inside to act on it?

I snatch the caramel sauce off the shelf. “You’re fucking with … me,” I say with a grunt as I try to twist the top off. It’s useless. The thing is jammed.

“Can you take that chance?”

Where is my alcohol or N-Thrall when I need them?

“Tell me what I need to know or leave me alone!” I snap in frustration and nudge the door of the pantry open with my hip.

“It’s not that easy. I’m –”

“Bullshit! You’re picking and choosing when you tell me what! Either you stop lying, or you stop talking, because I’m sick and …” I freeze as I leave the pantry.

The man who knows everything about me, down to the fact I’m a fan of vibrators, is standing in the middle of the kitchen, watching and listening, his head tilted.

God, the men in this family … Six and a half feet tall and absolutely ripped, Ben’s wearing jogging shorts and sneakers and is naked from the waist up to reveal a muscular, wide chest and round shoulders, thick biceps, roped forearms … slender hips and waist … and unlike his brother, he has a sprinkling of dark hair across his chest that forms a happy trail leading down his belly. Identical twin probably means he’s got the huge dick Nathan does, too.

Holy shit. How can I think of something like that at a time like this?

Aware of his gaze, I clear my throat. “You know I’m not talking to myself, right?” I ask the stoic alpha before I can stop. “You can’t see him, but someone is there.”

“Yeah.” Amusement flickers in Ben’s gaze and he glances down at the jar in my hand. “Breakfast?”

“Well … I …” I’m not normally nervous around men, awkward or self-conscious. At least, before the trials I never was. I’ve felt all three during the trials, but that was the magic.

There’s no magic here, just the sexiest man in the world and me holding a jar of caramel.

I never tried dripping warm caramel over someone’s body but it seems like a fantastic idea. The errant thought sends heat into my blood, which I quickly try to suppress. Werewolves can smell arousal.

Ben doesn’t seem interested in a real answer and closes the distance between us. He takes the jar and pops the lid off with an effortless twist.

My face flares red. “You could’ve pretended it was hard,” I mumble.

“You loosened it up for me.”

That’s even worse. He’s being as supportive towards me as he has been the candidates. He was with me last night in wolf form until I fell asleep, comforting me as only a four-legged, furry creature can.

Maybe last night is why this is awkward. I don’t know what to say to him. Thanks? No, thanks? Just let me rot in the miserable world that I deserve? Why does he care that I’m sad or hurting? He’s not a candidate, and me crying myself to sleep isn’t going to be the determining factor in the curse breaking. What’s in this for him?

“You want some real breakfast?” he asks and moves away from me. I almost sigh, relieved when the heat of his body is gone.

“Yes.” I could definitely use some bacon and abs. I mean … bacon and sex. Shit. “Just bacon is fine,” I say loudly.

“Bacon and sex?” Erish repeats.

“Shut up!”

Ben glances at me. I turn away and silently scream for Erish to leave me alone.

“Find what you were looking for on my phone?” Ben asks casually.

This morning can’t get any worse. “No,” I murmur.

“Maybe if you ask, I’ll tell you.”

Being gently schooled by someone like him is so much worse than him screaming at me. Yelling, and sudden exits, don’t seem to be real-Ben’s style. I’m not about to tell him I learned a lot more than I cared to know by reading his texts. I have to say something, though, because this is torture.

“Were all your employees in on the twin swap?” I ask.

“No.”

“So they all thought I was asking about you. Real you.”

“Yeah.”

I was hoping to find out that maybe they were lying to me and Ben isn’t the kind of person I sense he is.

“Are you the one who had to kill all the wolves after my trial or was that Nathan?”

“I did,” he answers.

Why isn’t he angry? Or is he, and I can’t read him?

“Is Nathan going to be okay?” I manage to voice the question in a steady voice. His text from the day she died, and Ben’s response, is fresh in my mind. “After Jenny.”

“Eventually.”

Ouch. I sigh. “Isn’t a wolf’s mate the most sacred thing ever?”

“It is.”

I could use more than the one or two word answers. I face him. Ben’s organizing the bacon on a plate before he pulls out a skillet and places it on the stovetop.

“Aren’t you upset?” I venture.

“It’s not my place.”

“You’ve been stalking me long enough to know I was fucked up before the trials! I bear a curse no one knows how to break, destroyed your twin’s life, made you kill twenty wolves, caused complete havoc for the fae and vampires, and it’s not your place to be upset?” I ask incredulously. “Can you just … I don’t know …
yell
or
scream
at me? Tell me how horrible I am and how I deserve to be trapped in this curse?”

“What would yelling accomplish?”

“I don’t know. Make you feel better?”

He glances at me, silvery gaze intent. It’s a definite
no.

“Fine. Make
me
feel better?” I snap.

“You want a spoon for your caramel?” he asks instead.

“I want a world without the curse!”

Ben slides a spoon out of a drawer and places it on the breakfast bar counter. “One step at a time, Leslie,” he says.

I have no fucking clue how to respond. Snatching the spoon, I sit on the stool and plunge the utensil into my caramel and watch the muscles beneath Ben’s taut skin move as he prepares breakfast.

Something about his calmness is contagious. I feel myself relaxing despite the weight of the Community’s fate on my shoulders. Erish is nearby, silent and … stalky. He hovers around Ben and makes the occasional swipe that yields no result. I think he’s as confused by Ben as I am. Maybe that’s why Ben is the way he is, to keep the curse from knowing who he is and what he’s doing. It seems too natural to be a façade, though. He’s quiet. Confident. Calm. Always in control. He makes wielding power look effortless. You can’t fake this shit.

But he has to
feel
something about all this, doesn’t he? Anger? Sorrow? Regret?

“Are you a sociopath?” I ask.

He laughs quietly. “No.”

“Just good at controlling your emotions?”

“I’m an introvert. A very private one.”

“Ah. Okay. Your brother definitely isn’t. At least you have that luxury,” I mutter. “My life appears to be public record.”

“Out of necessity, and only to those who absolutely need to know.” He turns as he speaks and places a plate in front of me.

I meet his gaze, uncertain why his words make my stomach flutter. “So you’re what? Protecting me?”

“Yeah.”

My face is hot again and I focus on the food instead of him. “I don’t need protecting. I’ve got the most lethal guard dog in history.”