Chapter 110: _ Good News, Bad News

The doors shut behind Zev but his threat echoed in my head. The silence that rushed back into the room felt like thin ice over a deep winter lake.

I pushed myself up against the headboard, ignoring the dull throb in my skull and the uncomfortable ache lingering in my chest. My hands gripped the edges of the blanket so hard my knuckles turned white.

"Ivar," I began.

He was still standing near the foot of the bed, his eyes fixed on the door. The arrogant prince looked like a man bracing for an avalanche.

"What is going on?" I demanded, leaning forward. "Why is Zev acting like a rabid dog? What ’plans’ was he talking about? I need answers, Ivar. And I need them right now."

I hated the secrecy. Part of me desperately wanted Ivar to tell me whatever was wrong with Zev had nothing to do with me, so I wouldn’t feel quite so rotten about my own secret... the fact that I was almost certainly fated to four different royal princes, and that the man standing across from me was only one piece of a puzzle.

That there was a possibility that Zev was vexed because now I was mated to Ivar when there’d been a spark between us. That he might have fought Remus for me because he felt something—as I did, for him.

Ivar deserved to know. Zev too.

But I wasn’t ready to drop that bomb yet. Not until I was sure my chest wasn’t going to cave in from the shock. Not until I was certain that I was indeed, carrying a quad-crest mate bond.

My mate exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck with a calloused hand. He walked back to the edge of the mattress and sat down.

"Elira... I have confessions to make," he started. "I know finding out the truth about my mana-stealing power probably made your skin crawl. But there’s more. And you deserve to hear it before you decide I’m a complete monster."

I crossed my arms over the blanket, my stomach tightening. "Go on."

"The day I was following you and your roommates through the Sunken Arch," Ivar admitted, refusing to meet my eyes, "it wasn’t an accident. Zev and I... we had a plan and it included tracking you."

What?

The words took a second to pierce through the fog in my brain. "Tracking us?"

Ivar nodded. "Raice speaking to you at the concourse painted a target on your back. Zev and I... we were one of those who recognize that target. We wanted to expose Raice’s madness to the Realm Council. We needed leverage. We saw you as an easy target—a markless commoner close to him—and our original plan was to use you to draw Raice out and force a public breakdown."

He finally looked up, his mismatched eyes full of unfiltered regret. "We were going to use you, Elira. But then I got close to you. I saw your light. I saw how fiercely you protected your friends, and... and then my wolf recognized you. Everything changed. The moment I knew you were my mate, the plan went out the window."

I sat frozen, the blood rushing in my ears.

"So now..." I whispered as the bitter irony choked me. "Now I understand why Prince Zev also showed up at the Dragon Academy claiming he wanted to help me with the investigation. He wasn’t helping me at all. He was still executing the plan."

A mix of emotions surged through me. Was I angry that two royal princes had schemed to use a trench rat for their political chess match? Absolutely. But beneath the anger was a more pathetic sting of disappointment. A stupid, foolish part of me had actually started to think Zev’s attention meant there was a spark of something genuine between us, too.

What an absolute idiot I am, I thought bitterly.

Ivar flinched, reaching out tentatively to touch my knee. "Elira, I’m sorry. I swear to you, the moment I knew you were my mate, I tried to shut Zev down—"

"It’s fine," I cut him off with a remarkably steady tone despite the stinging behind my eyelids. I forced a humorless laugh. "Really, Your Highness. I’d have to be a complete fool to think a royal prince would ever look at a girl from the Stonewick trenches without a secondary motive."

"Hey," Ivar murmured, shifting closer and pulling my hands out from under the blanket. He held them tightly in his warm palms. "Not anymore. I swear to you, not anymore."

For a long, quiet second, we just stared at each other.

Ivar had no fault here because if he wasn’t tracking me that day, my friends and I would have been dead. Not only that, a stranger Prince using invisibility to stalk a markless trench rat had ’suspicious’ written all over it, so I’d be a fool if I claimed I couldn’t read.

Moreover, here he was, baring out his heart to me. He wanted honesty... my mate.

A huff of air escaped my nose, and I muttered, "You’re a menace, you know that?"

"A certified menace," Ivar agreed with a crooked, lopsided grin, relief visibly washing over his features. "And you’re exceedingly sassy for someone who just woke up from a magic-induced coma."

"Maybe if I had some food in my stomach instead of listening to royal conspiracies, I wouldn’t be so sassy," I shot back, though I couldn’t fight the small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

"Ah, right." Ivar immediately brightened, turning to grab the silver tray he had brought in earlier. "Breakfast. And before you complain, I brought the good stuff."

He picked up a piece of warm, buttered bread and held it out toward me. I opened my mouth, letting him feed me like an invalid, half-tempted to roll my eyes at his sudden domestic streak.

"You know," Ivar said, chewing on his own piece of roasted meat, "I have some news. Good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"