I watched his back as he was leaving, and pondered what he just said.
‘I was just passing by.’
That was a lie.
Tallis was hiding sothing, I knew he was. There was a familiarity about him that I just couldn’t shake. It was this air of calm and cold that he carried. I had felt it once before and only with one other person.
But could it be?
I had asked him nurous tis and each ti he refuted my claims. He was not the somber prince I knew.
So why did they both carry the sa aura?
I shook my head thinking I had lost my damn mind. First the fake Ciana and now this. My problems and questions kept piling up with each passing day.
It didn’t matter now though. I had more important matters to attend to.
My mind was turning fast. Fake Ciana had professed her undying love to Warren. This was what I had been hoping for. Phase one of the plan was complete and now it was ti to move onto phase two.
Whoever Tallis was, he could wait.
I turned on my heel ready to walk back to where fake Ciana and Warren had been, but I slamd into a warm wall.
I stumbled a few steps back before a pair of strong arms ca out and caught .
“You okay there, Ciana?”
Warren helped to steady myself.
“Yeah,” I looked up at him. “Where is the other Ciana? What happened? I had to leave because...”
My voice trailed off as the words got stuck in my throat. I didn’t want to worry Warren. He had a tendency to sohow shift bla of every bad thing that happens onto himself, especially when it regarded .
I often thought that he had too much honor at tis. I wished he would be a little less chivalrous.
“Because?” He pressed.
“It’s nothing. Now tell what’s going on with her?”
Warren stepped closer, crossing into that imaginary bubble I had around .
“What happened, Ciana?” His eyes held mine.
“I told you nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing. Your heart’s racing, you have that little nervous nose twitch you do when you’re hiding sothing. So spill it.”
I stood still for a mont in complete shock. “How do you know about the twitch?”
He rolled his eyes. “I notice everything about you, Black. Now spill it.”
I let out a sigh and bit down on my lip. “Hawke ca by.”
I saw his body visibly tense. By now, he probably has heard about Hawke a few tis, both from catching him up on the important players in the pack, and from the girl he just spent a good amount of ti with.
“And?” His voice was tight and tense.
“And he may have tried to harass , a little bit,” I blurted out. “But he was drunk and he had two broken arms so he wasn’t really that much of a threat.”
His eyes darkened. “I need to have a word with him.”
I couldn’t help but compare Warren and Theo in my mind. In a situation like this, if it was Theo, he probably would just beat Hawke up....like Tallis had done.
I reached my hand out and grabbed his arm. “No need to. And besides, Tallis took care of him.”
“Tallis?”
I nodded. “But we aren’t talking about Hawke. We are talking about you and fake . What did she say?”
A somber look overtook Warren’s face. My heart imdiately dropped and I felt all the hope drain from my body.
“She agreed to elope with .”
The joy returned to my body and I bounced on the balls of my feet. “This is great news! You are the best! But... I could tell you’re upset. Sorry again for putting you through all this.”
“Don’t get wrong, I am happy for the progress. But it’s just...I feel like I’m going against my moral code.”
The smile slipped from my face. “I know...”
“This girl, fake you, loves . She actually loves for real and I just lied to her. I told her I loved her too and told her I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. What kind of man does that make ?”
I stepped up toward him and placed my hand on his chest right above his heart. I could feel the strong thumping on my palm. It was racing and I didn’t know whether it was from guilt or nerves. But whatever it was, I wanted it to calm down.
He had no business feeling guilty for this. If anything, all of this was my burden to bear.
“You are a good man, Warren. A great man in fact. I told you this many tis before and now I will tell you again. What you are doing for is a service that I will never be able to repay you for. However, please don’t feel guilty for what you’re doing with her either.”
He locked his gaze on , waiting for to continue.
“First of all, this girl is not fully innocent. She has taken my identity and is trying to take over my ho. This is wrong, and I will claim my na back.”
“And I want that for you.”
I nodded. “That being said, she can’t keep my identity forever. The most important thing is that she didn’t want this life. I could tell. No one would want to be soone else for the rest of their lives. So you’re helping her. You’re helping her to get out of here and get away from people that she is afraid of, like Raymond, like Hawke.”
I could tell Warren’s expression was softer.
“So remove the guilt from your heart. You’re helping and her. She might feel bad once she finds out you don’t really love her, but by then, at least she would have the freedom to carry on her own life, and that’s way more important than her being stuck here.”
He leaned his forehead against mine and let out one long breath that fanned my face. His scent of pine and morning grass surrounded .
When he pulled away he offered a small smile. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Know exactly what to say and when to say it.” He tucked away a stray piece of hair that had co out from under my hood.
I cleared my throat trying to make light of the situation. “I’m just stating the fact.”
Then I stepped away from him. “Shall we?”
He nodded and we walked away from the garden.
***
The alliance ceremony would be in two days. That was when we would have the elopent announcent.
In order for the alliance to go through, both Luther and Ciana would need to present. If Ciana suddenly went missing due to her recent nuptials, then no alliance would be ford. Raymond would be powerless without her backing.
That was stage one of the plan. The other stage was a little trickier.
I needed to steal the sacred artifact. Well, was it really stealing if it belonged to my parents? Depends on which angle you looked at it from.
Warren sat opposite . We had been going over everything for the past two hours. We made sure there were no cracks in our plans.
“Will you still et her tonight?” I asked him.
He nodded. “I need to keep up appearances, right?”
“Agreed.” I stood from my seat at the table. “We can convene again tomorrow. Go have fun with your fake fiancée.”
I ant it to co out a little light hearted but he didn’t take it lightly.
“Not funny. I don’t have to go, you know that right? I can tell her sothing ca up.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have joked about it,” I apologized sincerely.
“You’re forgiven,” he smiled.
“She needs to believe you two are madly in love, though. Unfortunately, for the sake of our plan, it would be better for you to go tonight.”
He sighed, “Okay.”
We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
Having Warren on board really did take a lot of the pressure off my back. He made this serious situation more bearable.
I decided to take a walk.
Not too long ago, my world had flipped upside down when I was sent to the royal palace, and now returning ho my world had flipped yet again. But like my father had always taught , I would brave the storm. Because that was exactly what us Blacks did. We moved with tides and rolled with punches.
I didn’t know how long I had been wandering until I found myself at Nelson’s cabin that was embedded deep within the forest.
I noticed that there were people milling around and carrying boxes and loading them onto a large truck.
I saw Nelson walk out the cabin with a large box in his hands. When he noticed he smiled and headed over my way.
“Look what the cat dragged in. You look like shit there my friend.”
I cleared my throat, deepening my voice a tad. “Rough night.”
“I get that. I was up all night trying to get sequins out of my places that sequins should never be.” He let out a light hearted laugh but I could tell from the pain in his eyes it had not been funny at the ti.
“Where are you guys going?”
“Oh, it’s almost ti for us to head out as soon as the ceremony is done. We don’t want to overstay our welco here in the pack.” He dropped the box down at his feet. “We made a few people laugh and put smiles on so grouchy people’s faces. I would say that this was a resounding success.”
“That’s a short stay...”
“We need to move on to other packs. We have to keep spreading the joy, you feel ? And staying in one place for too long gets boring. We are nomads, kid. We roam the land and see where the Goddess takes us.”
I nodded. “I get that. It’s just I’ll miss you guys around here. You added joy here.”
“And now we get to spread joy elsewhere.” Nelson patted my back and then picked up the box. “Maybe we will see you around.”
“Yeah, that would be nice.” I managed to smile. “Do you know where Tallis is by chance?”
“Oh yeah,” Nelson nodded to the cabin. “He’s out back. Probably still trying to find the pins I lost last night.”
“Thanks Nelson. I’ll see you around.” I walked into the house dodging people carrying large boxes. The fact they had to lug so much stuff around from pack to pack was impressive. But I didn’t know if I would ever be able to live such a lifestyle.
I walked out the back door and saw Tallis sitting on the porch looking out to the forest.
“What do you want?” He didn’t even turn to see if it was .
“How did you—never mind.” I walked up to the steps where he was sitting and sat beside him.
Tallis tensed up a little when I sat down.
We sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. The words were all jumbled in my mind. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted or even should say.
“Are you going to speak or are you just going to sit there?”
I shifted a little in my seat. “Well, firstly I just wanted to say thank you for what you did for yesterday with Hawke. You didn’t need to step in but you did it anyway. For that, I’m grateful.”
“I didn’t do much.”
I shook my head and moved a little closer. “Enough to save from him.”
I stared at him for a mont, trying to catch his gaze but he kept his eyes locked on the ground.
He then shot up from his seat and turned to face . “Look, I didn’t even an to save you, I just didn’t like that guy, so stop looking at like I’m your superman, it’s kind of creepy.”
“I... “
“And also, I don’t swing your way. I like won, not n.”
It took a few seconds to grasp what he was saying, and then I realized sothing important—I had been pretending to be a dude!
“I don’t know if you had any hopes of sothing happening between us, but let just clarify. There is no hope. Please just do both of us a favor and leave alone.”
Tallis walked back into the house leaving on the porch.
Heat rose to my cheeks completely and I was utterly mortified.
#
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