10 Chapter (1)

For a long moment, there was only silence.

Rohan eyed the prince and opened his senses, trying to determine the extent of the prince’s suspicions. Physically, Jamil felt better than he’d felt in forever, the aftershocks of pleasure making his whole body feel wonderfully loose. But the suspicion that was forming at the back of the prince’s mind was making him more alert by the moment.

Rohan still tried. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your file says you’re bonded, but I know it’s a lie. Your mind doesn’t feel like that of a bonded person. You don’t feel like a widower, either. So that means your file is a lie.”

Rohan’s jaw clenched.

He gave Jamil a sardonic look. “I don’t think you were in any condition to judge the state of my bond when you were begging me to get deeper in you, Highness.”

The insinuation in his words was unmistakable and the prince flushed, his temper predictably flaring.

“How dare you, you brutish, mannerless cad—” He cut himself off, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You’re doing this on purpose. You’re trying to distract me.”

Dammit.

“Who are you?” the prince repeated, his face pale. “If you don’t have a bond, you must be… you must be a rebel.” He spat the word out as if it was dirty, something vile and unthinkable.

Rohan gave him a pinched look. He was perfectly aware where the prince’s hatred for the rebels originated—that was the reason he was here, after all—but he still felt cornered, at a loss what to do, and he didn’t care for the feeling. This wasn’t the plan. He’d never planned to have a conversation with the Crown Prince of the Third Grand Clan, much less expected to get caught in such an idiotic manner.

Rohan glanced around, looking for security cameras, but thankfully, there were none in this part of the royal stables. Thank fuck for small mercies.

Looking Jamil in the eye, Rohan pushed his will and said, “You will walk with me, calmly and without attracting anyone’s attention.” He felt the prince’s will buckle, trying to fight off thepulsion and almost seeding. Almost. Rohan felt a reluctant twinge of admiration—Rohan was a very strong telepath, with a particular gift forpulsion, and few could resist him when he chose to use it. Rohan wasn’t exactly proud of this talent, but it was useful. He couldn’t afford getting caught. The fact that Jamil had almost managed to throw off thepulsion spoke volumes about his willpower—and the innate strength of his telepathy, considering that the remnants of his marriage bond were still limiting the prince’s abilities.

But it wasn’t relevant now. He needed to get them somewhere they could talk freely before Prince Jamil managed to throw off thepulsion. The prince was still fighting it, even though he was following Rohan obediently enough.

Finally, Rohan reached his room at the back of the stables, let the prince inside, and locked the door. “Sit down on the bed.”

The prince did as instructed, his movements wooden and jerky.

Finding a few cravats, Rohan bound Jamil’s hands behind his back and gagged him.

He took thepulsion off and the prince immediately sprang to his feet, his eyes burning with fury.

“We didn’t kill your husband,” Rohan said.

The prince went very still, his eyes wide.

There was still hostility and distrust in them, but he was listening.

“Sit down,” Rohan said. “Please, Your Highness. I’ll explain. And I’ll take the gag off when you calm down.”

After a moment that felt like forever, Prince Jamil sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes burning holes into him.

Even now, despite the seriousness of the situation, despite the hostility in those eyes, Rohan felt the same unnerving, sickening pull toward this man, the urge to touch and merge almost maddening. It was frustratingly hard to focus.

Clasping his hands behind his back, Rohan fixed his gaze at some point a little to the right from the prince’s eyes and said, “You’re right: I’m what you would call a ‘rebel,’ though we don’t call ourselves that. Most of the stuff you Calluvians say about us is a lie. We don’t attack civilians. We weren’t the ones who killed your husband.”

Prince Jamil mumbled something through his gag, giving him a demanding look. It didn’t take a genius to guess what he wanted.

Rohan eyed him warily before untying his hands and taking the gag off. He knew it was a gamble, and he was relieved to find that it had paid off: Jamil seemed too distracted by his statement to call for help.

“Prove it,” the prince bit off, not quite meeting his eyes. He likely didn’t want to get caught by the pull between them, either.

“I can’t prove it,” Rohan said. “That’s why I’m here. We need proof that we didn’t do it, that we didn’tmit any of the crimes we’re used of.”

Jamil gave him a distrustful look. “Even if what you’re saying is true, your people are still renegades. Your stance against the Bonding Law makes all of you criminals.”

Rohan chuckled. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Every sentient being should have the right to refuse the bond the Council has enforced on Calluvians for thousands of years. Refusing to bind our children’s telepathy shouldn’t make us outlaws. But we’ll always be outlaws while we’re being used of crimes we didn’tmit.”

The prince frowned. “Are you actually implying that someone is intentionally trying to make the rebels look bad?”

Rohan gave a clipped nod. “I know it seems unbelievable, but it’s true.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

Rohan hesitated.

“Years ago, our people saved an important person who was about to be murdered,” he said at last, choosing his words carefully. “The assassins were hired by a very powerful political figure on Calluvia. Years later, they are still trying to finish the job. We thwarted their every attempt so far, though the one last month was ufortably close.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” the prince said, but his voice was significantly less hostile. It sounded almost curious.

Rohan sighed. “To be honest, we don’t know for sure. We only know that we have a very powerful enemy we’ve managed to royally piss off for years. Maybe that person thinks if they discredit us enough, we’ll give up the person we are protecting. It’s also likely that they’re afraid that the person in our protection mighte forward and tell everyone the truth. If it happens, the rebels would be their only witnesses, so discrediting us makes sense. But this is all a bit of a stretch. Killing your husband just to discredit us is definitely too much of a stretch. That’s why I’m here: to find out if the murder of your husband ispletely unrelated. Even if it’s unrelated, I still need to find proof that Tai’Lehrians didn’t do it.”

The prince stared at him incredulously. “Do you expect me to believe you just like that?” He frowned. “Wait. Tai’Lehrians? What does the entire colony have to do with the rebels? The colony is governed by Lord Tai’Lehr, who is a lord-vassal of my House. Are you saying the rebels seized control of the colony?”

Rohan grimaced, annoyed with himself for the slip. In his defense, he wasn’t used to speaking of their people as “rebels” or “renegades”— the terms Calluvians used for them. It also didn’t help that he was still incredibly distracted by the mental pull he felt toward the prince. It wasn’t as bad as it had been before their pseudo-merge, but it still distracted him more than it should.

“We didn’t seize control of anything,” Rohan said. “We aren’t violent. There was no uprising.”

“Then how?”

Sighing, Rohan sat down next to the prince. “It happened gradually, over the centuries,” he said. “The first ‘renegades’ that left their clans thousands of years ago were really hiding in the Kavalchi Mountains, as the rumors say. But it wasn’t safe there, so they decided to relocate to another pl. They chose an uninhabited pl relatively far from Calluvia and established a settlement there. They couldn’t know that in a few decades the Third Grand Clan of Calluvia would discover enormous deposits of korviu there and send Lord Tai’Lehr to establish a colony.”

“Are you saying the rebels were on the pl first? That our colonists didn’t notice their settlement? How is that even possible?”

Rohan watched the prince’s hand move closer to his. He didn’t think it was intentional—Prince Jamil didn’t seem aware of what he was doing—and he wondered if he should pull away before their hands touched. He ought to. He knew that.

He didn’t move.

“The unique maic field around Tai’Lehr prevents scanners and satellites from working well, just like it interferes with teleporters and long-rangemunicators,” Rohan heard himself say, watching the prince’s milky-white, smooth hand settle next to his brown, calloused one. Their knuckles brushed and Rohan almost hissed from the sensation, losing his train of thought for a moment.

The prince snatched his hand away and clenched it into a fist, avoiding Rohan’s eyes. The tips of his ears were red, as red as Jamil’s pursed lips.

It took an incredible effort to remember what they were talking about. Rohan cleared his throat and continued, as if nothing had happened. “The first contact between the two settlements happened only after most of the Calluvian military ships departed. It wasn’t violent. Lord Tai’Lehr thankfully wasn’t an idiot. He realized that his people were far outnumbered and very disadvantaged by the fact that the rebels’ telepathic abilities were much stronger. So he agreed to keep the rebels’ settlement secret under the condition that they would do no harm to the colony, either. For decades, the two settlements existed separately, but little by little, they started mixing. Eventually, the Calluvian colonists stopped bonding their children, since they saw how much stronger the unbonded rebels’ telepathy was. They didn’t want to be at a disadvantage. You can probably guess the rest.”

“They became one colony,” the prince said pensively. “And now all of its citizens are unbonded. Outlaws.”

“Technically, yes. But it should be our right to