Read Online NecessaryDecision by A.D. Christopher - Free Book Online

wouldn’t listen. Oddly, his father’s smirk
helped put him at ease. This was exactly the sort of thing he’d expected. At least
he felt as if he stood on familiar ground.
    “Well.” Baron leaned forward in his chair. “These two
slaves—these two honest men, as you yourself have just told me—have come to me
with a most interesting story. Shall I tell you? Or would you like to hear it
from one of them?”
    Kylar’s temper flared in his chest. With difficulty, he
stomped it down. “Whatever it is, I wish someone would tell me. I came here to
speak to you and to Mother. Can we please finish whatever this is and get on
with our evening?”
    “Fine. I shall have Job tell you. Job?”
    Job’s broad face paled. His eyes widened, and his hands
clutched at each other in panic. “Sire Grossman, I think maybe—”
    “Job.” This time his father’s glare wasn’t directed his way,
but Kylar could still feel the heavy weight of it settling around his
shoulders.
    Job swallowed and turned pleading eyes to Kylar. “My bunk in
the quarters…I sleep near Gable. Across from him.”
    Kylar almost said, “I know,” but stopped himself. Instead he
simply nodded and raised his eyebrows slightly as if to say, “And?”
    “Well.” Job looked at his feet. “A few months back Gable and
Varek were talking. They’re together, you know. They have been for a long time.
I mean, of course you know. Everybody knows, right? And they’d be warrior-mated
if slaves were allowed to take the—”
    “Get on with it,” Baron snapped.
    Job sighed. That pleading look came back into his eyes.
“Anyway, I heard them talking a few months ago. About…about you. Well, first it
was about Mercy and Caleb and Kerrick, and how they got permission to be
triple-mated. They talked about that for a while, I think, saying it was a
good—”
    “Job.”
    Job wasn’t usually like this, Kylar mused. Job was pretty
direct. Especially in the slave quarters when the lamps burned low. So what was
different about this? Why the circular route to whatever he was about to
reveal? Was it that awful?
    God, he was starting to get queasy, and a heavy weight built
in his chest. He didn’t know what was about to be said, but he knew it couldn’t
be good. He already wished he could unhear it, could back down the long stairs
and disappear into the forest, grab Gable and Varek by the arms and run as far
from the Pride lands as they could.
    “They said they wanted their freedom. And…after listening to
them…” Job gulped air and his next words came out in a rush. “Well, it seemed
like they figured the best way to get it would be to find a Pride-born who
would agree to triple-warrior-mate with them. That way they would be free.
They…it seemed like they decided on you.”
    Kylar didn’t understand, not at first. For a few long
seconds—seconds he would later desperately wish he could relive, those last
seconds before his heart shattered—he didn’t understand why Job looked so
unhappy, or Baron so triumphant as he poked Hendrix in the arm.
    Hendrix cleared his throat. He wouldn’t meet Kylar’s eyes
either. “I heard them too. A different night. I was in Job’s bed taking a nap
and they came in, talking about whether or not they could convince you to be
with them both. It was after…” He cleared his throat again and stared hard at a
spot on the wall. “You and Gable had already been together, but they needed you
to accept Varek too.”
    Kylar heard the last words through the most awful roaring
sound in his ears. His blood was rushing way too fast through his veins. This
couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.
    They’d planned this? They’d—they’d used him?
    An act, it had all been an act. All of his hopes and dreams
were the imaginings of a fool. His resolution to believe in love—no matter how
many pieces made up the whole—was the stupidest thing he’d ever done. Gable and
Varek had lied. Lied .
    They’d used him. They’d lied and told