“Sick fuck,” Jacob curled his lip in disgust as he watched Ethan’s lifeless body crumple to the floor. While his team filed into the room to investigate it for anything useful, he lifted a hand to, finally, respond to Caspian, who had been verbally barraging him since the drone had been destroyed. “The obstacle is clear now, Your Majesty. Harry is checking for signs of life.” As he spoke, he watched the other man kneel at Iris’s side, slipping two fingers under her chin in search of a pulse.

[color=#b97703]“And?”[/color] Cas pressed immediately, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He wished Ethan hadn’t destroyed the drone. He couldn’t see anything, and the last thing on his screen had been Iris with a knife sticking out of her middle. His hands were shaking as he waited, hoping against hope that the other man hadn’t killed her—that they weren’t too late to bring her back to the palace. He didn’t know what he would do if she was dead.

Meanwhile, Jacob arched a brow when Harry said his name. He’d expected the other man to pronounce her gone, so when Harry acted like he might have noticed something, the security head stepped over to see for himself what was going on. “Stand back,” he ordered, dropping low to the ground to press two fingers against Iris’s throat. He stayed still for a few seconds with eyes narrowed in focus. Just as he was about to agree with the other man that he’d imagined a pulse, he felt a faint thump underneath his fingertips. She was still alive.

He almost parted his lips to tell Caspian, but before the words could leave his mouth, he hesitated. Iris was alive, but there had been a reason why he’d separated her from the fledgling king. Instead of reaching for his comm device, he considered the situation. Iris wasn’t going to last much longer without immediate medical attention, and he wasn’t cold-blooded enough to leave her to die. However, he also knew that bringing her back to his ruler would just put them back at square one—perhaps even lower, since he imagined Caspian would be ten times as protective of her after everything that had just happened. Even though the part of his that was bound to serving his king squirmed at the thought, he knew deep down that it was better for the people of Aspiria if their current liege moved on. He was going to have to pull some treasonous strings.

An idea formed, and he touched his device, taking a deep breath before he finally answered Caspian’s question.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

[color=#b97703]“No way.”[/color] The color drained from Cas’s face, and he collapsed backwards into the seat he’d earlier abandoned. [color=#b97703]“A-Are you sure? She can’t be dead. There’s no way.”[/color]

“She no longer has a pulse,” Jacob lied. “I truly am sorry for your loss… If you’d like, I can stay behind to give her a proper burial.”

Cas pressed a hand down over his face. He didn’t [i]want[/i] Jacob to bury her. He didn’t want anyone to bury her. He wanted to bring her back to the palace to be by his side, where she would be safe and they wouldn’t have to worry about these kinds of sick attacks by the rebellion. In the time they’d been together, she had become more important to him than anyone else, and now she was just gone? He bit down on his lower lip as it started to quiver. [color=#b97703]“This is my fault,”[/color] he whispered, unable to raise his voice any louder without breaking it. [color=#b97703]“I shouldn’t have left her all alone in that place, without anyone to protect her. If I’d just ignored the people who would protest, I could have brought her into the palace with me sooner, and she wouldn’t have ended up with [i]him[/i] again—”[/color]

“It isn’t your fault,” Jacob interrupted his spiraling. “You didn’t know he was looking for her. No one did. The way this ended was regrettable, but you did everything you could, you hear me?”

For a few beats, Cas didn’t respond. At that moment, he couldn’t bring himself to agree with the guard. He felt like he could have done more—[i]should[/i] have done more—to prevent Ethan from doing this. He’d let Iris down again, and this time, there was nothing he could do to fix it. [color=#b97703]“Bury her in the capital cemetery. Please,”[/color] he murmured, his voice cracking on the last word as the emotions finally spilled over along with his tears.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

With their assignment over and the house cleared as vacant, the soldiers filed back out to the crafts they’d taken to return to the capital. On their way out, one of the men stopped by the top floor to get Jacob. “Are you coming, sir?” he asked, pointing down the stairs toward the front door.

“Go on without me. I just have a few more things to wrap up here before I leave,” Jacob shook his head. “I’ll take another vehicle back.”

“If you say so,” the soldier shrugged, turning to leave him to his business.

The security head watched him go for a few seconds. As soon as the other man was out of earshot, he spun around and took the sleeve of his shirt between his teeth, giving it a sharp tug to tear and pressing it down against Iris’s midriff, where the blood was pooling around the blade of the knife. “Come on,” he muttered as he worked to staunch the wound. “Stay with me, Iris. You just need to hang on a little longer now…”