Exported [Book 3 in the Expiring Series]

38 Liar

The room turns over itself, and I blink. "What?"

I feel Jonas's hand on my arm. "Iris . . ."

"Is it true?"

He looks between me and Erik. He swallows. "Yes."

"I shot you." Erik takes a sip. "But I didn't mean to."

I shake my head. "What?"

"Iris, please." Jonas grasps my arms in his hands. "I still needed him as my Tresais."

I step out of his hold and around him to stand before Erik. "Why would you take his offer?"

Erik props his legs back up on the pillows. His arm holding the wine bottle hangs limply off the couch. "What other reason would I have gone back to the Society as Tresais? You." He gestures to me with the bottle. "I'd never have any sort of chance to win you back if you knew it was I who pulled the trigger, that it was an accident. But with Jonas, you'd just believe it was an accident." Shrugging, he stares up at the ceiling. "It's no matter though. You still chose him."

I dig my fingers into my forehead, putting pressure on the headache cropping up. "Can someone get the bottle from him?"

Jonas moves to do so immediately, and it takes Basile holding him down for Jonas to wrestle the bottle away from Erik.

On one hand it's good to know that the man I love did not in fact shoot me. That's always good to know. Still the deception hurts. And I get it. At the time I meant little to him. We were hardly anything to each other and Elleany came first. It still has to come first. But he could have told me the truth a long time ago.

"Iris," Jonas starts, "can we talk?"

I bite my cheek, my gaze going from him to Erik. "Not right now. We have to make sure Erik doesn't puke all over Andrew's couch."

******

"We didn't know what we were at the time."

Jonas sits across from me in the car Gwen arranged to take us to Paris. There's the distinct scent of new embedded in the seats. The divider between us and the driver is up, but we still tread with caution while speaking.

"Obviously, I'm relieved the man I'm marrying didn't shoot me." I run my hands over the lap of my toga-esque dress—very Society like. Gwen made sure this dress had sleeves. When the car arrived at the abandoned farmhouse Basile had dropped us off at, we found the clothing Gwen promised. I'd be fascinated in knowing how she pulled this all off. "Why didn't you tell me the truth after Erik left the Society?"

Jonas runs his fingers over the silver laurel-wreath crown in his lap. A green one sits beside me. "I planned to but then I got scared that you wouldn't be able to overlook the lie, and so I held off and with every day that passed, I kept thinking you were less and less likely to forgive me."

We've entered Paris by now, and outside my window, historic buildings are filled by chain stores.

"Is there anything else you've kept from me?"

"No." He sets his laurel wreath to the side and slides off his seat to kneel before me in the space between our seats. Lifting my laurel wreath from the seat, he brings it in front of him and clasps it in both hands.

"You and our country are my greatest priority. You come before my throne."

It's like a hand squeezes my heart.