My Brother's Keeper

Meryn rubbed her hands together. "Sounds promising. Kendrick did offer sexual favors for coffee."

Noah was wide-eyed and stared up at the squire. "They would make an amazing couple."

Elizabeth sipped her tea. "You may be on to something, Meryn."

Anne accepted her cup of tea from Ryuu. His eyes met hers, and he winked. Anne turned away, her cheeks on fire. Was it evident to the others how she felt? That the mention of Kendrick with anyone else was enough to make her feel ill? Ryuu laid a hand on her shoulder briefly before turning back to the teacart to resume serving.

She thought of Kendrick and the dream she'd had the night before. Was that the reason why he joined the men today? So he could ask Darian about her dream? She sipped her unsweetened green tea and hoped Kendrick found an answer, one way or another.

*****

Kendrick felt a chill run down his spine. He stopped mid-step and shuddered.

Darian gave him a funny look from where he hung doing inverted sit-ups. "Are you well?"

Kendrick rubbed his arms. "Someone must be talking about me." He walked over to Darian and leaned against the workout station.

"Did I just see you talking to my brother?" Darian asked.

"Yes, I needed to ask a favor of him."

Darian sat up and hopped off the bench. "But that wasn't why you joined us today was it?"

Kendrick glanced back at the house. "No, I need to talk to you about something."

"Of course. What's on your mind?"

"Keelan," Kendrick said shortly.

Darian exhaled slowly. "What can I tell you?"

"Did he say anything about Anne?"

Darian's eyes narrowed. "How do you mean?"

Kendrick looked up at Darian, giving him the full weight of his stare. "Did Keelan say anything about them being mates?"

Darian ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe." He looked around to see if anyone was listening. "Right before he... it happened, Keelan confessed to me that he wasn't attracted to Anne at all."

Kendrick's heart began to pound against his breastbone. "What did you tell him?"

"I asked him if he had tried being attracted to her, he said, yes, of course, but there was nothing between them. He said they got along great, but he was not drawn to her at all."

Kendrick shook his head. "But he dreamt of her." It all came back to this. If Keelan had had a mating dream of Anne, then she wasn't his.

Darian nodded. "And a good thing he did, too; otherwise, she might be dead."

Kendrick grabbed Darian's upper arms and shook him. "What do you mean?"

Darian took a step back to dislodge himself from Kendrick's grasp. "Calm down; she's unharmed. Keelan dreamt that there was something wrong with her car and she died when it went off the road and slammed into a tree. When she took the car in at his insistence, they found that there was something wrong with her brakes."

Kendrick stared at the large fae. "Gods!" he whispered harshly. "It wasn't mating dreams at all; he was having premonitions to keep her safe."

Darian blinked, then blinked again. "You know, I think you may be right. The dream he had about her car wasn't the first premonition that he had about Anne."

"He had dreamt of her before?"

Darian nodded. "Though I don't think he remembered. The only reason I remembered is because of what Anne told us when we met her. She recalled the first time she met Aiden. He saved her from being kidnapped, but we wouldn't have been in town that day if not for Keelan's insistence that we had to be there." Darian frowned. "But why Anne? Why was Keelan getting so many premonitions about Anne if she wasn't his mate."

Darian's question had Kendrick reeling, because the answer was too unfair to be true. "Because he was protecting his brother's mate," he whispered, staring down at the ground. Around him, the day went as usual, but Kendrick was trapped in this moment of realization.

He heard Darian suck in his breath. "Oh, Gods, she's your mate!"

Kendrick looked up and laughed harshly at Darian's expression. "You don't get it."

Darian stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Talk to me Kendrick; your eyes are flashing silver. I'm not a witch, but I know that can't be good."

Kendrick pulled all of emotions into his core. He took a deep breath and began channeling the anger and hopelessness down through his legs and into the ground. Only when the urge to destroy everything around him receded did he open his eyes to look at his brother's friend. "Two hundred years ago, I had a premonition that Keelan would die as a member of the Alpha Unit. When he told me he had volunteered to come to Lycaonia, I forbade him to come. For the first time in his life, he defied me. He said that he had his own reasons for coming to Lycaonia. I always believed that he had put your wellbeing as his fellow warriors above mine as his brother, and I was angry. I didn't understand until this morning how much you care for each other. What if Fate had to use Keelan to save my mate because I couldn't leave Storm Keep? What if it's my fault he was hurt?"

Kendrick stared at the fae's feet, unable to risk the look of condemnation that he was sure was in Darian's eyes.

"Kendrick?"

Kendrick looked up just in time to see a large fist flying toward his head. When the punch connected, he flew backward and ended up staring up at the sky. Darian walked to where he lay and leaned over him. "Feeling better?"