43: The Ruse

I couldn’t help but wonder if all this was my fault. If I’d just listened to her when she’d insisted that she didn’t need the recognition or the formalities, would we still have to go through any of this? Would Ulf have even found out about her if we hadn’t stuck to tradition and invited him?

Candice may have still been a thorn in our side at some point. Be she wouldn’t have been given the chance to create this much trouble. I was sure of that much. She would’ve been killed on sight the moment she’d stepped a foot into our territory. It was just the way that she’d been posed and done up to look like Selene that had saved her life.

And now she’d been allowed to get under all of our skin. Without letting Selene rip her mind to shreds there was no way of knowing what information that she’d given to Ulf. We could only assume that she’d divulged every intimate detail that she knew about all of us in her attempt to be his ally. I never should’ve let her stay