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then do things like this that send me in a different direction.”  I looked at his face and softened mine so caught up in it all that I’d forgotten the pain he must be in to tell me all this. 
    “Try being the tough guy in this.  You make us all act like pansies without so much as lifting your pinky finger.  I can't make this decision for you, Grace.  You know where I stand, how I feel.”
    Fine, I'll seal it aloud, shout it to the heavens.  “Then you know I really don’t care about the others as much as I do you.  I choose who I want to be with.  And Ian, Prince of the Seelie Court, who hasn’t a last name for me to say when I mad, I love you!  I love you!  I.love.you!  I don’t care what everyone else says.  So stop hiding things from me that supposedly predict my entire dang future.  Pike is a good friend to you and perhaps to me one day.  He is honest with me or at least loyal.”  I turned now and stood, put my hands on his shoulders, and shook him harder than I meant too.   “Stop trying to protect me 100% of the time and try loving me 100% of the time.  Protection is a privilege, but not a requirement.  I want to see you smile, not destroy yourself inside because you are keeping secrets from me that could tear you and me apart in the end.  Or worse, destroy yourself trying to keep me safe.  What kind of life is that?  And how would that not turn to something to abhor later.   I don’t want to be your burden.”
    He hated being vulnerable in front of me.  The more I am around him, the more I see the shield unfold it’s hidden depths.  He hated worse what he saw as power over him.  Not the court power, but the power I’d held for many years now and didn’t know it till right then, appreciate it like I will from here on out.  I could tear him apart at the seams if I wanted to and he’d follow me the whole way as he could do to me. 
    “Then you should also know that Pike is honorable in his intentions.  He only wants what he thinks is rightfully his.  He doesn’t mean any ill harm to you.  And…that Kin is watching your house.  That is what Pike came to tell you tonight.  Us…tonight.  He is watching and waiting.  Though he doesn’t have any clues yet as to why Kin is watching.”
    I was relieved at Ian’s honesty and alarmed at the news at the same time. 
    “We have guards posted in your house and around it.  Kin knows we’ve been there.  If he’s looking for a loophole, we’ll find it first.”
    I was calmer than I should be and only because he was talking.  “What if he is bluffing to keep you busy?  Perhaps his agenda is somewhere else entirely.” Then suddenly, I wasn’t...calm that is.
    “Perhaps.”
    “What if he intends to hurt my parents to get to me?  Or stir the human world to create mistrust or lure me there to hurt me or…”
    “Stop, Grace.  This is why we hesitate to tell you things.  Pike isn’t completely honest with you all the time.  He has secrets to keep you safe too.” 
    He liked saying that, I noticed.  Acting childish I noticed too. “Like what?”  I pouted my lip feeling the crisp wind slap my hair in my face.  It wasn’t this windy moments ago and for the most part, rarely happened at all near the Seelie court.  In fact, the angrier I got about Kin, the more it stirred.  The Fey have control of the earth's plant life and all that grows, so maybe more. 
    I’d done it again, forced something out of him.   He sighed before adding more signaling it would be bad.  This shouldn't be the way to get information though.  “We found Kinsler in your bedroom a few nights before we took you into the court.” 
    I knew now, he really just didn’t want to admit another way of failing me. I was finally realizing this was almost physically painful to him, but I needed to know this though and gestured for him to go on.
    “He was trying to make it look like you ran away.  He wrote a convincing goodbye letter for your