Chapter 4

CHAPTER4

My vision blurred, and I couldn’t see Thalia anymore.

I couldn’t see or think about anything other than the words that had just passed his lips. He was going back. He brought me here, away from his brother, and now he was going back.

My hands shook as Jorah walked up and wrapped Thalia in his arms. He looked as genuinely happy to see her as Evren did, but it didn’t matter.

He was leaving.

“I’m going to take Adara to her room,” Evren spoke to them, but he was still looking at me.

And I couldn’t hide a single bit of my distress.

He reached forward, gripping my elbow in his hand, and he said something under his breath, but I couldn’t make it out. My heartbeat was rushing in my ears, hammering away every bit of composure I had managed to hold on to.

He was leaving.

Evren led me up the steps to the front of the palace, and I followed behind him wordlessly as two guards opened the doors for us and let us inside. Both bowed their heads in respect to my mate, and I wondered if they knew.

Did they all know they were going to be sending their prince back into the hands of their enemies?

Did they care for him at all or did they only care about what he could do for them? He was their prince but also their spy and their traitor.

I couldn’t decide if he was as much a pawn in their game as I was or if that was just what he’d have me believe. Was he the master who got off on the thought that he could fool me into believing any part of him belonged to me. My chest ached as we walked into the palace. The windows were made of mosaic glass that caused the sunlight to bounce about the room, and along the furniture made of warm, aging wood. The palace was grand, but it still somehow felt like a home. We stepped into a large great room, and the smell of smoky hearths, fresh flowers, and aged books hit me. Memories of the small home I shared with my mother flooded me.

“I’ll give you a tour once you’re settled.” Evren ran his fingers through his hair, and I watched the way the sun shined in through the windows and brought out the blaring darkness of it.

I didn’t answer him because I didn’t know what to say. The same thought was choking me, and I feared nothing else would escape my lips.

He was leaving.

We walked through a long hallway, the same aged stone greeting me inside the palace, but there was so much sunlight. When I had thought of the Sidra Palace, I had imagined an eerie castle that housed blood-thirsty vampyres. It was the image my mother and those in my village had painted in my mind.  It was hard to wade through all the lies. They slipped through my fingers as easily as the truth, and I couldn’t recognize one from the other.

“This is your room.” Evren stopped in front of a large wooden door with an ornate golden handle, and his hesitation hammered in my chest like the ghost of what we could have been. But he didn’t say another word. He simply reached forward and opened it, and I followed him inside.

The door clicked closed behind me, and I tried to hold in the gasping breath that was desperate to beg him not to leave.

“My room is directly across the hall.” He crossed his arms as he moved toward the bed. It was covered in layers and layers of white fabrics and fresh flowers set on the table at its side, and it wasn’t lost on me that he was the one to give me this even though he had taken me in the name of his kingdom.

It was grander than anything I had ever had. The bed called to me, and my bone-deep tiredness hit me as I stared at it.

“But you won’t be there.”

It wasn’t a question. It was the truth, and it was clawing at my chest as I glanced back to the door.

“I will be for a few days, but then no, I won’t.” He looked away as he said it so nonchalantly. He said it as if him leaving me didn’t feal like the biggest betrayal of all.

“Why?” I shook my head and balled my hands into fists as I looked up at him.

“Why am I leaving?”

“Why would you bring me here if you were just going to leave? Why would you bring me here at all?”

“Would you rather I had left you?” He spat the words at me, and this was what I needed. His anger I could deal with because it was easier to swallow. I was angry and scared, and it was all crashing against my chest, begging for release.

“I would rather you not lie!” I stepped toward him, and my magic snaked under my skin, uncontrollable and feral. “For the first time since you’ve met me, just tell me the truth.”

“The truth, princess, is that I have no choice but to return to the Fae Court. I cannot allow my father or the queen to think that I am the one that took you. We cannot afford for them to think anything other than the fact that we were attacked. They will know that the Blood Court took you, but I need to influence their next plan of attack.”

I shook my head, but he simply continued.

“If they find out that I am the one that took you, the fae queen will not stop until I am dead and you are laid bare before them. I have to find out what they know, what they suspect.”

“And what if they know the truth?” My stomach turned and chills broke out against my skin.

“Then I will be the one to deal with those consequences, and you will be safe under the protection of my kingdom.”

“No.” Fear clawed at me, and I balled my hands into fists as black smoke swirled around them in a mist of my terror. “I will not allow you to go back there. You are not going to get killed over me.”

A smile tipped on Evren’s lips, but his normal cockiness wasn’t there. Instead, it was replaced with a ghost of who he was as sadness filled his eyes.

“I don’t have a choice, princess. Neither of us do. This is bigger than either of us.”

His gaze snapped down to where my magic was growing. It crept closer and closer to him with every breath I took, and I couldn’t stop it. It was searching for him, begging him for things I wouldn’t dare speak out loud.

“Of course, we have a choice.” My voice was much softer than I meant it to be. It lacked conviction, lacked the anger I protected myself with.

He reached out his fingers, meeting my magic and toying with it in a gentle caress that had my breath catching in my throat and my knees threatening to buckle.

“If I had a choice, I would never go back. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have brought you here. I would have run.” He stepped closer to me, my magic wrapping around him and pulling him closer still. “I would have taken you anywhere in this world where it could have just been the two of us.”

“Why didn’t you?” My voice was weak and full of longing for us to be anything other than what we were. The memory of what I thought we were had become a weapon, and it pierced through me effortlessly.

“Because you would have paid the price for my selfishness. You, along with all of my people, would have suffered so that I could make sure my hands never ached to touch your skin.” He reached forward and his fingers, still wrapped in my own magic, grazed against my cheek. “Everyone would have paid the price for a selfish prince who wanted nothing more than to disappear in his mate.” He stopped and his dark gaze searched my face. “And there is nothing in the world I want more, princess, than to disappear in you.”

I stared up at him, breathless, because even though the taste of his betrayal was fresh on my tongue, I couldn’t stop the next words that passed my lips with no thoughts of the consequences. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.” He nodded before pressing his forehead to my own. His hand snaked to the back of my head, and he tangled his fingers in my hair as he held me against him. “But I will come back. I will always come back for you, princess.”

His words crashed into my chest, but they left nothing but a deep ache. Fear, pure and unrelenting, settled deep inside me, and refused to leave.

He was my mate, but I shouldn’t have cared this much. He had used me, betrayed me, and I should have been more than willing to let him go off and get himself killed. But I wasn’t. His betrayal blared in front of me, but I had learned none of the lessons it was damned to teach me.

I closed my eyes and tried like hell to pull my magic back into me. “Come,” I commanded it over and over in my mind. I could feel its hesitation, its own fear of letting him go, but if I was going to survive this kingdom, I needed to hold on to my anger like the lifeline it was.

I could handle it, mold it into exactly what I needed it to be, but fear I could not. My fear would damn me, but my anger would be my savior.

I pushed against Evren’s chest, forcing his body away from mine, and I blinked my eyes open with my new resolve.

Don’t let him in.

Evren’s gaze searched my own, and he opened his mouth but I beat him to it before he could utter a word.

“Go.” I nodded to the door.

“I’m not leaving for a few days, Adara.”

“Go,” I said again, and this time I hoped he heard how hollow I was trying to force myself to be. “I wish to be alone.”

“Princess, I know you’re angry, but…”

“Go!” My power surged inside me, stopping in its tracks where I was still trying to pull it away from him. It was hovering, waiting, like it had finally recognized the command of its master.

“Don’t do this, Adara.” I could see the spark back in Evren’s gaze, his anger returning full force with the taste of mine. “Don’t push me away because you’re scared.”

“I’m not.” I shook my head and tried to solidify my lie in my own head before I spoke it aloud. “I have spent more than enough time with the man who betrayed me, and I have nothing left to spare you. I simply wish to take a bath and sleep… or is that more than you’ll allow me while in your kingdom? Should I expect you to dress me up and parade me around like your brother did before you?”

I could feel his own power surging, slipping through his fingers as his anger built. He simply stood in place and stared at me as if he were trying to figure out who I was. But he wouldn’t find that answer staring back at him because I didn’t know the truth myself.

I was stuck in a haze of who I once thought I was and who I was destined to be, and I couldn’t find my way out. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. Every certainty that I had clung to, everything that had ever felt real. It had become smoke in my hands, and no matter how hard I gripped, it slid through my fingers.

“I will give you some time.” He bowed his head gently, and I scoffed at the show of honor.

“Lift your head, prince. Unless it’s easier for you to tell your lies when you’re bowing on your knees.”

He jerked his head up until he was looking directly at me, and a dark smirk formed on his lips.

“I will do whatever you want me to on my knees, princess. You want me to breathe all the wicked fucking truths to you against your thighs? I will. You want lies? I’ll worship you with my tongue while I tell you I don’t linger over your curves like a man starved. I’ll lie and say that your soft little moans don’t torture me at night when I try to rest. I’ll whisper a lie against your skin and make sure you know that my desire for you isn’t the most dangerous weapon that anyone can use against me.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as I choked on his words, and his gaze snapped to where my chest rose and fell with the rapid beat of my heart.

“I’ll tell you that leaving you here without me doesn’t feel like someone has my heart gripped in their fist squeezing tighter and tighter until I can’t remember how to breathe. So, which is it, princess? Do you want my truths or my lies? I am damned to give you whatever you want despite knowing it’s bad for me.”

An ache deep in my belly was making it hard to cling to anything other than the way he made me want him. My body was tired, I was tired, but still I wanted to reach out for him and beg him to give me everything he had just promised. “Please get out.”

He ran his tongue over his bottom lip before he reached forward again and pressed his thumb against my mouth. His own desire was screaming at me, begging me to challenge him, to make him give me exactly what he promised.

He pressed firmly against my lip, dragging it down as he slowly lowered his hand, and he didn’t stop until his hand pressed gently against my neck. His thumb rubbed against the spot where my pulse was hammering in want and confusion, and he watched the movement wordlessly.

I started to reach for him, to beg him for anything he was willing to give, when a soft knock sounded on the door. I expected Evren to drop his hand, to skirt back from me as quickly and easily as he did in the fae kingdom, but he did neither of those things. His hand tightened slightly, and moisture rushed between my thighs as I watched his want shift into anger at whoever was interrupting us.

“We’re not finished with this,” he leaned in and whispered against my skin, and the promise made me want to bar the door and refuse to let anyone else in.

I let out a slow, shaky breath as my pulse pounded beneath his fingers, but Evren slowly pulled his hand away from my neck and slid his gaze over my body, a measured caress as he took in every part of me.

He let out a huff of frustration before he turned from me and moved to the door. A woman a bit older than my own mother stood there with a tray of food in one arm and what looked to be clothes in the other.

My spine straightened as she stepped inside the room. My body was still thrumming from Evren’s touch, and I wasn’t prepared to see anyone else. It didn’t matter that her face was kind and aged with years of living, I had to treat everyone in this kingdom as a threat.

“I’m sorry, Evren.” She blushed, but she didn’t bow her head. “I didn’t realize you were in here or I would have waited.”

“It’s not an issue.” He looked back toward me and clenched his jaw as he crossed his arms. “Thank you for coming. Adara would like to bathe and sleep, but I’d like for her to have a warm meal first.”

“Of course.” The woman looked at me with a warm smile.

“Adara, this is Mina. Mina, Adara.” Evren looked back and forth between us with his shoulders stiff and his guard up.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mina.”

“Likewise.” She smiled and started to move past Evren, but he bent before she could and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re finally home.” She closed her eyes, and her face softened as she leaned into his touch. “At least for a little bit.”

“It’s nice to be home.” He stood back to his full height. “I missed you.”

“I know, dear boy.” She nodded her head. “I missed you, too.”

They spoke so fondly to one another, and I watched her carefully. This woman was part of his staff, yet she looked at him with more adoration in her eyes than his own mother had. It confused me as the contradiction between what I thought I knew and the truth in front of me collided. She moved past him and headed for the small table in the room, and I tracked her every movement.

“I’ll check on you in a bit,” Evren said as he stood at the door, but I simply nodded as I watched her place the tray down. I swallowed hard and tried not to allow him to see the emotion that was eating me alive as Mina moved toward me. The door closed with a soft click, and we were left alone.

“I brought you some clothes.” She dropped them onto the bed before pressing her hands onto her hips and assessing me from head to toe. “But Evren’s right. You should eat before you do anything else.”

“Have you worked for him long?” The sight of the way they had just embraced, the respect he had shown her, was playing over and over in my mind.

“His whole life.” She smiled softly, like a mother pulling up memories of her child. “That boy has been both a thorn in my side and the light of my days for years.”

She laughed and nodded to the table. “Why don’t you eat?”

“You know he’s leaving again?” I asked the question before I could stop myself. I was desperate to know why I was the only one affected by this news.

She winced, and her aged face turned ashen. “I do.”

I nodded before taking a step away from her and toward the fragrant food that was filling the room and making my stomach ache in hunger.

“I’m not happy about it,” she said softly, and I stopped and turned back to look at her. “Every decision that Evren makes is a choice he’s making for someone else. That boy is selfless in a way that puts himself at harm.”

Her words hit me with a weight that could only be held by the truth, but my anger made everything taste like a lie.

“It’s hard to love someone like that sometimes. To constantly fear for them and pray that your love doesn’t break your own heart. I guess you know a thing or two about that?” She tilted her head and watched me take in her words. She was calculating, sizing me up, but I would leave her wanting.

“I don’t love him.” I shook my head and glanced away from her.

“Don’t you?” She moved past me and busied herself with my food. “I don’t know much about you, Adara. I know that you’ve been blessed by the stars but cursed by Evren’s father. But I also know that loving that boy, if that’s what you choose to do, that would be your biggest blessing of all.”