Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

ELODIE

When Elodie had been a child the world had handed her everything. She lived in a palace, and she was the apple of her father's eye. There was nothing he would not do for his little princess. She was already pretty, but those who tended her made her beautiful. Every single day. And she was not just beautiful but brilliant as well. They took her gifts and made them wonders. She was tutored by the greatest minds, she trained with the most skilled warriors, and she was loved. Loved by everyone. Her family, her courtiers, her people.

When she first saw the dark-haired son of a country knight, skulking around the kitchens having been sent on a fool's errand by his new superiors, she'd known in an instant that he was the man she would love. Maybe not in the way adults knew such things, but she knew he was meant for her. When others mocked him, a fire burned in her. She didn't understand why they couldn't see Roland as she did, why they dismissed him.

And Roland, her beloved Roland, had fought and struggled and made his way from the bottom right up to the top. He was her champion by the time she was seventeen, her lover by the time she was twenty, but always he was her everything.

He's mine, she had said. And never had words been more true. Heart and soul, they belonged together.

Right up until the moment Evander of Ilanthus arrived.

The prince was handsome. No one could deny that. Charming and courteous. Everything a prince should be. The brother of a king, sent on a mission of reconciliation, to seek a marriage that would form an alliance.

Roland looked heavy-set and inelegant in comparison. He wasn't schooled in scholarly works like Evander, and he couldn't dance. Or wouldn't. He got embarrassed and she would tease him. It was done with love but later she realised that he was sensitive about it and regretted every time she had laughed.

Evander courted her with the utmost care, set out to seduce her as only he could. And she fell for it. Idiot that she was, she let herself believe in the wrong fairy tale, in the wrong handsome prince. She agreed to the marriage.

Her father was old, her mother dead and her kingdom waiting for Queen Aeryn to have an heir. The Aurum needed her line. She had duties. Each time she took the vows of a new Paladin, the flames burning behind her, the light filling her, she knew people worried that she might be the last. The royal blood of Asteroth passed only through the female line. The Aurum awakened only when a queen sat on the throne, ignoring even its chosen Paladins and the maidens who tended it. Without her, there was no one.

It was only on the night of the wedding she realised she had made a terrible mistake. Her handsome prince became a beast the moment the vows were exchanged. There was no true love between them. He was of the line of Sidon, used to ruling, born to subjugate witches to the service of the Nox. And that was all she was to him. Another witch. Another uppity woman who didn't know her place. He didn't mean to be a consort, he told her. He had been born to be a king, but for the accident of being second born, and that was what he would be in this relationship. If she knew what was good for her she would make sure never to cross him, never to disobey him and never, ever to look at another.

Of course she told him what he could do with his demands. She told him in no uncertain terms, defiant and furious.

Evander hit her. No one had ever hit her before, not like that. She'd learned to fight, and in the training ground things happened. But this was different. The humiliation was so much worse. As she struggled up from the floor of their bridal chamber, still in her wedding finery, he opened his breeches, pulled out his dick and told her to get her mouth to work.

When she recoiled he had grabbed her by the throat and?—

The door had burst open and Roland had saved her. Roland, who had always been there, always so kind to her, her Roland who she had cast aside. He saw her at her worst, degraded and pathetic, and his only thought was to rescue her.

He'd drawn his sword and advanced on the prince.

‘Kill me and you invite war,' Evander had snarled. ‘My people will fall on you like a tidal wave and destroy everything you hold dear.' And he was right. Because he was still a prince and he was under her protection. If Roland killed him, if she allowed that, there would be war and so many people would die.

Perhaps it was what Evander wanted, she thought later. Perhaps that had always been his plan.

‘Don't, Roland,' she'd said. ‘He's not worth it.'

Roland had carried her to safety. He'd cared for her. And she had finally realised what love meant, what it looked like in the real world. She finally knew he loved her in every action, with every movement, and that, like the fool she was, she had taken him for granted.

Later, much later, she'd stood in the chamber of the Aurum with blood covering the marble. Evander lay lifeless before her, having taken his own life to summon the Nox. As his empty eyes stared in triumph at the darkness bearing down on her, Elodie had known only one thing. She didn't do this to save herself, or her people, or even her kingdom. She did it to save Roland.

It was like she summoned him. Because he always came when she needed him. He always had. And always would.

‘Elodie?'

The door had stood open and Roland ran towards her. She could feel the air shivering. The shadowy figure formed of dark magic rose from the shadows and the blood, twisting, transforming, seeking out the thing that would defeat Elodie, her greatest fear, her greatest weakness, and she summoned all the power at her command, draining the Aurum to defeat it. It would kill him. It would kill them all.

Elodie flung out her hand, and with it a force of magic, not at the Nox, but at Roland. She hurled him back from the door and felt his look of shock and betrayal like she was being stabbed in the heart.

So be it, she thought, and slammed the door between them. He was safe and that was all that mattered. Her Roland was safe.

Elodie had given herself up to destiny with a smile on her face.

But destiny had other ideas.