I thrashed against Luka’s hold, screaming at the top of my lungs, and looked around for anything I could use to end my life. “Please, Eva… Don’t do this. You’re going to draw too much attention. They will come-”
“What the fuck is going on down here?” Orion boomed, his angry footsteps like thundering drums in my veins. The sound of my imminent death beating closer and closer. He rounded the corner, halting momentarily before taking in the scene before him. “What’re you doing down here, boy? You should be up at the party not down here comforting this gutter whore.”
Luka stood tall, angling my body behind his before speaking. “Orion, she… Haven’t you done enough? This has gone beyond madness. By the gods, this is pure lunacy! You’ve done it. You’ve fucking broken her. Now leave her be.”
Orion smiled, peering around to look down at me. “This is where the fun starts, my boy. This means she’s malleable. I have the ability to mold her to be whatever the fuck I want her to be!” He laughed, widening his arms, and shaking his head. “No, I can’t leave her alone. And you know that, or you wouldn’t have pushed her behind you.”
“She’s fucking suicidal. You have her staring at the severed heads of her mate and his friend.”
Orion came forward and I flinched, cowering further into the corner and behind Luka. “Is that right, princess? You want to take your own life?”
I spit on him, hoping to push him far enough to kill me himself. “Yes.”
His nostrils flared, and his eyes ran wild. “For every time you try to provoke one of us to kill you…” He snapped his fingers, my vision swarming with images of Matthew down on his knees, blood dripping down his face, begging for Kalen’s life. A battle axe swung, sending Kalen’s head rolling into the dirt next to Matthew, his screams permeating the air. “For every time you eventhinkabout attempting to take your own life…” He snapped his fingers again. This time, Matthew looked up into Damien’s face as he sauntered toward him. His eyes filled with rage as Damien drew back his weapon and swung. My name a whisper on his lips. I screamed, interrupting the visions he was sending into my mind. “I’ll replay these memories for you. And when that stops being enough to control you, how about we look at adding your daddy’s head to our collection? We won’t need him after your coronation.”
He leaned in, the foul smell of his breath causing me to retch. “The fact that he still lives is a courtesy, Eva. Remember that.” His hand reached up and patted my face harshly before he stood. I fought the urge to bite his finger off. “Next time you try to pull whatever stunt you undoubtedly just did, I’ll kill your fucking father, and then I’ll kill your stupid little handmaid, Briar. Fuck, I’ll work my way through this entire godsdamn kingdom if I have to. But you will stay and rule next to my son. You’ll do your duty and produce heirs and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll allow you to die. But that is a long, long, way off.” He turned on his heel, storming away as quickly as he had come in.
I broke down in tears, clawing at my skin at the implications behind his words. I would never be free of him. My one chance to end this was over before it had ever begun.
“What the fuck did you do that for?!” I screamed at Luka.
“I couldn’t let you kill yourself…”
I growled. “That’s not your godsdamn decision, Luka. Did you ever think about that? Did that ever fucking occur to you?” He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “Of course, it didn’t. The love of my life is gone. Matthew is gone, Luka. What good is a duty or a fucking crown when I can’t…” I felt my voice break as sobs broke free once more. “When I don’t get to spend any of it with him by my side? There will be no heirs. No one to continue my line, which means Erina will have to pick up the crown anyway, and at that point she’ll be unprepared and resent me even more than she already does. So let me end this incessant fucking misery now. Please…”
He looked at me with pity in his eyes, and not because I was broken, but because we both knew what I was saying was true. But at this point, we also knew I couldn’t do it because I wouldn’t risk my family’s life. Not when Orion’s threats still hung in the air. My heart felt like it was being torn into a million little pieces and then stomped on by a heard of wild stallions. I felt the haunted stares of Kalen and Matthew, a threat as to what these monsters were capable of. I made a promise in that dark and dingy cell with the coppery tang of their blood on the air that I would find a way to ensure my family’s safety, and as soon as I did that… I would follow him to the heavens where I might find an ounce of peace once again. But peace wasn’t going to come for me until then, so I let the grief consume me. The fight was gone. Acceptance was all that was left.
Acceptance that I was a broken shell of who I used to be, and because Matthew was gone, I would never get it back.
36
MATTHEW
Iwas a broken shell of who I used to be. I didn’t know who I was anymore. The only emotion I felt was pure fucking agony, and there wasn’t a moment that I was able to gain any reprieve from it.
It had been months since that fateful day at the cottage, the day that Eva was ripped from my arms, and I lost her. I was a complete and utter failure, and I’d gladly take any form of punishment the heavens sought for me. The only way I even knew she was alive was the damn mating bond that kept us tethered to one another mentally. But it had been deathly quiet over the past few weeks. Not even the faintest tug anymore. During the beginning, I could feel every ounce of agony she had endured, and it ripped me in two. Kalen was at the point where he had to physically restrain me on those days. I was a wild animal that had come unhinged.Fuck. Even the thought of what she might have had to endure at the hands of those traitors was enough to send me into blind fucking rage.
Kalen and I had tried, and failed, on multiple occasions to enter Helia, but the sentry units had been increased around the kingdom tenfold. There wasn’t a single fucking way we could do it undetected. And with the price on our heads? Ha! It was laughable to think about us being able to just waltz in. We’d be murdered on site. Actually… That probably wasn’t true. They’d want to make a spectacle of the process, so I’d be able to buy a day at the very least. Maybe two if I was lucky… And if I could get some time with Eva, then maybe we could find some way to escape together. But that wasn’t likely at all. Kalen had offered to get himself arrested, but I couldn’t risk losing him, too. He was the only thing that kept me from going completely off the deep end these days. He was my fucking compass, the damn bastard. And what would I be without my compass? Well, I’d be dead.
Maybe I could take the palace down by force… Just storm in and incapacitate everyone with my shadows. Absolutely obliterate everyone that stood between me and my mate, even if I knew I wouldn’t make it out alive. But fuck, I couldn’t do that to Eva. Even if it was for the best of intentions. She didn’t ask to be bound to me, and the death of a mate is something that is nearly impossible to escape from. If I thought that separation was bad… This was just a small taste of the sheer agony that occurred when a mate died. There was a reason that so many pairs went to the heavens together. They literally couldn’t live without one another. Hell, I didn’t know how her father had survived all these years without her mother. Maybe it was different when you still had something to live for? He had his girls and his kingdom. But me? I didn’t have shit. And neither did Eva. Well, that’s a lie… She had her kingdom too, but would that be enough to save her from a suicidal fate? I dunno. But that girl? She deserved my best. And that shit plan was the worst idea I’d ever had. Kalen had taken some delight in letting me know that himself.
I was already an angry individual, but being without Eva made those emotions amplify tenfold. The smallest things send me into a rage these days, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Hell, the other day a guy looked at me and I nearly ripped his fucking head off. The day after that? A gust of wind knocked my apple off the table. What the fuck did I think I was going to do? Fight the wind?No. But it reminded me of Eva, which replaced my anger with downright depression, so I don’t know which was worse. I drank. A lot. More than I ever had before or than I should, but I seemed to sink further into the darkness with each day that passed. Only Eva could pull me out now. She would be my savior, my queen, my light. And it killed me that I couldn’t even see her. If I could just catch a glimpse of her… No, that wouldn’t help either. If I saw her, then I’d claw my way to her and end up getting myself killed. There was no way around it.
I knew I had failed her immensely. She was the one person in this world I thought I could keep safe, but it turns out I was wrong.So fucking wrong. And now gods only knew what she was going through. Ever since her so-called miraculous return, Helia had been utterly silent about her whereabouts. Hell, they didn’t even give the actual story. Not that I thought they would, but it had spouted some bullshit about how she’d been on a training exercise that had gone wrong, but they insisted she had been safe. They only released that tidbit of information after an outcry from their people. Apparently, she would frequent the markets and hold training classes for the children, and when that hadn’t happened lately… The people wanted to know what happened to their princess. Even though she’d been back, they hadn’t even let her outside the palace walls, from what I could tell. It was like they were holding her hostage in her own home. Fuck that, it wasn’t her home. Her home was with me. These were just the walls in which she had been raised in. The people that had sworn to protect her were know her tormenters. The same people she thought she could trust more than anyone else in the world.
The fact that Orion and Damien were still prominent members of the council told me that no one had believed her when she told them what happened that day. That was if she even got to tell her side of the story, thetrueside. Had Luka even tried to help her? Or tell the king what happened when Eva couldn’t? Or did he fall back under his master’s spell? I knew having a blood-oath to someone made you unbearably loyal, even if you didn’t want to be. I had seen disdain for Damien and Orion in his eyes that day; it had been blatantly obvious. But if they forced him to heed their command, he’d have no choice but to obey. Which meant that my girl was fucked if he couldn’t resist their demands. No one had ever broken a blood-oath before, not unless they died… And as much as I didn’t like him, he was of no use to anyone dead. Maybe he was monitoring her, though, and that was all I could afford to ask for in our current state.
Kalen and I were staying in a little rural village on the outskirts of Helia. It was still technically a part of the kingdom, but far enough away that we weren’t easily recognized. Kalen had the nerve to try to convince me of the merits of distancing ourselves further from the kingdom, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her any more than I already had. Plus, I’d be damned if I left the kingdom entirely. I already had a sharp ache that begged for me to go to her and it grew with every damn day we were apart. Every morning I wake up, I tug on that stupid bond, but I don’t get a response. It’s gotten to the point where I barely feel her there anymore and that’s a fucking terrifying realization in itself. I’d never heard of anyone being able to just turn it off before. Those little tugs were all I had to get me by, and now they were fucking gone.
Even if I wanted to leave her, where the fuck would we go? Every damn place on the continent was on high alert. My house had been searched. No, that was a lie. It had been torn to fucking shreds. Damien must have been involved because it felt personal. It wasn’t just a search of the property. He’d damn near destroyed everything. It was like he’d taken some form of sick, twisted pleasure from it. I clenched my hands at the thought. I was going to feel him take his last breath, and I was going to be the fucking cause of it. I’d make sure of that.
We needed to blend in, as two newcomers had initially raised some red flags in such a small village. So Kalen and I had created a stall in the middle of the market square, keeping our heads low and selling meat and pelts from our hunts. We weren’t thriving by any means, but we had enough to afford a room at a small inn and we weren’t starving. No one was thriving here though, but people made do with what they had and leaned on their neighbors for the rest. It was a tiny little shit town, but people banded together in these locations. I’d seen it time and time again throughout my years as a warrior. Helia did better than most, though, in taking care of their outskirt villages. Produce from the main city was delivered weekly, and they even brought down cured meats sometimes when they were available. It made my heart swell to think of the kindness of Eva and her family. They knew these people were the backbone of their economy and, as such, they should be kept strong to yield the harvests needed. A kingdom is only as strong as its people, and their people were some of the toughest bastards on the continent.
A trio of ladies passed by our stall, stalling as their eyes drifted from the products we currently had on sale, to looking at Kalen and me likewewere on the market. I shuddered. I wasn’t interested in something as trivial as sex anymore. At least, not if it wasn’t with my mate. The mere thought of being close to anyone else made me want to vomit. I’d seen them wandering near our stall, glancing our way before. They were the town gossips. Middle-aged women that had nothing better to do with their days but sit around and gawk at all the strapping young men that would wander around. No doubt better looking than what they had waiting for them at home. I was hardly listening when they came by, busying myself with arranging the latest pelts that Kalen had brought back.
“Have you heard? The king’s supposed to make an announcement later today regarding the throne! What do ya think it’ll be about? Ya think he’ll be handing over the throne?” The older lady asked. I blinked, trying to process what the fuck I’d just heard.An announcement? Today? I looked over at them as they stopped near our meat section. Please keep talking, I silently begged. I need more fucking information than that.
“Nah, ya know what I think? I think it’s going to be a betrothal. That soldier boy is always hanging around her,” the middle one sighed, picking through the fruit at the vendor next to us. “They’d make such cute babies, I think. He’s quite dreamy!” The other two ladies snorted in agreement, but I could barely contain my rage at the thought.
