I adjusted in my seat on the couch across from him. “I’m sorry that I have to back out of the plan. I’m sure there are others who can take my place.”
He scowled. “I’m sure there are not. We worked hard to make this union happen. Finding a Prinathian who believes in our cause and a Nodoorian willing to marry. You were all in before. You believed in what we were doing.”
I sighed, doing my best to avoid looking weak. Jullian was a snob, and like most politicians, he thought he was smarter than everyone else. I wasn’t backing down. “I don’t agree with forcing people to marry, but I also have come to like Prinath. I don’t want us to go back to war, and I definitely don’t want to go back to Nodoor. I only agreed to this because I wanted to keep more Nodoorians from coming here. I liked us separated.” He didn’t need to know that I wanted less Nodoorians here because I was in hiding.
He huffed. “You were a traitor to your kind.”
“I’m fine with you thinking that. It wasn’t as if I had any secrets to share with the court, but I wasn’t a loyalist and I wasn’t used as a pawn.”
“I’ll never believe Prinath leadership just let you live here before the end of the war for nothing.”
I pursed my lips. Of course he wouldn’t believe it. Nodoor would never be so kind to any of its citizens, especially an omega. Omegas had one purpose in Nodoor. To be mated to an alpha. Any desires outside of that were pointless. No Nodoorian with power would care about protecting me. They would just insist that I should be with a good alpha, and all my troubles would go away. If I wanted to work, it was seen as fruitless. My career was stalled while in Nodoor because people assumed I was simply passing time until I found my alpha.
Prinath had proven different. Our leadership was not beyond doing the most heinous things to win. Despite the Prinath’s questionable marriage portion of the treaty, they could actually be quite reasonable. Although, it was always hovering above my head that they might one day call me to be a spy for them. It was actually no surprise that they wanted me for an arranged marriage. Jullian hardly had to do a thing to make it happen. I had become a part of this society in the last several years. I was a rare Nodoorian that the Prinath community could trust. I was nolonger interested in breaking that trust as some revenge against the people who had hurt me.
I looked at the fire burning in the fireplace, wishing I’d sat closer as the house was unreasonably cold, just like Jullian. “Look, Jacob is an asshole. He’s aggressive, rude, arrogant, and an idiot who has no self-awareness. I could never stay married to him. I get that you want to have influence over higher ranking treaty marriages to help Nodoorians gain some kind of power in the court so you can find a way to remove the Prinath king and queen as rulers and implement your own agendas. But we can’t help you do that. It would be useless.”
“It would not,” Jullian spat. “Do you think I don’t know that Jacob is an idiot? That’s all the better. Easier to control. And he comes from a prominent Prinathian family who are just as idiotic as him. We must have as many Nodoorians in high positions here as possible, and you’re smart enough to use him to do what is needed as a Nodoorian. They will wipe us out otherwise. With your lineage and Jacob’s connections, we can build a momentum of power that will protect the Nodoorian interest. There are Prinathians sympathetic to those of us who were innocent of the atrocities of our previous leaders. Those who don’t approve of the path of assimilation the Prinathian court is forcing on us. Don’t want that guilt or the growing resistance it has caused. You know about the murders. There could be more just like that.”
I knew of the murders of those in the treaty marriages. Everyone did. A resistance group had transmuted members of those marriages into monsters and had them kill their spouses. It was awful, but Aaron, Ivan’s best friend, had led the way in ending those killings. Things were much quieter now. I had to believe that resistance would not take the form of serial murders again. So, while I understood Jullian’s concern, I just wasn’t passionate about it enough to risk the trouble I would get intoif the court discovered we were trying to undermine them. Also, I no longer cared if the Nodoors married the Prinaths because I liked the Prinathians, and I was coming to a certain inner peace about the Nodoors. Not everyone was bad. I just wanted to be left alone to live my life without being controlled, and if I had to move again to do that, I would.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, kicking myself mentally for carelessly putting myself in this situation in the first place. “I’m not special. I have no power.”
He sat back, staring at me with hard neutral eyes that I believed he thought was intimidating but did nothing to make me uncomfortable. “You know about our plans,” he began in a slow drawl. It was clear he was attempting to reign in any emotion from his voice to unnerve me. I wouldn’t say it wasn’tnotworking. “You were willing to work to ensure Nodoorians had a place.” His icy glare then turned to a performative look of pity. I was not naïve enough to believe he had one sympathetic bone in his body, but he would pretend to get what he wanted. “Whatever you were running from, it won’t stay gone, no matter what you do. However, with our plan, you would have been protected from what you left behind in Nodoor. But now, how do you think you will live? Do you think the others will easily allow you to drop out? With all that you know. No, I couldn’t stop them from taking any action they thought necessary to silence a possible threat to our plans.”
That felt like a threat. He wouldn’t say it to me out-front. He was a politician after all. However, I didn’t succumb to threats. I learned my lesson on that front. Nor had I planned to break my agreement without having an escape of my own. “Why would anyone take any action?” I asked with an equally performative innocent face, brows raised. “I don’t know anything. Let’s be honest, the king and queen most likely know that the Nodoorian leaders they have allowed to remain in any positions of pseudopower would want to ensure their kinds’ place in the court. Any one on the street would guess that, and it’s actually all I know, too. I was never told any detailed plans about how anything would be achieved. I just want to live my life unbothered.”
This was mostly true. I had heard bits of information from others to suggest that some Nodoorians were planning more violent actions like uprisings and even a coup. Others were planning to gain power unethically. The thing about the fae is that we did not work quick. We had longer lives than many, and the Nodoorians could easily begin plans today that would play out in ten years. Plans that could even change the makeup of those in the ruling court. I didn’t know the intricacies of those plans. I was merely a puppet. I could be replaced. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find another omega, we were too rare, but he could find another noble Nodoorian who would follow leadership and that was the most important part. And if all else failed, I’d leave. I’d run before, and I would do it again. As much as I liked this city, I had no long-term loyalty to it.
Jullian looked back at the fire, squinting at it as if it displeased him. It probably did. I was quite sure everything displeased him. He had no friends or family. However, he seemed to be fine on his own with his focus on gaining power to keep him busy. “You may think you have control over what you do but know that we are all under the thumb of the Prinathian court. You don’t change your mind without consequences. And now you have placed yourself in a new predicament.”
What was he getting on about? I was anxious to leave now. I wasn’t changing my mind, and he couldn’t force me. I’d much rather face the consequences than to marry that ass Jacob. “What do you mean?”
He glanced over to me, face taking on something akin to hateful glee. “The court has found out about your declaration to end the marriage because you’ve rekindled an alleged romancewith an old flame. The dragon, Ivan Icetower. Low class with no power. What a waste.”
I jutted my chin out, insulted on behalf of Ivan even though I still held much hostility against him. “He’s an alpha.”
He grimaced. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, the court knows, and they are rightfully suspicious. So, they have issued an order to you.”
He shoved his hand into his pocket and then pulled out a tiny, rolled paper etched in gold and tied with a red ribbon. It was very old-fashioned. I immediately knew it came from the court. He got up and waved it in front of me. I took it and removed the ribbon, unrolling the paper. Upon reading the brief contents and seeing the very official looking seal from the court, my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. This couldn’t be happening.
“No,” I whispered without meaning to say anything aloud.
“Oh, yes, Ms. Evenbright. You must get married to Ivan within one week’s time. I do hope you were serious about your love for him because if the court doesn’t believe you both are truly in love, they will dissolve the marriage and have you marry Jacob. Not to mention imposing any other penalties for deceiving leadership. So, you have a decision to make. Marry Jacob, as we planned, or marry that fool Ivan. Either way, you must marry.”
It was clear to me now. The fates had conspired to ruin my life, and they were winning. How the hell was I going to convince my ex, who I hated, to marry me?
Chapter Four
Ivan
The fresh aroma of baked bread glazed with a vanilla cream floated under my nose, causing my stomach to rumble. But it was little distraction to take my mind off of her. I’d spent the night tossing and turning with both excitement and agitation. Jalisa was the love of my life. We were perfect for each other in every way. It haunted me that we broke apart. So much so that I spent an irrational amount of time searching for her over these past several years. She needed to know the truth about that night.
When I first noticed her, we were in the military. She was beautiful, but it wasn’t her beauty that grabbed my attention. I watched how hard she trained, even though I knew she was a noble. Female nobles, especially omegas, were never expected tojoin the military. I was impressed that she volunteered to join and took it so seriously. But it wasn’t just her dedication, there were many others who had such practices. No, Jalisa Evenbright was focused. More focused than anyone I’d ever met. She wasn’t a soldier to follow orders. She was a soldier to learn. Learn to fight, learn the mission. I watched her. At first, it was simply because she was one of the few females who didn’t watch me.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I could be vain. Being the focus of so many admirers was intoxicating. Fae were beautiful as well as dragons in fae form. That wasn’t unusual. We used glamour to our advantage to fix our flaws. In Nodoor, it caused less diversity in our kind. Prinath had much more range in appearances of fae. These fae were tiny, giant, large, small, complexions of all colors. Some less humanoid in appearance than others. No one seemed to care because no matter what form they took, they were the most beautiful in that form. They clearly supported more than one kind of beauty in Prinath.
In Nodoor, we aspired to a very similar kind of beauty. Humanoid, flawless skin, toned body, tall stature. And if you weren’t born with it, you could use magic to achieve it. I came from a family of unnaturally beautiful beings in our fae forms. It wasn’t that we made ourselves this way, it’s what we transformed to when fae. I was told it was because we were beautiful dragons. And not to be vain, well, perhaps a little, we were attractive in any form. Therefore, when I appeared anywhere, especially with the equally handsome Aaron, we drew attention. Aaron hated it, such was his introverted personality. I relished it. It was like an intoxicating magic. I didn’t have much at my working-class station in life, so beauty became a currency I valued as much as riches. I couldn’t open doors of access with my low clout, but my looks worked almost as well.
