I storm past the guards, and into the throne room. “King Lucian,” I say. “I do not accept your divorce. I love you. And I need to know if you love me.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Dragon
Five months ago
I’ve been informedby my guards that I’m to expect a replacement wife. But I have no idea who this creature is. Lilith. Such a funny name, in contrast to her sister, Eve. I wonder if her mother did it on purpose. Eve is beautiful; I’ve seen photographs of her. We’ve done all the intel necessary to decide whether or not she will be a good fit for me. Perversely, she reminds me of Emerald, who ran away from me, and I take some delight in that, mainly because I know it will unsettle Emerald herself. I don’t care. She’s off married to her bodyguard now, and that’s fine with me.
But if I can’t play mind games with people, what is life?
My reputation for being a bastard is well documented, and I’m rather fond of it.
It keeps people away. I sit there, and I wait.
The doors open, and there she is.
It is the strangest sensation I’ve ever known. It’s as if the heavens quieted for a moment, and then opened up, light pouring down upon her. It’s like I can see clearly for the first time in my life, and it’s also like everything has suddenly fallen to pieces. Like it is destroyed and remade all in one breath. All because of her.
Her hair is a golden blonde, her eyes almost green. There is a mysterious quality about her. As if she is herself a secret garden that can only truly be known and explored by one willing to look.
I have read so many stories. About love, about adventure, about hope. All these things have evaded me, and it’s like in one sweeping moment she brought it all into the room with her. I cannot explain it, but it’s like this one woman contains inside her every beautiful work of fiction I’ve ever known, made flesh, standing there in front of me.
And I know, immediately and with no hesitation, that I will do anything for her.
I need to keep her.
I need to make sure that she never leaves me. That she’s never at risk. That nothing ever happens to her. I need this woman to continue to breathe. I thought, many years ago, that I loved my wife. Because she was pretty, and I enjoyed her body. Because I felt grief when she died. But I’ve never known anything like this. This is love. Something bigger than me.
Something bigger than all the forces in the universe. Beyond explanation, beyond reason.
And the beast inside of me roars with conviction. I will keep her. I will cage her. I will make her mine. So that she will never want anything or anything else ever again.
Chapter Eighteen
The Dragon
Now
She’s here.And it’s like I can breathe for the first time in days. She shouldn’t be here. I ended this for a reason. I ended it for her own good. That she doesn’t seem to recognize this angers me. But she doesn’t know how vile I am. She doesn’t know how all I’ve wanted from the moment I met her was to trap her. She doesn’t know the depths of my obsession.
I wanted to add her to the stores of treasure in the palace, and I was willing to shrink her, to reshape her into my image of the queen I wanted, to keep her.
Ithoughtthat I fell in love with her the first moment that I saw her. But I never really knew what love was until I was willing to let her go.
There is a saying, and I’ve read it before, but nothing made it feel real. If you love something, let it go. If it’s meant to be it will find its way back.
But she’s just stubborn. She’s stubborn, and she’s not allowing me to make the right decision for her.
Enraging girl.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you, you idiot. You’ve done it again. You made choices for us without talking to me.”
“Because I had to,” I say. “Lilith, don’t you understand, if it wasn’t for me, you would be off living your life, with no regrets, and no sorrow whatsoever. I had to do what needed to be done to give that back to you.”
“You cannot make me fall out of love with you any more than you can take the sun out of the sky.”
