Page 44 of When Roses Burn

However, I couldn’t deny she was the only woman I’d ever desired, and she most likely would be for the rest of my life. I could tell myself there was a chance I could meet someone else who would stir me, but I didn’t lie to myself.

It infuriated me, but I also accepted it as my punishment for bringing the wrath of the night casters down on my kingdom. I could live for thousands of years and never know the touch of another woman, and I would endure it.

I’d make sure she suffered the same fate.

As we neared the town, flashes of red were visible amongst the trees and underbrush. Briar continued to study the sky through the skeletal, sickly branches of the trees. Her brow furrowed at the unnatural, charcoal clouds above.

When we emerged from the woods and onto the red brick road leading through the town on the outskirts of the palace, the faint orange glow of the sun barely poked through the relentless clouds. More of the endless clouds floated across the sun’s surface, sometimes blocking it completely from view.

“Why does it always look like that?” Briar asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” I suggested.

When she turned toward me, her hair tickled my nose and cheek. A memory of burying my face in her hair and inhaling its refreshing eucalyptus scent blazed across my mind. Her laughter rang in my ears, and joy filled me as she drew me closer.

“How would I know?” she asked.

Her question jarred me out of the past and back into the present. And the present was far less happy than the past I’d tried to bury.

When I first arrived in the harem, all I could think about was getting back to her, saving her and myself. But as the truth about her came to light, I worked to bury her memory and the way she’d once made me feel indestructible. She was also the reason why I’d suffered indignities no one ever should.

It took years for me to stop thinking about her all the time. Eventually, when she did cross my mind, it only brought anger as I kept the happier memories suppressed.

Being so close to her again was rattling the restraint I’d spent years building. If I could scrub the memories of her from my mind, I would.

Resting my lips close to her ear, I whispered. “Because your kind did this.”

Her head turned toward me, and our noses brushed as we gazed at each other. Her crystalline sea green eyes filled with understanding before her head swiveled away from me, and her gaze returned to the sky.

“The trees,” she murmured. “That’s why their leaves haven’t started to open yet and why their buds are so small.”

I leaned back in the saddle as I studied her. She truly didn’t seem to know what had happened here, but she was an extremely good actor and very manipulative.

“Is it always like this?” she inquired.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Briar

Everywhere I looked, the kingdom of Wildwood held an unusually gray hue. I could tell the house to my right was once yellow with blue shutters, but it was faded and dull, just like the red brick road.

“Yes,” Knox replied.

“Has it always been like this?”

“No.”

I frowned as I stared at a kingdom that looked like it was once full of color and life but was strangely monochrome. “How long has it been like this?”

“Ten years.”

My head snapped around as the implication of his words, and the timeline sank in. “My mother.” His orange eyes burned into mine. He didn’t have to say anything, I knew what this was… “The curse.”

While I was still irate about him tying me to the saddle, my annoyance dissipated when I shifted my attention back to the kingdom. The horses’ hooves clicked against the bricks as they plodded down the road, past houses, and on toward the castle at the end of the road.

Despite the kingdom being eerily hushed, the noise didn’t draw shifters from their homes. Not only that, but no lanterns or candles burned within any of the homes. While the day wasn’t completely dark, it was dim enough to require some illumination indoors.

Wildwood could have an enchanted system of lights. The shifters didn’t possess any magical abilities beyond transforming, but the elves or day casters could have aided them in creating such a thing… for a price, of course.