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‘I’m...fine, thank you, Henna. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Freya?’
Henna’s eyes clouded and she shook her head, her lips a thin grim line.
Marit nodded, telling herself that it was okay. That it didn’t hurt.
‘Are you...sure that this is what you want?’ Henna asked. ‘You need to know that you have a choice here, Marit. You don’t have to marry Henrik.’
Marit was taken by her tone—the sincerity and assurance in it was powerful and strong. But the thing was, she knew that she didn’t have to. Yes, Marit wished things were different, but her sister was stepping down and her family and her country needed her. She dug deep within herself and found the strength she needed.
‘It’s okay. I’m ready.’
A simple piano version of Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D’ played as Marit took her first steps down the aisle. She wore a simple veil, short across her shoulders, falling lower at the back, and through the cream gauze the chapel took on an ethereal quality. Her brother stood behind a man who looked familiar only in that she had seen photographs of the Prince. He seemed...young. With each step she took in not the man she was to marry but the ways in which he wasn’t Lykos. He wasn’t dark-haired like Lykos, he wasn’t as tall or broad as Lykos, his jaw wasn’t as strong, his eyes didn’t spark silver shards that she could stare at for hours.
She mentally shook herself, knowing that it was cruel to be comparing Henrik to a man he never had a hope of matching. This was different, Marit told herself. This would only ever be... Her footsteps faltered and her gaze flickered to her brother’s. There was something there, something in Aleksander’s eyes, that she hadn’t seen before. Worry? Concern? Regret?
All thoughts, however, were wiped from her mind as the wooden doors behind her burst open and clattered furiously against the stone walls. Shock sliced through her, causing her—and everyone else in the chapel—to turn.
Framed in the now open doorway, Lykos looked like an avenging angel. He filled the space, sunlight streaming in behind him, casting him in shadow, and the lock of hair fallen across his forehead seemed almost purposely disrespectful somehow. Lykos cast a look over her shoulder, but Marit only had eyes for him and her heart soared, even as her mind blanked.
He stalked down the aisle, the first step apparently enough to prompt the priest to ask what was going on. Marit half expected her brother to step forward, but he didn’t. She knew that she should move, should stop Lykos, should step from his path, but the sheer determination simmering in his eyes had struck her still. He had but one intent, a single focus so sure, and she knew—knewthat he would not be stopped.
Within a heartbeat he had closed the short distance she’d travelled up the aisle and had stepped indecently close. Their ragged breaths billowed the gossamer-thin veil between them. Her hungry gaze consumed the sight of him. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she was surprised it didn’t echo around the small chapel like the whispers of the men behind her. She wanted to weep and sigh and reach for him and push him away all at once. She followed his gaze to where it had been caught, flickering between her eyes and her mouth, finally homing in on her lips as if he wanted nothing more than to feast upon them.
‘Forgive me?’
His words were so unexpected it took her a moment to register them. ‘For what?’ she asked, just as a smile curved wickedly at his lips.
‘For this,’ he said. It was all the warning he gave her as he grasped her wrist, bent slightly, leaned into her and hauled her over his shoulder as he straightened.
‘Lykos!’ she screamed.
Her cry cut sacrilegiously through the serenity of the chapel, met by a chorus of shocked gasps from the groom and the priest.
Lykos shifted Marit on his shoulder, one hand securing her in place, the other pointing at Aleksander, his heart finally settling now that he had his hands on her. He angled himself towards a tableau he would have found amusing had it not been so tragic.
‘This is done,’ he announced to Aleksander. ‘She will not be your puppet any more.’
Aleksander nodded. Lykos was surprised to see what could have been satisfaction in the King’s eyes.
‘She deserves your words,Your Majesty,’ he growled. Marit needed to hear it. Needed to know that her family weren’t using her and that they wouldn’t come after her. There would be time for them to discuss it properly, but for now she had to know that she had atruechoice. Only then would she be free.
‘Yes. She can go now.’
A relief so vast and so sure swept through Lykos in an instant and he had to force his lungs to work as if for the very first time.
‘And Kozlov?’ the King demanded.
It wasn’t even a contest. He would choose Marit. Every. Single. Time.
‘He’s your problem now. I’ll transfer my shares to you so that you have the majority. I am sure you will find a suitable way to dispense with him.’
‘I will,’ the King confirmed, before raising a hand to stop Lykos from turning when he would have. ‘She needed someone who would fight for her,’ Aleksander said, his tone as much a warning as an explanation. In that moment, Lykos understood a different interpretation of events than how he had seen them only moments before.
He could only hope that Marit’s brother deserved that interpretation.
‘Entáxei, we are done,’ Lykos announced as he stalked from the chapel, making his way past Henna. He was about to thank her, as he would not have been able to return to the palace without her help, but she waved him off before he could form the words, glancing back to the chapel where her King was watching her every move. Lykos would have wished her luck, but wondered whether Aleksander might need it more.
He walked out into the sunshine as male voices behind him were raised in what sounded like a nauseating outburst. Words likeoutrageous,unbelievable,disrespectfulfilled the air in a deeply whiney tone until a very commanding, ‘Enough!’ stopped the flow. Lykos was happy to leave Aleksander to it. The man had made his bed, he needed now to lie in it.
