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Bowing my head, I realize we’re being dismissed. She may hate it, but I take Aurelia’s hand, tugging her behind me as we wind our way back up the circular staircase.
The real problem comes when we get to the door to our room. Evan, being the consummate matchmaker, hopeless romantic, and all-around pain in my ass, has decided Aurelia and I are rooming together.
She gestures between the two of us, then to the door we’ve stopped in front of. “This is you.”
While I have zero problems sharing a room with Aurelia, I cringe in preparation of the shouting I’m almost positive is coming.
“You’re fucking with me, right?” Aurelia asks in a low voice.
I’m not sure she realizes she’s still holding my hand or not, but if she hasn’t, I’m not going to be the one to tell her.
“There are only seven rooms in this house, even with the Murphy beds in the office and the pull-out in the game room. There are thirteen people here. I know the house is big, but where in the hell do you think they’re all going to sleep? Plus, Dad has a rule about guardians and their charges sleeping in the same room. I’m even bunking with West.” Evan shrugs, barely glancing down at our entwined fingers.
“Speaking of the plethora of men—what the fuck are all these people doing here?” Aurelia hisses. “When I said ready the cabin, I did not mean call every warrior and their brother to come guard us. I meant turn the lights and the hot tub on and get some booze. What’s going on?” Aurelia’s so mad she’s almost stammering.
“I’m going to have to tell you about it later. I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re still covered in blood. Go take a shower, please. When you’re done, come find me. I’ll be in the loft,” Evan quips and flounces away as if Aurelia wouldn’t tackle her where she stands.
It takes everything I have not to bust up laughing right there in the hall. Aurelia’s head whips to me as she burns me with a glare, releasing my hand to push her way into the room.
And that’s when Aurelia sees red. An enormous four-poster bed dominates the room—its ornate posts and top covered in gauzy white fabric. The heavy, baroque side tables hold vases of flowers and glass-bowled lamps. Across from the bed is a stone-faced fireplace with a fire already burning in the grate. Even in July, the mountains are cold in Colorado, especially in the evenings.
What’s worse, the lights have been dimmed, and there are candles burning on almost every available surface. It’s like the honeymoon suite of a Harlequin romance novel threw up in here. And I’m obviously not the only one who thinks this if Aurelia’s low, menacing growl is any indication.
“Are you kidding me?” she grits, her hands curled into fists.
She seems to be working exceptionally hard not to throw sparks or flame up and burn this whole house down. After the day she’s had, I have to commend her on the effort. Or I would if the thing she’s so pissed about is being in a room with me.
Tossing my hands up in surrender, I heave a sigh. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t do the room assignments.”
“Whatever,” she huffs. “She’s right: I do need a shower.” Aurelia snatches the duffle from my fingers, slamming the attached bathroom door as she goes.
That could have gone worse.
RHYS—1855
I should have said something before now, I thought as I observed Aurelia’s rising blush, but it never crossed my mind Lucien would betray me this way.
Aurelia was a tiny slip of a woman—barely over five feet—but her personality made her so much taller than any meager inch she may have possessed. Her golden skin—so much darker than the pale humans in the next town—was still stained a delicate, glowing pink. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never seen her blush, and the thought of Lucien inciting such a reaction from her set my teeth on edge.
In my head, she had always been mine. I knew it was stupid to think that way—about a woman who hadn’t paid me even a lick of attention—but I’d loved her for so long.
She’d been promised to me—the bastard knew it, and still…
Lucien and I used to be friends—closer than brothers—almost inseparable.
Before Selection, we were practically family. After Selection, I lost my best friend. It wasn’t as if I’d gotten a choice of placement. Lucian had known we could play soldier and dream all we wanted, but in the end, the Primary chose our fate.
Lucien was selected to be a scholar—an honorable profession in our society. But me? I was chosen to be what Lucien had always wanted to be—a soldier. Aurelia’s soldier to be exact, and in that decision, one day I would get what I wanted more than anything on this earth—to be Aurelia’s husband.
Not that she knew it.
She wouldn’t accept me—that, I knew for certain. In her mind, whomever the Primary chose for her wouldn’t be an option. Ever.
She would never bind herself to me—not of her free will.
Aurelia was not the type of woman who liked to be told what to do, and in a matriarchal society such as ours, usually that wasn’t a bad thing. But Aurelia hated the life she’d been borne into. Hated what she was destined for. Hated her eyes, which had dictated the course of her life from the first day they fluttered open.
Those pale, pupilless orbs cemented her destiny as an oracle—and her hatred for me.
