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Miroslav had shown up afterfoldingMareina to Ouvelleete and dropped the bomb on me that, basically, I had to choose between my loyalty to Zurie or Mareina. And well… I couldn’t give less fucks about Zurie outside of her paying my handsome wages.
Mareina, on the other hand, quite literally, meant abso-fucking-letly everything to me.
I hadn’t needed a moment’s thought to give him an answer. Though it had taken him some convincing for me to trust his word and all the events he relayed to me that had been set in motion…
He’d revealed a myriad of probabilities in which Nakoa and Mareina would usher in a new era of peace in Atratus.
And, as awful as it might sound… I didn’t give a fuck about any of that, either. I was entirely too jaded to have much faith in that. Even if Nakoa and Mareina ruled fairly, the Lords and Ladies that would dominate their regions certainly wouldn’t. Not to mention, I was wholly reluctant to let Mareina live a life that promised constant death threats. Which is precisely what would happen if she and hersoulboundruled the Kingdom with a compassionate hand because it meant that all the wealth and resource hoarding those Lords and Ladies had gotten so used to would no longer be possible.
The singular thing I cared about in this world was Mareina. An era of peace would be epic, but how long would it last? I was a cynical bastard… Peace or war, feast or famine, life and death… They were all cycles, and each had their time to pass. I didn’t wish suffering upon anyone… Or… Well… Let’s say I didn’t wish it uponmost.But each person was more than capable of crawling out of whatever adversity they’d been born into or had found themselves in… And if not… Well… Survival of the fittest.
I know Mareina found my stance a little fucking heartless, but… If anything, she was evidence of the fact that it was possible. And look at the fucking breathtakingly magnificent, powerful female she had become because of it.
She thought that I wasn’t aware of the fact that she had been raped repeatedly, along with a variety of other sexual and physical assaults, at the Erosyan Temple. And I would never tell her. She had made peace with it. But I knew that haunted fucking look in her striking emerald eyes the moment I’d met her. A fair number of the females that had chosen to join Zurie’s Army had shared a similarly violent past and had joined the military so that they could learn the skills that would enable them to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the likelihood of them ever being made victims again.
Seline had told me before I’d met Mareina that she had been raised in the Erosyan Temple, so it wasn’t too far of a leap for me to close the gap between her upbringing and the shadows lingering around her that she had been violated.
Until then, I’d been a frequent patron of the Erosyan Temple. However, soonafterSeline introduced me to her, I’d paid the Erosyan Temple another visit, threatened a few lives, and even filled a few purses... Within a week, I’d managed to hunt down one of the men who had violated her. After another couple weeks, I’d found the next… And a year later, I’d procured a small collection of mismatching teeth from each male that had touched her wrongly.
After that, I’d burned the fucking place to the ground. Mareina's father had survived from what I’d heard, but I couldn’t be fucked if he did or didn’t, considering he’d led his daughter into that gaudy,Akash-forsaken shithole.
To this day, Mareina, along with the rest of Bastrina, assumed it had been something as benign as an inebriated patron’s rogue cigar that had caused the fire.
I’d created this image in my mind of the day she would decide to be with me when I could present my little treasure trove of teeth as a gift to her… A token of my undying love and readiness to fucking murder anyone who dared to wrong her.
And now… Well, that little fantasy I’d never thought possible seemed like it might one day come true…
Mareina’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Malekai?”
I cleared my throat, trying to re-center my thoughts.
“Yeah… Your favorite person in the world clued me into a few things…”
She reared back before her jaw dropped in shock.
“Found him sitting in my fucking living room waiting for me after he dropped you in Ouvelleete… Bastard could havefoldedme home but instead made me hoof it.”
Mareina’s expression paled, speechless… I couldn’t help but wonder what he had told her to get her to betray Zurie… Not that she needed much convincing… It had been clear to me for years that she had been pining for a way out. I had been secretly saving my considerable wages over the last decade so that, just as Zurie had said in her private garden, I could retire and take Mareina with me. Ensure that neither of us would have to work again unless we wanted to… Even so, I’d been serious all those times I offered to burn the world down for her. It would take little effort for me to reduce Zurie and her palace to ashes.
Though doing so would alert the world that at least one of my kind was still roaming the realm but, it was a risk I would have eagerly taken… Perhaps we could have hidden somewhere inHades,the homeland of mine and Mareina’s parents… OrMaimyo mo Qì. I’d heard it was a continent at peace. Maybe we still could. Somehow, someway.
“But what the hells did he say to convince you to betray Zurie?”
I smirked, shrugging my shoulders.
“I told you already, Kalini…Wherever you go, I will follow.”
Mareina’s chest swelled, staring up at me with those big beautiful fucking eyes that never failed to take my breath away. Her lips parted as though she wanted to say something…
Mareina’s mouth snapped shut. Her pretty throat - the same throat I’d fantasized about kissing, biting, licking, choking, fucking, and filling with ropes of my cum on countless occasions - worked on another rough swallow. I slid my hand up her neck to caress her cheek with my thumb as I held her gaze beneath me.
“I wasn’t exaggerating all those times over the years that I’d offered to burn the world down for you… The offer still stands. You need only say the word.”
I tried to maintain a calm facade as everything within my body, my soul,strainedtowards her so desperately it fucking hurt. For decades, I’d been convinced thatshewas mysoulbound…But her ability to resist me had proven to me otherwise.
Still… Whatever this was, from the moment I’d met her, she had possessed me heart and soul.
