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“Then tell me.” My demand was soft, not harsh.

“Aura…” he trailed off.

“Tell me, Elias,” I said more firmly this time. “I know who you are. Whatever you’ve done…that doesn’t matter now. I won’t pass judgement. Maybe if I understand your past, I can help you get through it. Help you move on.” I stared into his eyes, wanting nothing but to help him. What I said was the truth. Whatever Elias had done didn’t make him unworthy of love. I knew in my soul that he was good. I only wished he could see it too.

“Okay,” he whispered, his honey eyes darting between mine. “I’ll tell you. Let me just think about what to say first.”

I nodded in understanding. “Take your time. Here.” I handed him my canteen. “I’ll let you go fill this up for me while you think,” I said with a grin.

Elias gave a wry smile. “As you wish, princess,” he said. I made myself comfortable on an old tree stump and watched him walk off towards the nearest stream.

My heart began to flutter. Was the elusive Elias finally about to open up to me? I often wondered where he came from, and what was in his past to make him become the man I was falling in love with. I sat, wondering if his past was as bad as he thought. What if he really did do something unforgivably awful? I promised him I wouldn’t pass judgement, but maybe there was an exception.

No. He was good. No matter what, I had to trust my intuition. He was good. Maybe notpure, simply because of his past. But good.

As I sat there wondering, I started to lose track of the time. When I heard the rustling of leaves, I looked up towards the direction Elias had gone, but didn’t see him. I only then realized I could not discern which direction the rustling was coming from, which could only mean one thing.

It was coming from behind me.

Before I could whirl around on my tree stump, an arm come upand grabbed me from behind, and I felt the cold steel of a blade at my throat. My body froze.

A man’s voice hissed in my ear. “Scream, and I’ll kill you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

My body froze in response to the hiss in my ear and the blade at my throat. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, but I couldn’t turn to face him without the blade slicing into my neck.

“Who are you?” I demanded, doing my best to hide the shakiness in my voice. Whoever it was didn’t answer. Although I didn’t feel the man move, I heard more rustling from behind me. Were there more of them? How many? Did Elias and I have a chance at winning if it came down to a fight? I wished I could look to see how many people there were to fight against.

“Who are you and what do you want?” I demanded again.

“He is not inclined to answer without my permission,” another man’s voice replied from ten feet or so behind me. This voice I recognized, but I couldn’t identify where I’d heard it before. I silently cursed at the sharp point of the blade that prevented me from turningaround to see.

“You do not want to kill me,” I asserted. “You don’t know who I am.”

A snake-like laugh came from the direction of the man. “Oh, I know exactly who you are, Princess Aurelia.”

My blood ran cold. The way he said my name, with disdain on his tongue… in a voice I hadn’t heard in years.

A flash of his face entered my mind as recognition hit.

“King Volund,” I said breathily.

The viciousness in his laugh made my stomach churn. “Smart girl,” he teased, as he slowly walked into view.

Two men stood at his left, and another man and a woman at his right. The fifth was still behind me, his blade at my throat. I recognized them by their attire as Sprathian warriors, completely under their king’s command. The garments they wore differed heavily from the other kingdoms. Rimorian soldiers wore steel-plated armor, Chatusan guards wore gold chainmail, Monuvian scouts wore leather armor, and Sprathian warriors wore all black tunics with deep hoods to cover their faces. Instead of being protected by armor, they had sashes across their torsos, lined with almost a dozen different knives. Volund’s clothes were nearly identical, except that he did not have a hood.

The King of Sprath looked me up and down with a sinister grin while I could not think of a damned thing to say. His frame was tall, but slender. His hair, black as night, was pulled back and tied behind his head. And his eyes… His deep brown eyes were as empty as his soul, with nothing behind them but darkness and depravity. Even when I was younger I feared those eyes.

“Where is your pet?” he asked me.

Pet? Could he mean Elias? “I don’t know what you mean,” I said through gritted teeth.

Volund scoffed in response. “The damneddogI sent to kill you, but stole you away from your kingdom instead. That halfwit has caused me a great deal of trouble.”

I blinked a few times in rapid succession, trying to process his words while my body remained frozen in place by the knife at my throat. Did he just say he sent someone to…kill me? Possibly sentEliasto kill me?

I attempted to pull myself together. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I repeated. “Now let me go.”