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L iam wanders up the stairs toward me after she disappears, and I stare at him before snarling. “What did you do?” I snap at him.

“Same as you. I told her the truth. She is just blinded by the mate bond,” he says, shaking his head.

“I can’t let her leave with him,” I mutter, and Liam climbs the rest of the stairs and stops beside me.

“Sometimes you need to let them see for themselves. Everything comes to light eventually,” he states.

“I don’t want what’s left over after he breaks her,” I tell him. No way can I handle seeing that sort of heartache. The same heartache Liam and I endured.

“I know, brother, but the king already granted him permission to take her when he leaves,” Liam tells me.

“He what?” I asked. Liam nods and frowns.

“I saw kade stop by last night, so I decided to listen in. Kyson told him if she wants to go she can.”

My stomach drops and a cold feeling settles over me. “No! I won’t allow it!” I snarl. How could he agree to such a thing?

“You stop her, and she will question if she made the right choice,” Liam says behind me, and I stop on the bottom step.

“She’ll come back, Gannon,” Liam calls out to me.

“I know she will. That isn’t what I’m worried about.

I am worried about the state she’ll be in when she does!

” I growl before storming off to find Kyson.

Liam sighs and I peer over my shoulder to see him slip into the kitchens while I head to the king’s office.

The moment I walk into the room, he sighs as if the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders and crushing him.

“You heard the news, I take it?” he says and I fall into one of the chairs by his desk. He doesn’t bother looking up from his paperwork.

“You can’t let her go,” I tell him.

“It’s already decided. She leaves in a few days,” he says simply.

“Kyson!” He looks up before leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest.

“You know the law, Gannon. I can’t stop her unless she directly asks me to force him to reject her.”

“She would never ask. He has her convinced he is some gift from the Goddess!” I snap at him.

“Mates are gifts from the Goddess,” he says, and his brows furrow.

I know he is thinking of his mate who has been rotting away because of his neglect of her.

However, my experience with mates and Sia, I would hardly call them a gift.

That woman was a fucking curse! A curse I broke. And it nearly killed me doing it.

“I won’t try to stop you from convincing her otherwise, Gannon. But once he leaves and if she wants to leave with him, I have no choice but to allow it,” he says.

“And if it were Ivy?” I ask as he stands.

“It’s not,” he states.

“But if it were?”

“I’m not doing this with you today, Gannon.

We need to head to the cemetery. Argue with me over this later.

Preferably after I have had a few drinks so I can turn a blind eye to whatever it is you’re doing,” he says, walking toward the door.

He walks out and I shake my head before pushing out of my chair.

I follow him toward the back of the castle.

When I reach the hill, I see Abbie standing with Clarice while the king makes his way to the bottom of the hill, checking the graves he dug last night.

Abbie glances over at me, but I turn away from her.

I know what that man wis capable of, so why can’t she see what sort of monster he is?