Page 47

Chapter thirty

T he throne room broke out into absolute chaos once more, some people cheering, others arguing, as Katryn was dragged out of the doors from which she came.

It was impossible to hide the smirk from my face.

No matter what happened to me, I would die eternally grateful to Nickolai for not only letting me see this, but for exacting justice that so many women deserved.

My eyes instinctively went to him once again, where I saw his mother and sister both rush to bombard him. Focusing my ears on their conversation, I was able to hear that it was not a pleasant one.

“—she is your future. I forbid you from throwing that away for some backwoods whore,” his mother quipped, while trying to sweetly grab his arm—a blatant attempt at control.

I could feel the anger pulsing off Nickolai from my spot that was nearly ten feet from him. His face was set into stone as he ripped his arm away only to growl, “Would you like to join her?”

The crowd hushed as they looked toward the scene at the front of the room. The former queen's eyes were wide as she took a step away from Nickolai. I doubt that he had ever spoken to her that way, especially in a room of people who held them in such high regard.

“Nic. . .” Nessy whispered in a breath.

His gaze shifted to her, holding her in place. He didn’t have to say anything. There was no use in reprimanding her when his look did that for him. Nessy took a step back to fall in line with her mother, her eyes narrowing on the man she had no doubt just lost trust in.

In the next second, her eyes shifted, the look of death finding a new target. Me.

Stalking over to me, I for the first time understood what Loughlan and Zeke had been talking about on the morning of Harvest Day.

Nessy was a force to be reckoned with. With every step closer, the Princess and Commander of the Drine army became more apparent.

Gone was the woman who had stolen Loughlan’s strudels in an effort to cheer me up.

Nessy was hurt, angry, and full of wrath.

I wanted to take a step back as she approached—pressing her face into mine—but I knew that I needed to hold firm.

I locked my knees to keep them from giving out as I stared up into her brown eyes that—for the second time—glowed in the lower half of her pupils.

“I won’t forgive you for this,” she seethed.

I didn’t need to ask what she was talking about.

This had to do with Aedon and the fact that I didn’t tell her about him.

The fact that she now couldn’t even trust her brother to tell her things.

Narrowing my eyes at her, I questioned, “Are you really so self-centered that you think this was about you?”

She held my gaze for a few moments before finally turning and leaving.

Taking a breath, I watched as Nickolai straightened his posture and turned in my direction, his demeanor only slightly subdued to Nessy’s.

Nickolai ignored the eyes that watched his every move as he walked up to the guard standing before me.

His familiar scent of pine wrapped around me, as he commanded, “Return her to her room and stand guard at the door. Don’t let her leave.

” He finished with his gaze landing on me before he too turned and walked to the set of doors along the wall behind his throne.

My breath hitched as I took in his last sentence. Don't let her leave . I had escaped being a prisoner at eleven only to become one all over again at twenty-two.

The guards didn’t bother waiting to see if he had anything else to say.

After they got the order, they immediately started walking me back through the crowd.

Almost every set of eyes followed, with a renewed opinion of me forming in their minds.

I could practically see the wheels turning in their heads, trying to figure out my past with the king.

With every step taken toward my room—or I guess my new jail cell—I felt my panic rise.

I had yet to have a panic attack since I’d become fae, but so far the day had sent me back into a downward spiral.

By the time we were at my door, my heart was nearly bursting from my chest. The guards who held on to my arms continuously casted brief, concerned, glances, but neither of them said anything as they deposited me in the room like luggage meant to sit and wait for its owner to retrieve it.

As soon as the door shut, I paced the room.

“You should’ve run,” the woman deadpanned, having apparently broken through the barrier I put up in my mind.

I rolled my eyes as I continued pacing. “Get out of my head!”

“It’s too late for that girl. We are one.”

I felt my stomach drop at her words. This couldn’t be happening—it had to be a hallucination. I must still be asleep from the sedation.

“Do you really believe that?” it chuckled.

I pushed against my temples to the point of pain, sweat spreading to my hands from the film that covered my skin. “It’s not real. It’s not real,” I whispered under my breath to myself.

“What’s not real?”

I startled at the smooth voice that spoke out over the room.

Opening my eyes, I found myself once again being snuck up on by Nickolai.

He looked calmer than he did in the throne room, the anger no longer masking his aura of pain.

Even still, the tension between us felt stronger than it had ever been before.

When I first woke up this morning, neither one of us commented on the hurtful words that still hung in the air. We had a tendency to do or say something hurtful but eventually moved on. I wasn’t too sure the same thing could be done with this.

My breaths were still heavy, but I finally dropped my hands from my head, and realized that he was waiting for me to answer him. I tried hide the fact that I was bordering the edge of another mental collapse as I said, “What are you going to do to me?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted.

I nodded in understanding even though I didn’t understand. How could he not know whether he was going to have me executed alongside Katryn or not?

Taking a deep breath, I finally met his eyes, “Thank you, for-for letting me see that today. . . I’m sorry, it must’ve been hard for you to do that.” I hesitated, “And I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

He shook his head. “She got what she deserved. Which would’ve happened a lot sooner if I had listened to the people around me.

” I didn’t say anything. While I agreed, I didn’t think that my voicing it was going to help my circumstances.

Clearing his throat, he added, “Mira, I owe you an apology. . . again.” There was a pause before he continued, “I shouldn’t have said what I did to you after the meeting, or spoken to you the way I did earlier. ”

Pursing my lips, I nodded once, “But you did—”

“And it will haunt me every day of my life knowing that I said those things to you.”

Dropping my head I retorted, “That doesn’t erase the fact that they will haunt me too.”

“I know. . .”

The tears that I had been fighting to keep at bay, immediately started pouring from my eyes.

I turned away in an effort to hide how fragile I truly was, but that failed when I couldn’t hide the emotion from my voice as I tried to speak over the lump in my throat, “Damn it, Nickolai, you should’ve been there. . . We needed you.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said again.

Facing him once more, I continued, “I had no idea who you were other than your first name. He-he would ask me where his daddy was and I would have to make up some lie because I had no idea.”

“Mira,” his voice was pleading, but I couldn’t stop. It was all pouring out of me, every bit of hurt.

“Then the monsters showed up and he was just gone. . . and—” Locking eyes with him, I could barely see over the tears. “An-nd now. We. Don’t. Have. A. Son,” I said, sobbing through each word.

A tear slid down Nickolai’s cheek before he rapidly closed the distance and wrapped me in his arms. His chest was warm, solid, and it felt like home as he surrounded me. My sobs came harder and harder, and pretty soon it felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.

“I should’ve been there,” he conceded.

The words echoed through my mind. “I should’ve protected him better."

Shaking his head against me, he countered, “No. No, don’t say that. I was wrong to blame you. You didn’t know that there would be monsters.” He pushed me back so I could see his face, cupping my cheeks with his hands as he said, “You are not to blame.”

I crumpled immediately, my legs giving out at his words.

He was wrong—I will forever be to blame along with him, but it didn’t change the power that the sentence held over me.

Nickolai caught me with ease and scooped me up into his arms. Carrying me to the bed, he sat down and laid me on his chest before tightening his arms around me once more.

“Please forgive me, Mira,” he whispered with so much pain and agony in his voice.

Tear after tear fell upon his tunic as I exclaimed between gasps, “I just want him back.”

Nickolai was silent for a long time before softly saying, “I know.”

Neither of us slept as we laid in bed for what was possibly hours—the rise and fall of Nickolai’s chest eventually lulling me into a calm. Darkness eventually fell over the room, the noise of the chirping crickets filling the silence.

It took me forever to work up the courage to speak, “Where do we go from here?”

Nickolai took a deep breath, making me rise higher into the air than I had all evening. “I don’t want to be apart from you,” he admitted.

His revelation caused my heart to skip a beat.

I slowly sat up to look him in the eye, which was an epic mistake.

The sight of the green was my own personal trap and hell.

The pull to him was stronger than I had ever felt it.

I wanted nothing more than to mold my body to his, linking our bodies together indefinitely.

Causing that four-letter word to pop into my head once again.

Mate.