Page 51 of A Kingdom of Broken Bonds

“It was chaos,” Felix comments, resting his chin on my hand as he leans against the mattress for support. “It did not seem to matter if you were nobility or working in the castle. If you believed the prince was right, then you were going to be destroyed.”

Finnik pauses in his pacing, seeming to get lost in his memory. “Geoff and I had to physically lie over you to make sure no one crushed you while the guards stormed the hall and attempted to bring about order.”

Gods above. It must have been terrifying to witness, and I hope the other brides were not caught up in the madness. The king’s control over his people is not as firm as I believed it was. A riot broke out all because of his son’s actions—a son who had too much power, and ultimately, he could not control. Will the nobility lose faith in the king now?

Finnik turns to face me, finally meeting my eyes. I see pain, guilt, and fear shining back at me. “You were dying. Havoc’s rejection was so fierce it was tearing you apart.” His voice croaks, and he stops to clear his throat. “You were in and out of consciousness, and there was nothing I could do. That’s when you called out his name.”

I would have known whom he was talking about without the jerk of his head thanks to their interactions. I called out for Eli. If what they are saying is true, my body must have found enough energy to call out for him, knowing instinctively what I needed.

The male in question shifts beneath me, his hand running down my bare arm and making the hair stand on end.

“I was already making my way to you,” he explains, murmuring the words against my ear. “I could feel your pain and knew you needed me, but Finnik found me and told me you were calling for me.”

He was able to feel my pain. I can only imagine how awful that must have been, desperately searching the castle for me.

“We brought you back here, and we knew you needed to feed, and at this point, it was pretty obvious that you and Eli share a mate bond,” Felix states factually, managing to keep himself stable despite the tension between the other two males in the room. “You might not have completed your bond, but his blood was enough to keep you from dying.”

Guilt floods me as I glance at Eli’s neck and the many vicious bites that tore his skin. He’s no longer bleeding, his fae blood making him a quick healer, but hunger stirs within me being this close to his arteries. There is no hiding from it anymore, I’m the one who caused those marks.

I reach up and brush my fingertips across his damaged skin. The movement hurts and makes me gasp, but the fact that I became so feral and bit him like this hurts more. “I did this to your neck?” I ask, needing to hear it aloud.

Eli meets my eyes as he captures my fingers in his hand, stopping me from pulling away. “You needed to feed, and I am your mate. I will do whatever I need to for you to survive.” Pressing my fingers against his neck, he kisses my forehead lovingly. “Everything I have is yours, my blood included.”

Even though my heart is battered and bruised, and missing a literal part of myself now that Havoc has rejected me, I feel warmth in my chest at Eli’s commitment. I hear what he’s not saying—that he would sacrifice every last drop of blood to me if I needed to, not caring that it would kill him in the process. This type of devotion, along with Felix’s declaration of love, is enough to keep me going. I will fight the nagging voice in the back of my head that I am not enough and that I will be rejected again. It is different with them. It is real.

Eli’s hand stops stroking my arm, and I feel him tense up. “I have something to admit to you.”

The feeling in my chest quickly disappears, replaced by dread. Those words are usually never followed by good news, and I am not sure that I can survive bad news right now. Sensing my sudden discomfort, he slips an arm underneath me and helps me sit up, leaning me against a stack of pillows to keep me upright.

I glance at Finnik and Felix to see if they know what Eli is about to say, but their expressions give nothing away. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I tilt my head towards my mate, waiting for him to speak.

“When we first met, I was cursed.” He gestures to the golden markings on his face. “I was unable to speak, doomed to be mute for the rest of my existence. The only way to break the curse was to find my mate. I had no idea it was you, all I knew was that when I first saw you, I knew I needed to dance with you. When you asked me my name, I realised I was finally able to speak.” He pauses to run a hand across his face. When he looks at me again, his expression is open and sincere. “I knew from that first day that you were my mate. I should have told you then, and I should have told you about who I was. There was a reason I was banished. I have done bad things in my past, and I won’t lie, I would do bad things to keep you safe.”

I was vaguely aware that the marks on his face were a punishment, thanks to what Finnik told me about him and the King calling him a ‘cursed one’. However, I thought his punishment was banishment, not taking away his ability to speak. Fate is a strange thing, for Eli had to be cursed and banished from his homeland for him to find me. He might never have made the perilous journey over the mountains otherwise, and we might never have met.

Eli is more rugged than Finnik’s sophisticated bearing, but I have never felt unsafe with him. In fact, he is one of the people I would go to if I was feeling unsettled, despite the fact that I have not known him long. Time doesn’t matter, what matters is that I know, deep in his soul, that he is a good person despite his poor choices in the past. It doesn’t matter to me what happened before.

“You are mine,” I confirm, my voice steady for the first time since I woke up. It might be Eli’s blood in my veins that made me realise this, but I know for sure now. He is my mate.

The look of relief that passes over his face at my declaration is like the sun lighting up a dark day, his smile wide as he leans forward and presses a kiss to my lips. The pain in my body is momentarily dimmed thanks to my bond with Eli struggling forward. Looking inside myself, I see the golden light that surrounds the bond, noticing how much stronger it looks now. Our lips move together in a passionate kiss, and I only pull back because I am completely breathless.

It only occurs to me as I fall back against the pillows that Finnik and Felix would have seen us kiss. I am not so worried about Felix, because he knows about my situation, and we have discussed this before. While it might not be comfortable for him to watch, it isn’t something that was completely unexpected.

I am almost afraid to look at Finnik, and when I do, I see his angry expression. He doesn’t say anything. In fact, he looks jealous. Could this be my moment to ask him? I feel the same pull towards him that I did with Eli, meaning we could also share a mate bond. I want to ask, since it’s clear that he feels something too, especially now that my near-death episode has forced him to evaluate his feelings for me.

No, I cannot do it, not today. I could blame it on my pain, but really, I’m too afraid to ask in case he rejects me. There is no way I could survive a second rejection.

There’s a knock on the door, saving me from having to explore those feelings any deeper, and Geoff walks in.

When he sees that I am awake, his entire body seems to droop in relief. The controlled male who appears emotionless to some falters before me. Geoff prides himself on his even nature, not letting anything crack his sense of decorum, so seeing relief cross over his features moves me.

“Anthea, you’re awake.” His voice trembles. He doesn’t try to hide it, which just goes to show how upset he truly is. Moving over, he stops at the foot of the bed, looking as though he wants to throw his arms around me. That is probably why he also looks so uncomfortable. This is a behaviour that is very out of character for him, and any displays of extreme emotions make him uncomfortable.

“Geoff, is everything okay?” I ask quietly, wishing I could sit up by myself and not have to rely on Eli and the cushions.

Seeing me alive and upright seems to have rattled him, and it takes him a moment to get his emotions under control. He slicks his hair back and brushes down the front of his jacket before speaking. “Everything here is a mess. I have petitioned the king to take you home to Trador where you can heal. You have been grievously injured because of his son. He cannot deny you time to recuperate.”

I arch a brow, only able to hold the gesture for a second before the pain of the movement becomes too much. Geoff has never seemed so dominant before. Sure, he was strict and commanding during my years growing up, when I needed structure and rules to ensure I became the young lady that was expected of me. This is something on a different level though.

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