Page 30 of A Bond of Fire and Roses

I follow my uncle’s gaze, my heart pounding. For a moment it stops beating when my eyes land on Noble. He’s still watching us. He unfolds one arm to give me a wave which my uncle returns. Gods above… The resemblance between Noble and Lochlan seems to slap me in the face. How did I not see it until now when it was pointed to me?

“Does he know? Noble, I mean, that Lochlan is here?”

“I don’t think he’d be alive if he did.” My uncle leans in and lowers his voice. “I think the boy came here to kill him. You get to know that look in a man’s eyes, and he had it.”

I can’t seem to look away from Noble. Why would Lochlan want to kill anyone, let alone his own brother? In all the years I’ve known Lochlan, he has never once displayed violent tendencies of any kind. He wanted to make the sisters pay for what they were putting us through, mostly putting me through, but he never did it. Besides, everyone who fell victim to them wanted to make them pay for their cruelty. What could Noble have done to Lochlan to warrant his own brother’s death? It just doesn’t seem like the sweet Lochlan I know.

“Where is Lochlan now?” I ask.

“I sent him back when he refused to get on the dragon.” He pops another dessert into his mouth. I have never seen him eat so much. In fact, I didn’t even know he had a sweet tooth until now. “He told me what you planned,” my uncle resumes, drawing my attention away from the sweet pastry and back to him. “The escape. The boat. The servant girl who was killed trying to help you.”

I don’t look away, even at the mention of the girl, who helped us, being killed. Did Sister Gabriella do that? I try not to imagine the horrific way she would have made the innocent girl suffer.

“Uncle, where is Lochlan?” I press him again.

He lowers the pastry that was about to be inserted into his mouth and his eyes harden, reminding me of the uncle who would scold me for always making your life so damn difficult, Maelena. The same eyes that used to look at me like I was his whole world, before the convent ripped him of that. That’s what Sister Gabriella and her followers did: they ripped you of every little joy until there was nothing left. And yet, on the rare occasions that my uncle and I were alone, I saw glimmers of the old uncle, the one who used to tell me silly stories and make me laugh until my belly ached. Now my stomach only clenches as he grabs my arm and pushes me to the nearest window, his features veiled in anger.

“It is time you grow up and start facing reality, Maelena,” he shouts in a whisper. “You are no longer a child but a woman. You are a wife now. A queen. You must start acting like one if we’re to get out of this mess alive!” His enraged features soften a little, and so does his voice, as he takes a deep breath and counts back from five. It’s a technique he taught me to do when I was little as a way to calm myself. “Maelena,” he says after a moment. “You must understand that your duty is no longer to honour what’s inside there”—he touches my heart, then nods over to the window— “but to honour what’s outside there. Go on, and look. Look at how our people are celebrating your union. Look at their merriment. Do you see them?”

Despite wanting to pull away from him, I follow his gaze to the window, where thousands of people are celebrating beyond the palace walls. Even some of the guards appear to be joining in on the songs at their stations.

“Don’t you see, my child? For the first time in decades, our kingdom can rest because for once there is peace among us now. Take it from this old warrior—peace is far more precious than all the gold in the world. And as queen it is your duty to help protect that peace.” He touches my cheek gently, wiping away a tear I didn’t know had fallen there. “Don’t throw it all away for the heart of a boy who’d rather burn that peace to the ground. I raised you to be wiser than that, Maelena. This boy?—”

“Lochlan,” I cut in, as tears race down my cheeks, “his name is Lochlan, and maybe… maybe there’s still a chance… I could be free again.”

That we could be free.

My uncle wipes my face with his sleeve. “As I see it, a queen is never free when the weight of her crown carries the fate of her people. Perhaps if you stopped fighting your king, and let the past be the past, and fulfilled your royal duty, then your crown might not be so heavy.”

What is he saying? Crown. Cage. They both mean the same to me now.

And royal duty? He means cementing my bond to Erax in a physical way I’ve never done with anyone before.

I turn around and glance around the room. My gaze instantly lands on Erax, as if called by him. I have spent most of my life crownless because of this man making his way towards me. His cruelty that awful day left me with a burden so heavy I have thought of nothing but my revenge, and Lochlan promised to help me get it. How can I just let that all go? How can I forgive Erax and leave what he did to me in the past when it was, he who so drastically altered my future?

This was never supposed to be my life, and I was never, ever supposed to feel happy about it. Yet when Erax kissed me inside the chapel, it was like he had stolen something from me because that was the happiest, I’ve ever felt.

It turns out the king is more than just a beautiful liar.

He’s a beautiful thief too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ERAX

I’ll kill him.

I don’t give a fuck if he’s, her uncle. Whatever he said to make my wife cry, on the day of our wedding no less, I’ll fucking kill him for it.

I step out from the entourage of advisors and march my way across the hall. My gut clenches at the sight of my wife hugging another man, even if he is her family. She’s crying in his arms and he’s running a hand through her hair and patting her back in comfort. I clench my own hands into fists and grasp them behind my back to keep from raising them. You need to take a deep fucking breath, Erax. She’s your wife, and that’s her uncle.

As I reach the halfway point, Noble stands in my way. The grin on his face makes me want to punch him more violently than it usually does. I need to cool it with alcohol. I’ve never handled it as well as some men. Fuck, Noble has been able to drink me under the table multiple times. But ever since this princess entered my life, a drink of something heavy seems to be the only thing capable of distracting me from her. It’s not the alcohol that poisons my veins—it’s her.

“Move,” I growl.

Noble remains blocking the way. “I have much to tell you, my king.”

“Not now.”

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