Page 81 of Eternally Yours

Her arms snaked up my back and she squeezed me just as hard. “Looks like we both came back from the dead,” she whispered against my chest.

I chuckled softly. She had no idea. I might’ve been walking, but I hadn’t been alive. Not wholly. Not until now. As I stood there with her in my arms, I felt as if I’d been born a third time.

Tipping her chin up, I asked, “They told me you’d been killed by the Order. How is this possible?”

Loren looked into my eyes, but as her lips parted, her attention drifted behind me, fury exploding like a volcano inside her gaze.

“What is it?” But as I turned around, I didn’t need her reply. She had Ellie pinned with a lethal stare, the one that usually preceded an attack. Ellie’s body trembled and her skin went a shade lighter.

“Loren,” I said, in a low and steady breath. “Ellie has nothing to do with this.”

Without taking her eyes off Ellie, she grimly said, “Don’t be so sure about that.”

Before I could process her words, I noticed my father’s guards being ordered into position around the perimeter of the hall. “Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on,” I demanded. In the front row, my father mouthedyou need to get that thing out of hereto one of his men and I watched as more orders were sent over their private comms.

“Father,” I called out to him as he whispered something to my mother. “I demand to know what is happening.”

Walking toward the center of the room, he ignored me, addressing the crowd instead, keeping his voice as calm as the sea after a storm. But he couldn’t fool me. I saw the churning waters underneath.

“Guests,” he began. “Apologies for the interruption. It seems we have a private family matter to address. We will resume the ceremony shortly. In the meantime, we have a variety of hosts at your disposal ready to fulfill your every need—”

Ellie turned to one of the DeLorenzo guards dressed in black, her body vibrating with anger.

“How is she here?” she whispered furiously, but loud enough for me to hear. “She’s supposed to be locked away.”

I whipped around, heart ready to gallop out of my chest, hoping I’d heard her wrong. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Ellie stepped back.

I climbed onto the altar, towering over her quivering frame. She tried to straighten her shoulders and meet my gaze, but I smelled the acrid stench of her fear.

“You had something to do with this?” I barked. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“She had guards beat me,” Loren’s soft yet steady voice sounded behind me. “Told me you were dead. That I’d killed you.”

“You’re lucky to be breathing, you filthy beast,” Ellie snarled. “If it had been up to me, you’d be dead.”

Loren let out a rumbling growl. A warning she wouldn’t stay composed much longer.

I kept pressing Ellie. “What do you mean up to you? Who’s behind all this?”

One of Ellie’s blood-hosts handed her a white robe. Wrapping it around herself, she tipped her chin toward my father. “Ask him. He’s the one who put her in that disgusting dungeon.”

That revelation covered my entire body in an ice sheet. I turned toward him. “Tell me she’s lying,” I said as I stepped down from the altar. “Please, father. Tell me you had nothing to do with this.”

His calm demeanor cracked. “She nearly tore off your head, Nicholas.”

Seething, I almost shattered the bones in my jaw as I gritted, “You told me she was dead. That the Order had destroyed her.”

“You should’ve seen the condition she was in. She was feral. Uncontrollable.”

Fists clenched, I stepped closer, chest to chest, my face inches from his. “You promised me you would protect her. That was our deal. The only reason I agreed to this fucking charade.”

“I did it to protect you. With that beast around, you would never be free to rule this coven like it needs to.”

“But you kept her alive. If your intentions were to sever our bond, why did you keep her locked up?”

“To study her. To find out why she’s able to walk in daylight. Whatever secrets lay buried in her DNA could be our salvation—”

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