Page 94 of The Curse of a Kingdom
“What?” Arkimedes’s face lost all color as he looked back at his brother. “What did you do?”
“She is such a charmer, isn’t she?” Devon’s voice dripped with venom. “Why don’t you dig into the memories you are so desperately avoiding and see for yourself?”
With those words out, it wasn’t about the Society’s safe house or the fact that she believed Arkimedes wanted space. Time slowed down. She searched for answers in his expression, and the sudden tension in his shoulders gave it to her.
Did that mean Arkimedes had access to his memories of her and had been avoiding them?
“Nava . . .”
She hadn’t meant to say her question out loud. “Are you avoiding your memories from the last decade? From us?”
“It’s not the time nor place to talk about this.”
In other words, yes. The ground beneath them shook as the pulse of her magic left her body in a thunderous wave.
He could work on recovering his memories, to love her again, to know all that had happened in the last ten years that had made him choose her over this. But he was making a different choice now.
She took a step back when he tried to come closer, presumably to calm her from unleashing an earthquake in this castle. The buzzing of her bees became stronger, and she battled her own need to disappear from this place and not come back.
Beyond her broken heart, the love she had for this man was strong enough that she knew being away meant their deaths—and she couldn’t do that to him, nor to Cameron or Ari. Nava steeled her spine and called for strength she didn’t know she had left. “If going to this safe house will buy us time, then I guess I will go there, but I won’t play by these prisoner rules anymore. I will be going into that forest, with or without your consent.” No matter what happened, after tonight she would be transferring to Ari every day.
Nava had lost Arkimedes, even though she had done all she could to prevent it. She had lost her identity as a potion maker and had lost her father. Memories she could never gain back, unlike him.
Her stomach churned and her skin turned warm, yet it wasn’t anger alone, but despair. Hadn’t he given up ten years for her, living like a hermit in a cabin in the woods, cursed to be a bird every night by her own mother? Unable to reach his soulmate or the destiny he had once believed was his.
Maybe it was her turn to suffer from a distance.
“So, let me get this straight. You want the both of us to go to the Society’s house and pray we aren’t caught by the guards on our way out?” Said Devon.
“No,Iwill take you tonight. We will leave after the sun goes down,” Arkimedes said. “The guards are being dispatched to the forest tonight. The king is going as well. I’m to stay inside the city walls to keep the wards from collapsing in case we get more attacks than expected.”
“So the king will find out you helped us escape and hurt you? No, thank you. We will all go or I won’t be going anywhere.”
“The only way he can hurt me is if he getsyou.” The way his expression shifted from worry to affection, then back to the former had her head spinning. “Tonight while he is out, I need to find the key to take the bracelets off you, which he keeps in his room. But I will come back and stay with the two of you in the safe house.”
“So, you aren’t staying in the castle?” she asked.
He shook his head, and there was a fair amount of hesitation flowing through their bond.
A horn echoed out in the gardens, along with the loud steps of metal on stone, as soldiers marched over gravel pathways to the forest. Their copper armor shone pink and brass under the golden shades of the setting sun. The three of them walked to the balcony and held onto the railing that was still warm from the day. Over a hundred Dark Ones headed to the outer walls of the castle, and in the very front, hidden by darkness, was the king himself.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
ORION
It was hard not to make promises to Nava when she looked at him the way she did just now. Her lip quivered as her eyes dipped to the floor. Orion was ready to throw caution to the wind and do whatever she wanted from him.
It had to be a bond-induced drive that didn’t line up with what heneededto do. Before she arrived at the castle, his strive to find answers had taken precedence. Why he’d been abandoned when he was just a toddler. What made his mother’s spirit haunt him, repeatedly showing him a horrible nightmare of the night she died.
He had a bigger role in this kingdom, one he accepted before he ever met Nava, this time around . . . eleven years ago. Because of a soulmate, he’d abandoned this purpose—a whole kingdom—to the mercy of lost protection.
Still, he battled his primal need to say to hell with his role and the answers he always searched for.
Sensing her emotions through the pit of his stomach made his decision-making weak at best, and that alone was reason to break this irrational need to be what she needed him to be. He appreciated she wasn’t asking for more than he was ready to give right now.
Orion brought his hand over his chest, massaging away the throbbing ache that built underneath. The guards marched toward the walls, and beyond them, a black smoke of fire already lifted in the air, clouding the forest behind.
“Do we leave now that the king is out of sight?” Nava swallowed. “We should be there too . . . Ari needs us.”
