Page 87 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
I remembered too well where this led, the reminders that would flash across my mind. She belonged to me by law and by vow, but she had never chosen to be mine.
For the first time, I admitted to myself how little I wanted a forced, captive bride. It had never occurred to me that my fate-chosen bride would so badly wish not to be.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t want a wife who didn’t want to be with me. It was her. She had called my palace a cage and a shackle and worse, and now I saw that it was all she had ever known. One form of cage or another.
My jaw tightened, my hands flexed once before I forced them still.
Everly’s hand was frozen on the page, her fingers no longer tracing the text. She slowly turned to face me.
As she turned, a flush rose across her cheeks, like she was embarrassed for me to see this side of her.
“They’re just…notes,” she muttered. “Nothing important.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“Just how many of these compendiums do you have?” I asked, reaching out to brush a thumb over the smudged ink in one of the margins.
Her breath hitched, her gaze fixed on my hand.
“Only the one,” she said, closing the volume against her chest. “But I didn’t want to leave without checking these…just in case.”
Her eyes locked on mine for a rare heartbeat too long. That damned tether between us drawing taut, desperate.
Then a gasp sounded from the doorway, and Everly’s body went rigid with a shock strong enough to resonate down to my bones.
I bit out a curse. I let myself be distracted by her, and now we could both pay the price.
Everly
Maybe Draven had been right notto trust me.
Not because I had been lying, but because I was afraid he was right. That I was incapable of making a decision that didn’t result in my immediate danger.
A winged figure stood in the doorway, delicate features bathed in shadows and painted in pure betrayal.
“Zerina.” I said her name on a breath just as Draven’s mana swelled behind me.
“No.” I held up both of my hands, heart pounding so loudly I could hardly hear the sound of my own voice. “Wait.”
If she had wanted to hurt us, she would have. To my everlasting shock, he listened, though I felt his mana wash over me like a shield.
I strained my ears, but there were no other footsteps on the ground, no rustling of wings down the hall.
“She’s here alone.”
Zerina scoffed. “I wanted to tread carefully because I thought you were in trouble, but I can see that I was wrong. I can’t believe I felt guilty when I heard that you were gone, or thought that I had failed at the last thing Alaric asked me to do.”
Her voice cracked on his name, even as her eyes burned with fury.
“You don’t understand—” I started to tell her, but she cut me off.
“Don’t insult me. I know what I saw. How can you even stand to look at him after the things he’s done to our kind?”
Her voice was raw, every word edged with pain sharp enough to cut.
“It isn’t that simple for me,” I said as gently as I could. “All our people do is destroy each other, Zerina. And I’m stuck in the middle of it…because I am both. Do you know what it’s like waking up every day knowing whichever way you turn, you’re the enemy?”
She reared back like I’d struck her.
