Page 51 of One True Love (Love Mark 1)

“No, it’s okay,” Allera reassured me. “It’s okay now. Don’t break, Brother. You did it. You brought her back.”

I knew that. I knew I’d accomplished my goal. But I couldn’t seem to stop the attack I was having.

I’d almost lost her. Holy shit, she’d been dead.

“What the hell was that?” the king asked, suddenly looming above me so close he blocked the room’s light with his body.

I looked up at him, still too dazed to answer. Vienne was going to live.

“I need answers, Bjorn!” he boomed, the anger in his tone vibrating out his silhouette. “Do you possess some kind of magic? Are you another one of those goddamn wizards or soothsayers or whatnot?”

“Caulder.” Brentley grasped his arm, tugging him back. “What the hell are you doing?”

The king jerked his shoulder free of Brentley’s grip. “I’m getting answers.”

“My God, Brother. He just brought Vienne back to life. Stop treating him like a villain.”

Caulder’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe he is a villain. I won’t have anyone from that magical faction running freely inside my castle.”

“Well, rest assured,” Allera said, rising to her feet so she could stand directly between me and the king. “Urban comes from no such faction. He’s as non-magical as they get.”

“Then how the hell did he bring her back to life?”

Allera merely sputtered out a laugh and shook her head. “You make it sound as if he just committed an unspeakable crime, when all he did was save her. You should be thanking him instead of accusing him of some transgression. I mean, how dare you stand there and glare at my brother as if—”

“Allera,” Brentley said softly, taking her arm and trying to draw her away from me. “Let the king do what he needs to do to ease his worries.”

“No!” She scowled at him and pulled herself from his grip. “Not if he thinks to harm Urban for doing absolutely nothing wrong!”

“If he did nothing wrong,” Caulder seethed, “then why didn’t you answer my question and tell me how the fuck he was able to bring Vienne back from the dead?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Nicolette said, causing both her brothers, and even Allera, to whirl toward her with shock. “He brought her back with true love’s kiss.”

Brentley and Caulder simultaneously gasped and clutched their chests, while Soren spun from the bed and stalked toward us. “What the hell is going on over here? Why is that bastard still in my wife’s bedchamber?”

Everyone ignored him, as they were all too busy gaping incredulously at Nicolette.

“Why would you say such a thing?” Caulder demanded.

The young princess sighed and rolled her eyes. “Because it all makes sense. He felt her pain and must’ve woken Allera and dragged her here to check on Vienne, otherwise how would they have known Vienne was even having any distress. They live in an entirely different wing of the castle. There’s no way they could’ve actually heard her. And then… When Vienne was dying, he felt her pain out in the hall until his love mark started to disappear. You all saw him, sharing her agony. And the moment he kissed her, not only did she come back to life, but his mark returned, too. Look, it’s red now. The tattoo was black before.”

Everyone looked at my mark. I had no idea it had changed colors, so I lifted my hand to the side of my eye, though of course, I couldn’t feel what color it was from touching it.

“He practically confessed everything the first night he came here,” Nicolette went on, almost vibrating with excitement for finally being able to reveal her discovery. “He said he’d met his one true love recently—very recently—and that he’d only seen her from across a room, and he couldn’t talk to her because he’d known she was already married, so… It all fits. It’s just that none of you were paying attention to what he was really saying. Vienne is his one true love.”

A moment of realization seemed to shimmer through the room as eyes went large and mouths fell open.

Then Soren surged forward, yelling, “You bastard! How dare you? With my wife?”

Allera, Nicolette, and Brentley, moved collectively to block him from me. At the crib, the infant began to wail, and I could see Vienne through all the people trying to sit up, probably to go to her child. Her sister and the two healers hurried to urge her back down, telling her they still needed to sew her wounds closed.

Meanwhile, Soren raged on, glaring at me from the other side of the three holding him back as I unsteadily pushed myself to my feet.

“He touched her! He put his foul, High Cliff bastard mouth on my wife! I’ll kill him for this. I’ll cut out his liver, and—”

“Soren!” Yasmin yelled. “We need you over here. Now! Someone must hold Vienne down so the healers can attend to her. She’s trying to stand.”

Chaos reigned. I tried to step around everyone so I could get to her. I could feel her panic, and fear, and confusion. Someone just needed to calm her down. Someone needed to take her baby to her. But Brentley and Allera caught onto my motive and stopped me.

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