Wait… what was going on here? He hadn’t reacted at all tomy mention of a mate bond, but her name had certainly gotten him worked up.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Did she have a birthmark on her… no, you wouldn’t have seen…”
I’d gotten a good look at her before she’d awoken. Remembering her smooth skin and luscious curves made the bond strain, my cock rock hard and ready to be with my mate. I breathed through it as I focused on whatelseI’d noticed. There had been a birthmark on her back, it had almost looked like, “A heart?”
“On her lower back?”
“Yes.”
Safir practically levitated out of his chair, suddenly pacing the room, swearing up a storm.
“She can’t be here!”
This hadn’t been what I’d expected.
“Izzy? Why? Who is she?”
Safir stopped pacing and pinned me down with his gaze. “Wait… did you say you’d mate-bonded her?” He’d finally caught up.
I nodded.
“By Titania and her daughters!” he hissed.
I needed to know what was going on.Now!
I rose and went to him, hands on his shoulders, eyes on his. He was almost a hundred years older than me, but he could still whip my ass across this room. Still, I held him firm.
“Who. Is. She?”
He spoke so softly I barely heard him. “Only the heir to the fucking throne, that’s who!”
I blinked.
There was no heir.
The entire royal family had been assassinated by titan spies a hundred years ago.
Safir sighed. Seeing my confusion, he motioned to his bed, where we both sat. He kept his voice low as he explained.
“When I was a boy, there was a royal scandal. My father served a half-blood nymph name Keomar, who’d been allowed to remain in this world because his mother had been close to the royal family. Keomar and his family had stayed in the royal compound in El’Anderyn and that’s where he fell in love with princess Ysania.”
I gasped.
“Exactly. Even as lenient as Queen Leastrine had been, she couldn’t allow such an affair. Yet Princess Ysania had been adamant in her love for Keomar. So, the queen had had no choice but to exile them both to the human realm. That was roughly twenty yearsbeforethe royal family was assassinated.”
I was starting to understand.
“I went with my father to serve his master in the human realm and took my father’s place when he passed. But… nineteen years ago. Despite everything we’d done to keep hidden, assassins found the princess and her lover. I was tasked with getting young Isolde, their daughter, to safety, and I did. I made sure she was safe… before I went back to help my master and mistress, but I couldn’t save them. When I returned to where I’d put young Isolde, she was gone. I’d feared the worst, but… she must have survived!” He seemed to light up at that.
Isolde.
Izzy.
A half-elf princess.
A royal!
