But no matter how mad I was, my heart told me she wouldn’t tie herself to him. If anything, she may have been taken against her will and was trying to make sure we wouldn’t cause a scene and make it worse for her.
Maybe she’s protecting us.Anything made more sense than herwantingto go off and marry that random vampire.
Caspian Hart.
I tried to search my memory for him, but I was drawing a blank.
That’s what I get for focusing more on combat than history.
When the last vampire stood around the table, silence fell around us. The dim lighting hanging overhead flickered. Everyone looked to Atlas to speak, but she made no move to. It was too tense to sit. Too tense to talk.
Cedar was by my side, her arms crossed, staring down at the vampires across from us. I didn’t realize until that moment that she must be feeling very out of place. When one of them looked at her a little too long, I shifted so I was in front of her.
She caught my eye, and my mind went right back to the moment she woke up from her nightmare. That had been days ago, but she had one every night, and I hadn’t been able to wake her since.
It hurt to see her in pain, clinging to the pillow and calling out for her parents.
I tried to hold her. Shake her. Call her name. Nothing worked. I was even considering biting her if it would pull her from her nightmare.
It would go on for a while. Hours sometimes, constantly stuck in the dream. Sometimes, when I thought it was over, she’d just start breathing heavily again, her heartbeat would pick up, and it would resume.
She woke up exhausted the following day, and even when I probed, she didn’t want to talk about it. I knew it was about her parents, but I couldn’t help but think that the stress from everything that was happening only made it worse.
My eyes shot back to Atlas. Things were getting uncomfortable.
“What are we waiting for?” I hissed at her under my breath. Her arms were crossed, and she kept her eyes trained on the door.
She dressed surprisingly casually today. Her coat lacked the jewels she normally wore, and there wasn’t a strand of gold or silver in sight, but there was no mistaking the regal power she held over everyone in the room.
“One more,” she grumbled, not looking at me.
“While we wait, I believe there are other matters we need to discuss,” one of the older vampires said, his eyes traveling around the room. “Theprincessand her marriage.”
My invisible hackles raised when she mentioned Aurelia, my hand coming to my side only for me to realize that I didn’t have my sword or daggers with me. The council had taken them all away.
“I thought she would hold out,” another said with a huff. “But she kneeled to her brother’s whims, just like she did to her father’s. It complicates things.”
“Did you hear they already transferred three hundred vampires?” someone else asked. My fists balled, the urge to tear their throats out for even mentioning her threatening to overtake me.
“She’s actively making this harder for us. We should include what to do about her as a topic in this meetin?—”
I opened my mouth to shut him up, but the door slammed open, and all words dried on my mouth.
“I didn’t know that I was such ahot topicin these parts.”
Aurelia stood there in an all-black dress that hugged her figure. Her dark brown hair was in waves around her, framing her face. Her eyes were turning red, the threat of her anger clear as day, lips a matching blood red, looking ready for us to ruin.
Notably, her husband was missing from her side.
An audible gasp filled the room.
She looked over every single vampire, almost as if she was forcing them to recognize her. The power she held over them was greater than Atlas’s. As soon as she stepped inside, all eyes were on her, and people turned their bodies so they were facing her. She had this magnetic pull, andfuck,did it make me angry.
I held back after what the seer told me, though. I didn’t want to ruin this. I wanted to trust her.
But why the fuck did she have to go and get married like that?
No matter what anyone said about fixing fate and the prophecy, I just couldn’t get behind the fact that a randommanwas calling my bonded hiswife.
