To Marissa’s credit, she didn’t look traumatized. She looked annoyed. Violet motioned to the guard. “Can you take Marissa home?”
The guard nodded once. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Can we go home?” she asked Roman, eyeing his angry flesh. “I want to clean that before it gets infected.”
“I’ve heard eating pussy is a great way to boost the healing process,” he murmured and licked his bite mark.
She shivered and tried unsuccessfully to look vexed.
39
“HE MARRIED VIOLET?” Titus roared, praying Marissa had lied. “You had one fucking task, Riss.ONE. This is why father never trusted you.”
Ice cold fury coated Titus.Violet. His sweet Violet, married to the fucking king.
“They’re mates!” Marissa yelled back. “Not even the traced and forged letter worked. Violet didn’t believe it for a second. I can’t compete with the godsdamned mate bond.”
Titus bent to his sister’s level, seething. “I did. Do you think I wanted to court and fuck that incessant brat, Vivian?”
“He is obsessed with her,” Marissa shot back. “If I thought you wouldn’t kill me, I would have killed the bitch myself. I never stood a chance against her.”
Titus heard the bitterness in his sister’s voice. She’d fallen for the prince, but after what she’d said about Violet, he couldn’t care less.
He grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her air. His sister slapped at his arm, to no avail. “Watch your fucking mouth,” he snarled. “If you speak of her that way again, you will regret it.”
He released her throat and retreated to the sounds of her falling to the ground, gasping for air.
From childhood, Titus and Marissa’s father, head of the southern rebel faction, had trained Titus to take over for him one day, while their mother trained Marissa to be queen.
Rebels observed every female child born the same day as Roman Covington. The king and queen had kept his birth date a secret, but the southern faction had their ways of discovering information, unfortunately for the midwife sworn to secrecy. Once they discovered Roman’s mate, another piece of intel their faction acquired before the public, Titus was to seduce and marry her, severing the mate bond.
The bond severance would create unrest among their people. Marissa was then to befriend and seduce the prince in his vulnerable state and marry him. She’d drug him to the point of compliance if necessary.
If at any time the opportunity arose to kill the prince, they’d take it, and Titus and the prince’s mate would take the throne. The people would back them because mates were gods-blessed.
The shoddy plan had ample opportunities to fail, and the faction knew that, but no other strategy in their faction’s, or any other faction’s, history had succeeded.
Titus’ father had observed the Maekin twins because of their close proximity to the royal family, and he’d taken Titus with him on many scouting missions.
From a young age, Titus knew he loved Violet. Watching her run through the forest in her pretty dresses, collecting things from the forest and sea, intrigued him. She possessed a freeing joy he’d never known.
Titus had often snuck out without his father to watch her, and one day when the twins were ten and he was eleven, Vivian caught him. He’d feigned being lost, and she’d believed him. She’d also asked him questions about himself, and he’d fed her his cover story that his father had drilled into him for years.
She’d shown up at the smithy his father owned with obvious interest. His father instructed him to befriend her, giving him a natural in with the twins if needed. Titus kept his distance from Violet, observing her from afar, for he knew if the gods mated Roman to someone else, losing Violet would destroy him.
The day Vivian hit Violet with her sword, he’d broken his own rule, unable to see her hurt. Blue eyes, prettier than Vivian’s somehow, met his, and he was lost.
The worst day of his life came after the prince’s thirteenth birthday, sealing his fate with a girl he didn’t want, and so began his relationship with Vivian Maekin. Vivian hated her sister, and in return, Titus grew to hate her.
After Vivian broke it off with him, his father suggested he date Violet to make Vivian jealous as a last-ditch effort. Titus both relished and dreaded the idea. He wanted Violet more than anything, but if their plan worked, he had to give her up.
He’d wanted to lay her down and make love to her every night, but if he’d allowed himself to have her completely, giving her up would’ve been impossible. The self-restraint he’d showed deserved an award. Never had he endured a more arduous task.
A year passed and he’d thought maybe, just maybe, Vivian wouldn’t give in, and he’d get to keep Violet.
Their faction needed Vivian alive for their fallback plan of Titus taking over to work, but if Titus failed to break the bond, they’d kill her instead, giving Marissa a chance to ascend the throne alongside Roman.
Titus had asked his father once why they couldn’t kill Roman and Vivian both.
