Chapter 1
The evening Ariadne had never in her worst nightmares believed possible arrived. Bathwater sprinkled with rose petals and floral oils swayed around her as she stared at a distant point before her—the place she had stood on her real wedding night, the one with Azriel, after baring her scarred back to him. The place he had knelt and claimed to love every single facet of her. Those were the memories she wanted ingrained in her mind when it came to the Caldwell Manor of Laeton.
What she did not want was for any of those moments to be overruled by the fresh hell in which she had put herself. For she could blame no one but herself for her foolishness. The plan had been to confront the soldiers outside the tomb of Anwenja and be taken back to the Harlow Estate, where she could find the book detailing the ritual that would finally solidify the mating bond with Azriel. It didnotinclude being locked away in the first home she shared with her true husband, where she could not access the library she so desperately needed. In fact,despite Loren’s reassurance that she could visit her old family home with an appropriate chaperone, he denied each request, claiming he could not see her prior to their wedding.
As if she wanted to seehimat all.
No, she wanted nothing to do with King Loren Gard after all he had done. His transgressions against her were minute in comparison to the crimes he had committed against others. Azriel’s two hundred lashes. Madan’s torture. Her father’s murder. Revelie’s severed finger. Camilla’s imprisonment.
In no time at all, however, Ariadne would be standing before the High Priestess with the man she hated most in the world so she could reunite with the one she actually loved. It made her heart throb. Assuming all followed her latest plan, she would be back with Azriel before the night was out.
Ariadne had not spoken to her husband—hermate—for too long. After her inaugural conversation with him through their respective bondhearts, they had been interrupted by none other than her half-brother, Madan. He apologized to her through Brutis as he apologized aloud to Azriel for forcing the illusion potions down his throat. At least he had explained why: Azriel had disappeared after she left with Loren, tearing through soldiers and civilians alike. Madan had been forced to hunt him down and put an end to his trail of carnage.
On one hand, she understood. On the other hand, she wished she could speak with her husband about what they planned to do next. She would have to live with the consequences of her actions on her own.
Dragging herself back to the present, Ariadne sank lower in the bathwater, closing her eyes and holding her breath as she dipped under. Warmth enveloped her, and tiny bubbles rolled over her skin from where they had been trapped beneath her limbs. The sensations were at once soothing and disturbing,shocking her back to those first nights after returning from her abduction.
More times than she could count, her handmaid, Penelope, had found her in a bathtub full of water stained red. Ariadne had taken the scrub brushes to her arms and legs in such a manner that she cleaned herself raw. It took quite a while following the incident for her to be permitted to bathe alone again.
Water sloshed as she reemerged from the depths of the tub. Months had passed since she thought of those nights. Being on the path to enduring an entire night on King Gard’s arm had her drowning in memories she wished would leave her for good.
“Ari?” Camilla’s voice rang from the sitting room, preceding her appearance in the bathing room doorway. Golden hair piled high on top of her head, she wore a borderline-inappropriate gown for a wedding. For any event with the Society, for that matter. Pale pink and shimmering, it clung to her every curve and scooped low at the neckline. Her perfect face with red lips and daringly dark liner, however, went slack with shock. “We have to leave soon! I came to put the final pieces together, not start from scratch!”
Grumbling, Ariadne pressed her palms into the edge of the tub and hauled herself out of the water. It cascaded haphazardly down her legs as she stepped free of the bathtub, turning the tiles slick underfoot as she picked her way to where her towel awaited her use. She wrung her hair into the water before sweeping past her friend in a half-daze.
“Loren would not care if I stood before him in rags so long as we are at the Temple to be wed.” Ariadne plopped onto the blue settee and glowered at the fireplace. This had been the first place she felt the true love of a man—where Azriel worshipped her body and soul.
The door opened and closed again, and this time, Revelie sighed. “This is going to be a disaster. Getdressed.”
When Revelie first heard of her impending nuptials with Loren after all he had done, she had refused to speak with Ariadne for an entire night. It was not until Camilla coaxed her out of her room and explained what Ariadne had returned to accomplish that she so much as looked in her direction.
Now, after concocting a plan together to get ahold of the book before Loren attempted to bed her, Revelie was determined to ensure each of them followed every step. That included getting to the High Priestess with as much enthusiasm as Ariadne could muster.
Unfortunately for them all, she had zero.
Nonetheless, her two closest friends had Ariadne dried, hair detangled, and dressed in almost no time at all. She sat beside the fire, hoping the onslaught of heat would salvage the neat hairstyle Camilla envisioned from the dregs of the bath. At the very least, she did not want to go out in the mid-autumn cold with her curls still wet.
By the time she stood before the full-length mirror to take in her appearance, Ariadne had walked through their plot to get the book and escape together at least three times. While she knew their next moves inside and out, she did not feel confident in her part of it all. Particularly those that forced her to be alone with Loren.
“We are close.” Almandine’s sweet voice soothed a part of Ariadne that she had not realized had been strung so tight. Alongside her consciousness, she felt that of Brutis. His strong silence had her shoulders easing down from her ears a little more. “Just tell us when you are ready.”
“Is it Almandine?” Camilla asked, recognizing her faraway stare in the mirror as she fluffed the skirt of her white and gold gown, the roses expertly stitched by none other than Revelie over the last several weeks of her imprisonment as a way of escaping her twisted reality.
That her friends knew of the dragons only made Ariadne’s life that much easier. Keeping such secrets would have been impossible, particularly when the great creatures would be taking them away from this place. So Ariadne just nodded and said, “They are ready when we are.”
Revelie, wearing a pale green dress of her own making, pinched at the fabric at Ariadne’s hip and frowned. Whatever she saw there was not noticeable to the untrained eye. Rather than comment on it, however, she hummed in approval to Ariadne’s words. “I am curious to meet these friends of yours.”
To say Camilla’s and Revelie’s quick change of heart when it came to dhemons and their bondheart dragons shocked Ariadne was an understatement. Though wary at first, it did not take long for them to become enthralled by her tales, and with their lack of social life outside the Caldwell Manor, they had more than enough time to swap stories.
“They are excited to meet you both.” Ariadne smiled at them in the mirror before turning with a sigh and picking up her skirts. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner all of that can occur. Let us not keep my future husband waiting.”
Camilla choked back a laugh and followed. “Let him sweat a little.”
“The last thing I need,” Ariadne said as they opened the door to a blissfully empty hallway and started towards the staircase, “is to taste any more of him than I have to tonight.”
Giggles from her friends, then Revelie asked, “Did you ever imagine yourself saying those words?”
With a shudder, Ariadne pried the memories of her kissing Loren from her brain. “I honestly wished to marry him, once upon a time. What a mistakethatwould have been.”
