“Do you want to know where she was?” he continues, leaning forwards. “Before they brought her to me?”
“Don’t.” My hands shake where they grip the arms of the chair, knuckles white.
His eyes, black and narrow, never waver from mine as his lips curl into something between a smile and a sneer. “She was enjoying the company of two of them, Kiernan. Your wife was fucking your enemies while you were here, pining for her like a lovesick fool.”
Hearing him say it—hearing him weaponise it, twist it into something ugly and cruel—ignites a fury so intense my Gift buzzes beneath my skin.
I slam my fist onto the desktop. It cracks down the middle, wood splintering. Pain shoots through my hand, but I don’t care.
“Your reason for telling me this?” My jaw clenches so tight I taste blood where my teeth catch the inside of my cheek. “Youwere the one who pushed this Marriage Bond on us.Youleft her there deliberately. Whatever happened—whatever she did to survive—that’s onyou.”
“Is it the Bond that still pulls you between those thighs, or this ‘love’ you claim to feel?” He spits the word ‘love’ with disgust. “Do you not want to know the truth?”
“This changes nothing,” I continue, standing. The scrape of my chair against stone signals the end of this conversation. “She’s my wife. I chose her despite you and that damn Bond. I’d choose her every time.”
His expression shifts—surprise flickering across his face before he masks it.
The King rises, his shadow stretching across the broken desk. His fingers, pale and long, extend towards me, clutching a small bundle of papers folded to sharp, precise edges. “I translated all the Ancient Fae passages. In case you have need of it.”
I narrow my eyes, snatch the papers from his hand, and spin on my heel. Each footfall strikes the stone floor like a hammer as I stride towards the door.
The slam reverberates down the empty hall.
The bundle of papers in my pocket weighs like an anchor with each step I take back to Alaya.
Back to my wife.
Back to the Fae I love, no matter what my father thinks he can use against us.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alaya
My fingers brush across the gown where it hangs ready for me in my dressing room. The black satin sighs beneath my touch, cool and slippery as midnight water. Golden threads of thorn vines twist through the bodice, catching in the Faelights until they seem to pulse with a heartbeat of their own. I should be dressing for our evening meal, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate, confusion and worry clouding my thoughts.
I gasp as my eye catches a familiar skirt sticking out from the back of my wardrobe. As I pull it out, a waft of emotions floods over me.
My wedding dress.
The sight of it hits me like a physical weight, dragging me back to the day I felt the purest ecstasy and paralysing terror. I fold back the hem near the neck and stare at the tiny golden moth, and memories of my mother engulf me. Her words, spoken from mother to daughter, before fate played its hand, come back to me now:
‘Alaya, one day you will meet someone who makes your heart feel both safe and wild at once. It won’t always be easy, my darling. Love never is. There will be days when you question everything, when the weight of it feels too heavy to carry. But if it’s true love—the kind that matters—it will endure. Not because it’s perfect, but because you both choose it, even when it’s messy and complicated.’
Kiernan is my true love. I need him to be. I want to believe it with the same certainty I once felt, before everything became so messed up. When I look at him, I try to see only him—not the shadows ofthemthat haunt my quieter moments. His smile still lights something in me, his touch still sends shivers down my spine. It has to be enough. I’m choosing it. Choosing him, just like my mother said.
Especially when it’s messy and complicated.
I walk back into the lounge and lean on the wooden doorframe, observing him in silence. Kiernan doesn’t look up from his book, just turns a page with a soft whisper of paper. Firelight casts sharp shadows across his face, shoulders rigid beneath his white shirt where he sits in a chair beside the fireplace. The flames pop and hiss in the grate, each crack echoing against stone walls that swallow the sound whole. The weight of our unspoken words hangs heavy between us.
Since his meeting with the King yesterday, Kiernan’s gaze seems to be fixed on some invisible point beyond the castle walls. At the evening meal, he’d barely touched his food, his fork scraping the same piece of meat across his plate for twenty minutes. I placed my hand on his arm and whispered, ‘What happened with your father?’ He shrugged my hand away and straightened his shoulders, his jaw tightening. Then he turned away, ending any conversation before it had begun.
“I can feel you standing there watching me, Alaya.” His words finally penetrate the silence that has hung suspended between us since he came in from his afternoon training session. He looks up from his book, eyes gleaming with interest, lip twitching into an almost grin.
“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk; you’ve been so distant since yesterday,” I reply, noting as he closes his book and lays it down beside the chair.
“I’m sorry, my love. I’ve been distracted by reports of the Equitae spotted not far from the castle again.” The corners of his mouth lift as his gaze travels down the length of my body, lingering on my black underwear. He settles deeper into the chair, the wood creaking beneath him. His palm makes a soft thud against the fabric covering his thigh as he pats it. “Come,” he murmurs, voice dropping to a huskier tone. “Talk to me.”
I sigh with relief, crossing the room and settling into his lap, my arm draping around his strong shoulders. His hand rests lightly on my thigh.
