“They’re far from the brutal savages your father makes them out to be. They have a community, families, lives like our own.” I hold his gaze. “And I think you know that too.”
“That’s not—” Kiernan stops himself, his neck flushing red, jaw clenched. “You don’t understand the situation.”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Kiernan.”
He looks at me in shock, as if wondering who this Fae is, biting back at him.
And who am I really? I’m definitely not the same Alaya from our wedding night.
The silence stretches between us. Then he sighs and turns around to lean his back against the fence, arms crossed.
“I knew,” he says quietly. “My father moved most of the history books from the Main Library into his personal office. By that point, there weren’t many Earthbound left alive who remembered much before The Corruption came.”
“Why? What does that accomplish other than keeping us ignorant?”
“Why else does he do anything? Power, control. If no one asks questions, he has free rein to do as he pleases.”
“Including wiping out the Equitae?”
He pauses and looks down at me. Pain flickers across his face.
“Don’t ask me to betray him, Alaya. Please.”
My anger simmers down to something quieter. I know Kiernan has no real influence over the King and his actions. He’s as much a pawn in his father’s insatiable greed for control over Kaladia as anyone.
“We deserve to know the truth.”
His arm drapes over my shoulder, and I lean into him as we continue our walk.
“Perhaps we can put the library back together when we rule Kaladia,” he says, a hint of hope in his voice.
In all the rush of the wedding and my later kidnapping, the fact that I was now a Princess, married to the heir of Kaladia, had not been at the forefront of my mind. Now, it rushes back with a heaviness, a crown of lead that threatens to crush me.
What kind of King would Kiernan be? Could his rule bring about change for Kaladia?
“King Kiernan … sounds so regal.” I laugh as I wrap my arm around his waist, pulling him to me. I breathe in his familiar scent of musk and the metallic undertone of his Gift. Through our Bond, I feel his contentment, his hope for our future, warming me from the inside.
“Queen Alaya,” he replies softly, brushing a light kiss on the top of my head.
We walk in comfortable silence for a while, the weight of our conversation settling between us. The imposing outer wall of the fortress looms ahead, the air cooler in the shadows of its presence.
Then Kiernan slows his pace. When I glance up at him, there’s a different kind of heat in his eyes.
“Fancy finishing what we started?” His voice drops, husky and low.
In front of us stands the small stone cottage where we was supposed to spend our wedding night. My throat constricts. My pulse quickens, but not with desire—with something colder.
I pull away and stare at him, at his green eyes glinting and heavy with longing.
“I … don’t want to go in there, Kiernan.” My voice shakes.
I feel the moment he realises his mistake. Regret and sadness radiate from him in waves.
“It wasn’t all bad memories, was it?” he asks, his brows raised and a smirk playing on his lips.
Heat floods my cheeks. That familiar jolt of desire reminds me of that night in a whole different way. Of his touch, his heat, the feeling of him finally inside me. The yearning to feel that again, to finally give ourselves to each other without interruptions—just us—consumes me.
It also confuses me. But the need for him is overwhelming enough to push any doubts away.
