He helped raise me when my father was debilitated by grief, and they spent nearly every day together. He was truly the only person in our castle that I think was able to make my fathersmile.
Something about that feels…strange. Questionable. But I don’t know why I would question Ptaris and his friendship with my father, now of all times…
Ptaris holds me close.
“I know, sweetheart,” he murmurs.Sweetheart. Only my father has ever called me that.
And then it dawns on me.
“How—how do you know?—”
Ptaris holds me apart from him, his gaze meeting mine with tears. He carefully pulls back his collar to reveal two small circles on his clavicle—faded circles that look old, as if they have been branded on his skin for decades.
Bite marks.
No, claim marks.
My heart stops as the world collides around me like crashing waves. No, that can’t be, they must be someone else’s marks, they must?—
“When a bond is broken, it is felt like an earthquake,” Ptaris says, his voice sad and full of despair.
“No!” I cry out, not wanting to hear this. This has to be the worst day of my life.
“No, you’re lying!” I say as another sob racks me.
Paris covers his neck and shakes his head. “I wish I were, sweetheart. But I’m not.”
I choke out another sob as Ptaris wraps me in his arms, and I cry against his chest like a baby.
I’d always wondered why my father refused to remarry—to find another mate after my mother had passed. Every time I asked him about such things, he brushed me off, telling me he didn’t need another mate because he had me and the kingdom, andPtaris.What more could he have asked for?
I’d always thought it was a lovely sentiment, one meant to redirect me to focus on my studies and preparations for my destiny of being a bride. But now, I look at his answer with a startling new clarity.
He never remarried or mated with another because he hadclaimedand bonded Ptaris. My father had claimed and bonded a man; an act which itself is considered a crime for the average vampire, but for a vampire of royal blood, for aking—that is an act oftreasonand grounds for challenging the throne.
My father was committing treason right under my nose, and I’d never even suspected it.
But as Ptaris holds me, his tears hot against my flesh, embracing me as if I were his own, I realize the truth is much more complicated than it seems.
I wrap my arms around my father’smate, the one he kept hidden in plain sight, the man who loved me as if I was his own alongside his best friend and mate.
He kisses my hair as he sniffles, his hands running down my back.
“I am so very sorry, Ivy. I know this must be difficult for you. And I wish there was another way to do this, but?—”
I pull apart from him, glancing up at his warm brown eyes.
His features are rougher than most of the vampires in my father’s castle. While vampire men all share the same sort of beautiful design, there is something quite comforting about Ptaris’s chocolate brown eyes and dark hair; bespeckled with shades of gray, the only indicator of his life before he’d fully transitioned into his powers. Most vampires age slower the older they get. It’s a contrast to how fast we age once we’re born. I am only twenty, and my transition has not yet been completed, but if I were to bite and bind a mate, my aging process would slow down ostensibly. If I do not claim and bind a mate, I will age like a human until Ido.And if I were to claim and bind a mate in my fifties, I would essentially lock myself into the appearance of the youth I present atthat time, effectively slowing down the aging process for the rest of eternity.
My father claimed and bound my mother when he was just my age. Had he waited to claim Ptaris? Months? Years? I can’t help but wonder as my memories filter into my brain with newfound clarity. Of all the times Ptaris and my father were together, of all the nights Ptaris put me to bed because my father was incapacitated or unable to be with me.
How could I have been so blind? How could I have not known my father loved him in a way that was different from how he loved me?
“But what?” I ask as he helps me up from the ground. He looks from me to the carriage.
“Your father and I knew this day may come, and we prepared for it as best we could, but… we did not plan for rejection.”
His words fall on me as thunder booms in the distance. I look up at the grey sky. The air is cold and rain is coming.
