He and Onyx were blood brothers. After Onyx’s parents had died, Andrei had cut his palm, and Onyx had cut his, and they had shaken hands, solidifying their connection to one another. Emerald was something else.
His.
And yet he knew that she wasn’t. She never could be.
His desire for her was anathema to him. He did his best to shut it off, to push it down, to push her away. He’d been put in charge of her after the king and queen had died. He’d been made her personal guard—though he’d been young. After all, Onyx was king at that same young age, in charge of an entire country. Andrei had ruled over Emerald’s safety. He had protected her physically, and had been there for her through her grief. She had become the person who mattered most to him in all the world. A connection that was not familial, but felt soul deep in a way he would never have been able to put to words.
Then it had changed. The intensity of the feelings had always been there, but then that intensity had become deadly. Like a knife resting flat on flesh for years, suddenly twisted so the sharp edge sunk in, deep and terrible.
The great and terrible hunger that had taken over him during a dance at her eighteenth birthday party. An innocent touch of her hand against his and he’d been undone. The fierce need to claim her, to make her his, to take her until they were both breathless…
It had dogged him now for six years, this deep caring that had turned into something so much more obsessing.
He exhausted his sexual energies elsewhere, faceless, nameless hookups that he found shameful in the broad light of day, especially when he looked at her.
But there was nothing that could be done. He was not angry now because she was marrying someone else. That had always been what was destined to be. He was angry because this man, this mad king, could put her in danger.
“This is why you need to stay with her. Obviously if you think there is any real danger to her safety, I expect you to put a stop to things. Start a war on your way out if you have to.”
Andrei crossed his arms. “I’m listening.”
“You will gather intel for me. You will tell me everything, about the king, about the country, about the palace. If we have to have an international incident, then we must. If you think that he will be unkind to her, abusive in some way, if you believe that it is a place she will not survive, then at any point during the marriage, you will remove her, bring her back.”
“I promise.”
“I know that I can count on you. I have trusted you with my sister, and her safety since she was fourteen years old. I continue to trust you now.”
He smiled, but it was not a genuine smile. Because if he had any idea that Andrei’s feelings for Emerald had begun to change years ago, when she had begun to look like a woman, and her sweetness, her care had gotten beneath his skin in a way that no one and nothing else ever had, he would likely have Andrei thrown in a dungeon for the rest of his life. Beheading would be too good for him.
“I’m sorry about the boat trip,” Onyx said.
Andrei shrugged. Yes, he felt cold terror in his veins when he thought about going out on the water. When he thought about what it had been like when the ship had begun to take on the ocean, until it was more water than boat. The way that the pressure of the sinking vessel had pulled him down, and the way his lungs had burned as he had swum endlessly in the wrong direction. How he had washed up on the shore, he couldn’t say. It was a miracle, he had decided. Because there was no other explanation. But every other man, woman and child on that boat had died. And so, he had always found it to be a sharp-edged miracle. Because if the divine had saved him, then surely the divine could’ve prevented the boat from capsizing in the first place.
He had a long-standing rift with God over that.
“It is nothing,” he said.
Because when it came to the choice between his own comfort and protecting Emerald, he would choose her every time.
And so he would choose her now. Above all else.
If he had to lead her into this marriage that she had chosen, he would.
And if he had to cut her husband’s throat to save her, he would do that too.
The one thing he would never do, was put his hands on her.
Chapter Two
SHE DIDN’T EXPECTto get so emotional packing up to leave the palace. She didn’t know what she had expected. But her resolve was so firm, she’d sort of thought that it would carry her out of the palace, onto the boat, across the sea.
Now, standing on the dock about ready to board the ship, she felt…frozen. Like her shoes were made of cement.
“Princess,” Andrei said, “the boat awaits.”
The boat in question was a yacht, beautiful and streamlined and with every modern amenity that a person could ever want or need. It was Onyx’s, and Emerald had never spent a lot of time on it. She’d taken short trips before but never anything this long. Well, and never to her potential doom, or to a marriage with a stranger.
“I know,” she said, looking up at Andrei. “Are you okay?”
