“I think mostly he tortures himself. But again, I cannot imagine him raising a hand to kill anyone, much less a woman. Much less any of his wives, who were simply spoiled and selfish.”
He thought the older woman was a bit overly taken with Lucian, but took her commentary to heart.
He carried the story with him to Onyx when Onyx and Circe arrived. “Your Highness,” he said.
“Don’t stand on ceremony with me,” Onyx said. “It bothers me.”
“Sorry. I have spent the past month engaging in nothing but protocol. This motherfucker has a throne room.”
“Yes, I’ve been,” Onyx said. “I cannot believe that my sister is intent on marrying him.”
“She is.”
He and Emerald hadn’t even spoken privately in the past four weeks. He was there, doing his job, guarding her, as she got acquainted with the palace, and the people in it. He had watched her begin to relax there, had watched as she had found ways to make herself consequential, had found friends. It was wrong of him to find that enraging. That he found it irksome. He should be glad that she was finding her way in this life that she had chosen.
“It is good for the country, and I can’t deny it, but I worry about her.”
“There is no need to worry.” Flashes of his night with her played in his mind. “You know I would die before anything happened to her.”
Onyx got a strange look on his face. “Yes. I do know that.”
Circe made herself absent during the conversation, as she always did. The tension between her and Onyx was always palpable.
It wasn’t sexual tension.
She simply didn’t like him.
Onyx could be a difficult bastard, nobody knew that better than Andrei, but he found his wife’s dislike of him to be incomprehensible. He was a good man. He didn’t deserve her vitriol. And yet he took it.
The night before the wedding was the event, and he could certainly see what the housekeeper meant. Lucian liked to show off his wealth. And it was on full display in the ballroom. The large, cavernous room was decorated with glittering lights, each one made from crystal—so it was rumored. There were twisted tree branches all lit up as well, the whole thing like a dark fairy forest. He wasn’t simply demonstrating wealth, he was flaunting it.
The goblets were gilded, every plate studded with gemstones. It was ostentatious to a rather obvious degree, and it was clear that Lucian didn’t care. He did what he wanted, and didn’t care for the greater good, and yet he was marrying Emerald, which would benefit his country, and hers.
He was a strange man, and Andrei did not quite have the measure of him. It would be easy for him to call him bad and let that be done. In fact, that was what he wanted to do. Find him to be a threat so that he could cut off his head.
And yet it wasn’t that simple.
The entire event was designed around Emerald making her debut, and he was positioned at the back of the room, waiting for her when she walked through the double doors and came to the edge of the steps, like Cinderella. But she was wrapped all in gold, as was everything else, and he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the dress was woven with real golden thread.
Her red hair was captured up off her shoulders in an elaborate design.
Her lips were red, tempting, beautiful.
He remembered that mouth being on his body. Knew exactly what those lips could do.
She would do that for him.
The burning hatred at the center of his chest was a living, breathing thing. His envy was a monster, and if it would not create an international incident that would utterly devastate both Emerald and Onyx, Andrei would’ve been tempted to kill Lucian then and there.
To carry her away like a marauder.
His father would never have allowed this wedding to continue.
His father had been selfish. He had cared only for his own desires. He would’ve picked a woman up and carried her off whether she wanted to be or not. He would’ve taken what he wanted, what was his.
He’d always known that about his father. It wasn’t until he was older that he’d realized that was wrong.
He had decided that was a weakness. That true strength was giving desire over for the greater good.
