“I support you, Emerald, and whatever it is you need.”
She nodded, and she and her brother began to walk down the aisle. At the head of the aisle was Lucian, and behind him a priest, kneeling in prayer, his back turned.
He was wearing blue robes, with a large cross on the back. A symbol of torture and salvation, depending on the context. Right now, it felt like torture.
Stop this.
Stop this.
Stop this.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. For the safety of the country. For the safety of her baby.
Her legacy didn’t feel like it mattered much anymore.
When she arrived at the head of the aisle, Onyx released his hold on her, and Lucian extended his hand. She took it, and found herself standing across from him at the altar.
The priest rose slowly, and then he turned.
And her heart dropped into her feet. “Andrei?”
“Oh. The guard,” Lucian said, looking at him and then out at the crowd. “This is a bit dramatic.”
“It is,” Andrei said. “Because I wanted you to know. I wanted everyone here to know, who it is who took your woman. Surprise. She’s mine now.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, lifted her up and brought her up against his chest. “I’m taking her somewhere you won’t find her.”
“Guards,” Lucian shouted.
But Andrei was too quick. He had a plan.
There was a clear route, diagonally and through the back door, and then they disappeared suddenly into a side passage that spit them out outside. And somehow, no one followed them that way. “What are you doing?”
“You didn’t think that I was going to let you marry him? I’m only shocked that you let yourself get that far.”
She looked at his face, and she saw that something was irrevocably broken between them.
Whatever feelings he had for her before, they weren’t there now. He was being driven by fury. Possessiveness.
Rage.
He must’ve found out about the baby.
But she didn’t have time to ask him, because suddenly, she was being gathered more tightly against him, and he jumped off the edge of a cliff, taking them both down into the churning sea.
Chapter Nine
THEY WERE DROWNING. Together. He didn’t know which way was up. He didn’t particularly care. For a moment, he just let it all not… Hurt.
And then, his body sprung into action.
He began to swim them both toward the surface of the water. Up and up, to where he had the small boat moored against the side of the rock.
He had given up all his honor for this. For them. He had gone to the darkest place inside him to claim her as his. This might be sharp, hard, she might be angry that he’d thwarted her, but he could not allow her to give herself to another man.
He’d thought he could.
But he was his father’s son.
