He kept telling himself that in time he’d grow to love her. His parents had started out that way—an arranged political marriage between two empires. Now the two of them were best friends and loved each other dearly.
Had he not met Ember, it was what he’d been destined for. His father had been in the middle of negotiations to marry him off to an heiress for the Ritadarion Empire so that Bastien would have been a ruler in his own right. In fact, he would have been married to her by now.
Ember had changed his whole life.
“Bas?”
He met Lil’s gaze.
She tapped her wrist, and it was only then that he realized his own arm was buzzing with an alert. “It’s a scramble. We have to get back to base.”
“Okay.” He wiped the remainder of the tears from Alura’s cheeks and kissed her lips. “I’ll be home as soon as the attack’s over to check on you.”
“Thank you.”
Nodding, he said his good-byes and followed his sister from the room to see that Ember and her sisters had already gone to answer the call. As he and his sister left, Lil cast a censuring glare at him.
“You’re really not planning to divorce her now?”
“Don’t start on me, Lil.”
“C’mon… you’re putting on a brave face. But even I can tell you’re not happy in this marriage. Divorce her already.”
“Meant what I said before the priest. Through good times and bad. I’m here for the long haul.”
“You’re an idiot. And I hope for your sake that she’s as loyal to you.”
***
“—Then I overheard Bastien talking to his uncle, Jackson. He had no idea that I could hear them, plotting his parents’ murders.”
“She’s fucking lying!” Bastien shot to his feet, intending to kill his wife. Had he not been in restraints and surrounded by half a dozen armed guards, he would have torn out Alura’s treacherous throat with his bare hands.
“Lock him in the box!” Alia Mureaux, the Overseer of Justice who ran the Trigon Court where Bastien was being tried for the murders of his parents and siblings, came to her feet. Her face was flushed bright red from the anger that made her dark brown eyes protrude. As a longtime friend of both his parents, she was as disgusted and upset by this trial as he was.
And she’d cut him no slack from the beginning. Because, like the rest of the Nine Worlds, she was convinced Bastien was guilty.
Something not helped by the fact that the media continued to run photos of him being arrested while covered in their blood. Worse, Alura kept giving interviews where she cried about how he’d done her wrong, telling everyone she was the victim, and spilling all manner of bullshit lies about him. How anyone could believe her, he had no idea.
Yet they did.
No one remembered a single act of kindness he’d ever done. Her lies and the willingness of fools to believe them overrode all else.
Shaking in rage, Bastien cried out at the injustice as the guards hauled him to the small, enclosed, soundproof cage. He’d had no time to grieve. To process. He hadn’t even been allowed to attend the funerals.
Please let me wake up from this nightmare!
But the horror refused to end. All it did was get worse and worse.
The guards shoved him inside, slamming his head against the glass before they shut and locked the door. Unshed tears choked him as he struggled to find his balance and regain his footing while his hands were still shackled behind his back. From his new cage, he could see and hear the trial, but no one could hear him.
Not that it mattered. No one had listened to a single thing he’d had to say.
Even now, he couldn’t believe what had happened. One minute, he’d been in the shower at the royal palace, where he’d decided to stay for the night.
Pregnant with her first child, Lil had been too sick to go back to base after dinner with their parents, so as her wingman, Bastien had stayed dutifully by her side—even though she’d been shrieking at him over something he’d done to piss her off. Strange that he couldn’t even recall what it was now.
All he remembered were her final words to him.
