Kiara snarls and leaves her husband’s grip to stride toward the enchanted bars, careful not to touch them.
Kiara Alarie.Always the one in charge.
I hate that part of me comes from her—this obsessive need to always be in control, always stay a step ahead, to make sure I’m capable of anything and everything.
The only difference between us is that while every brutal choice I’ve made was to keep my family and my people safe, she ruins lives for sport.
Kiara Alarie serves no one but herself.
My father—Luke—grabs his mate, pulling her back. I’m afraid he’ll convince his mate to keep her wits when Khatri decides to goad her.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding, Horseman,” he says smoothly, looking at them from head to toe. “I don’t think they did it. Think about it, what are the odds that a washed-up Horseman and a has-been Queen would willingly go against thePrincess of Death?”
Luke’s head snaps to his mate, whose eyes are burning with rage at the insult.
“Look at her. She’s not clever enough for a coup or stupid enough to go after Nevaeh.”
“I’m not smart enough?” Kiara’s voice rises, her control fracturing. “I’ve been picking up the slack of all those useless devotees foryears. And you think I’m not smart enough?” She points at Khatri, losing her grip on her anger.
She begins pacing back and forth, pulling on her hair, her words spilling out too fast, too jagged. Luke tries to steady her, but she’s mumbling like she used to. A sign that she’s lost herself to her madness.
“I’ve been planning for years.Years!And that girl ruined everything.” She jabs her finger into my chest through the bars, not caring about her wrist burning. The same green eyesI inherited from her now filled with manic rage. “You have no idea how hard it was to sneak that witch past Dean’s defenses.”
I freeze in place, blood turning to ice.
No. She didn’t. There’s no waymy motherdid that. She wouldn’t.
Luke tries and fails to stop his mate from saying too much.
I was prepared for cruelty, for her to hurl venom at me and my mate. But Kiara just revealed her biggest sin in her incensed madness.
“I found the perfect place. The precise time when Dean would be distracted. Everything was going according to plan, but what did that incompetent bitch do? She let two kids stroll out of her so-called impenetrable dungeon. Visha ruinedyearsof my planning! And she still had the gall to crawl back to me for help.”
She was the one.
She is the reason my mate and brother suffered in that dungeon for a decade. She kept them away from their families in a place where they were beaten to the inch of their lives every night.
A mother. My own mother.
A woman so heartless she didn’t hesitate before sending two kids to their deaths, and for what? Power? Pride?
From the corner of my eye, I see Khatri tense. Fury shakes his frame before he lunges, and I barely stop him from ripping through the enchanted bars and searing his flesh.
My body sinks under the weight of dread. One thought coils tighter and tighter in my head. How will I ever face Nevaeh, knowing my mother is the root of her every nightmare?
The memories hit me one by one like blades. Nights spent holding my mate when her nightmares wouldn’t let her sleep, the moments August clung to me because he was terrified of being hunted down and dragged back to that dungeon.
I can’t breathe when I remember the night Harvey broke down in front of me after finding out about his parents. Dean’s desperation to find his daughter before he died of heartbreak.His hope slowly dying.
Shedid that.Theydid that.
Their choices have been haunting my family for years. It disgusts me that they did these horrible things and planned these elaborate schemes to hurt their Fated family. Whatever shred of love or respect lingered for them dissolved into nothing.
“How. Could. You?” The words seethe from me like poison.
“Because it was supposed to be ours!” Luke screams, anger twisting his features. “The Tetrad kingdom was my vision!My baby.And they took it. It wasn’t supposed to be four dynasties pretending to be one in front of the world. I wanted all four of the kingdoms to be ruled by one.Conquer above all.”
My sperm donor dares to lift his chin as if anything he just said could ever justify his actions. He claims this kingdom was hisbaby,but I’m a testament to how he treated hisactual baby.So I guessI shouldn’t be surprised he let this kingdom go to shit.
