Before I could change the subject back to Ilsa, Freya suddenly rose from the table. She grabbed both my wrists and leaned down.
Her eyes watered as her wine-stained breath skated across my face. “You listen to me—men are always the most dangerouswhen they think they do not have control. It all goes back to control—always! The monster consumed my husband, all it wants is control!”
My eyes darted across Freya’s face. I did not know what to say, or even what to think. Was the faerie potion warping her mind like it had with Annalisa? What was the monster she was talking about?
Freya gripped my wrists harder. “Anders is a catapult—he will do as much damage as possible with one move. He does not care about consequences. He has no limits. He is going to eat my baby too!”
I had no other choice but to follow her logic. “Who is going to eat your—?”
“Stay away from the monster!” she cried. “Run! Run!”
Her hands started to shake and I caught a glimpse of Brietta behind the Duchess. She put a hand on her shoulder. “Freya, please—”
Freya released me and turned to Brietta, gripping her arms just below her shoulders. Her eyes were wide with urgency. “You have to do it, Brie. You have to run! You have to keep the dream alive!”
Brietta’s lip trembled as she tried to hold Freya upright. “Yes, we are trying. We are trying—”
Freya broke into sobs and collapsed to the floor. The faerie potion had finally overtaken her.
I knelt beside Brietta as she rubbed Freya’s back.
“Freya, get up, please,” she begged. “We still have more to learn.”
I lowered my head as I tried to meet her eyes. “Your Excellency, what more do you know about Ilsa—?”
Freya’s head snapped up and her eyes locked on my face. “Adalia, I am sorry!”
She thought I was my mother. Was she going mad, or was the faerie potion that strong? “Your Excellency, I am not—”
“Save him, and then do what you have to do,” Freya sobbed. “End it, once and for all. Let the kittens run. I should have been stronger for you. I am sorry. Sorry! Sorry!”
She fell into a delirious babble. Magnus pawed at Freya, nuzzling into her side as his fluffy tail swished across the floor. Brietta and I tried to calm her, but her cries got louder until a group of maids burst into the room to collect her.
Freya shook as the maids helped her out of the room. Brietta and I exchanged weary, defeated looks. Our tea had turned cold, and all we had to show for it was the tears of the Duchess.
We had to find another door to the truth, but if Freya was too far gone and the General was too close to his brother, where else could we even look?
Brietta and I stared out opposite windows in the Hyton carriage as we rode to the dressmaker’s shop in the center of town. She had only given me a brief explanation that we needed to get our costumes for the Darkest Night ball, but otherwise kept silent.
Neither of us wanted to say much about our disastrous tea with Freya. Not only did we have nothing new about Duchess Ilsa, but also we both nursed the wounds of another lie.
Our chastity requirement was all bullshit.
The gems on Brietta’s rings flashed in the sunlight as she turned to me. “What would you have done differently at Ashmore had you known?”
A spot of warmth glowed in my heart as it compelled me to answer the question. I thought of Derrick’s lips on mine when he snuck me away after the Suitors’ Ball. And his hands around my waist. And his teeth on my neck.
He had not just wanted me as a future wife, but wanted me in the way a starving man seeks a meal. Despite how intense he was, it felt…goodto be wanted.
I stared at the passing stone buildings through the window as my cheeks heated. As much as I wanted to modestly deny it, my magic would not let me swallow the truth. “I would have found a way to be with Derrick, at least once.”
A mixture of sensuous memories and the fantasies I had weaved through the years flashed through my mind. I shifted on the velvet cushion as pressure grew in my hips. I could not be feeling likethis,I had answers to find. I could not just retreat to my dormitory for fifteen minutes and hope no one came in like I used to.
I bit my tongue as my mind wandered from dark curls and gorgeous eyes to golden tresses and massive biceps. I thought those inconvenient…feelingswould go away after the marriage enchantment, but maybe even Fraleigh’s magic had not been powerful enough to temper the frustrated knot within me.
The blood bond might have not exactlyforcedme to want Riyan’s body, after all. Maybe having a red-hot desire was just part of me.
Desire—that was what I must have felt for Riyan. Love had nothing to do with it. After all, Father loved Mother with all his heart…and he still sold her to the Duke.
