“The engraving on your headstone,” Ethan marveled. “Wany dawzy, je vixi razim.Buried twice, but lived once.”
“Exactly,” Lucien said. “I’ve been there for you all along, though you couldn’t see it.”
“And you’re just going to take him back?” I whirled on my mother now, furious with her, too. “After heleft us?”
Mom’s eyes were nothing but full of hope, and it crushed me to witness. “I love your father. He is my mate. I’m destined to be with him,” Mom pleaded. “Please, Emma, don’t force me to be apart from him a second longer than I have already. I thought he was dead, and here he is, alive! This is a miracle beyond all imagining. We can finally be a family again!”
A family. How could we be afamily?We’d been separated for so long, cast off in different places around the world. Now that I was an adult, Lucien wanted to come back into my life and be a father again?
No fucking way. He hadn’t been there when I needed him as a child. And you know what? I didn’t need him now.
“Emma—” Lucien began. He reached out for me, but I snatched my hand away.
Ethan knew what I was about to do the second before I did it. The look he gave begged me not to, but I couldn’t handle it anymore.
I bolted. I ran out of the room as fast as my legs would allow. I flung the door open so harshly, it slammed against the wall as I ran out of the infirmary and into the hallways of the palace.
Servants and nobles called out, “My queen!” as I ran past, but I ignored them. I couldn’t care less if I looked undignified as all fuck right now. I just wanted to be alone… because it felt like being alone was all that I had known my entire life, and at the moment, that seemed comfortable.
I took the stairs upward as quickly as possible, ignoring the burning in my lungs and the lightheadedness that came with the quick climb. I made it to the tallest tower in the palace and burst on through, into the outside world.
Nowhere to run now. I put my hands on the stone balcony and leaned over, trying not to gag.
This was worse than messed up. It waswrong.All my life, I’d wanted a father who’d be there for me. Now that I knew my father was still alive, I wanted to go back to the way things were.
I thought my father had died protecting me. Now that the truth was out, it made me sick to think he’d willinglychosento leave me behind and out of his life.
I cringed as I heard the door to the tower’s balcony open. I turned. Lord Lucien approached in his black wolven form, his eyes dark and glittering with sadness.
Damn, it was hard to be mad at him when he looked like that. He had the expression of a wounded dog.
But I was the one who’d been hurt. I wanted to tell him to go away, but I didn’t. Lucien changed back into a man and turned his palms upward toward me.
“You do not have to forgive me,” he began. “But it was time for you to know.”
My hands bunched into fists, and not of my own accord. “Youleftme.”
“To save your life.”
“There were times I didn’t consider my life worth living because I didn’t have a father!” I shouted. “Did you ever think of that?”
Lucien flinched, but he said, “I considered the pain it would put you through—”
“Igrievedfor you!Twice!” I shouted. “I went to your headstone and placed flowers upon your grave, once as Anastazy, and once as Lord Lucien. I shed tears and wept and believed that I’d never get to meet the man who I thought died a hero, for the sake of saving me!”
My voice shook as I said, “And those tears were fornothing, because there you were, alive and well, and I had no idea. My greatest hope was still living and breathing, and all it took to unravel that dream was a lie.”
Lucien was trembling. “I cannot make up for the choices I made. But I pray to the gods that you can at least see what I’ve done for you since your arrival here in Malovia. See that even though I couldn’t tell you the truth, I did my damndest to be the best father I could be, at a distance.”
I blinked away tears. Lord Lucien and I always had a special connection. We’d been closer than any teacher and student had the right to be, and now I knew why.
“It doesn’t matter,” I spat. “You didn’t want me.”
“Didn’t want you? By the gods, Emma, Icherishedyou,” Lucien insisted. “There isn’t a second after you arrived at Arcanea University that I did not consider a moment of joy. Just being able to look at you is a blessing, after all these years spent apart. Of course I wanted to be there. But I wanted you to stay alive. And I was willing to make any sacrifice, so long as it meant that you were able to see another day.”
“Our family is broken,” I insisted. “Arthur and I already missed out on having a childhood together, and now you’re coming in, trying to make things right—”
“There is nomaking things right,” Lucien said gruffly. “There is only hope that we can have a better future, one where we’re together. You’re a queen now, Emma. You call the shots. I only wish to be a part of your life, as I have longed for since the moment I discovered your mother was with child. Yet if you will send me away, send me away, for all I desire now is your happiness. And your love… if you’ll offer it. Mine will always be free to you.”
