“What is it?” Damian reached out and gently took my shoulders in his hands. “Can it wait until you are healed and rested?”
I shook my head.
“Alexa, it can’t be that bad. She’s dead; she can’t hurt us anymore. I’ll have this mess cleaned up while you sleep, and you’ll never have to see her again.” Damian started to guide me toward his door, but I pulled free of his touch, my stomach churning. He tried to conceal his consternation, but I could tell he was frustrated. Oh, how I wished frustration was the worst of the emotions he’d ever feel toward me. But once I told him, I was certain there would be something far more terrible.
“Vera wasn’t alone,” I finally said. “The taster who supposedly died and then went missing?”
Damian nodded for me to continue, his eyebrow lifting.
“He was Vera’s twin brother. He has the same power she does. He’s not dead — he’s the one who took Jax.”
Damian stepped forward, reaching for my hand again, but I pulled out of his reach once more. “Stop it, Alexa! Stop pulling away from me. Nothing you have to tell me could make me not want to —”
“He’s going to die, Damian,” I blurted out, and Damian froze. “I made a deal with Rafe, and now that Vera is dead, my deal is broken and he’s going to make Jax … he’s going to force Jax to kill himself,” I finished in a choked whisper.
Damian’s face paled, horror twisting his expression. “No. He wouldn’t do that. Jax is just a child. He wouldn’t …”
“He’s worse than Vera. I saw him,” I admitted as the tears I struggled to contain managed to escape, slipping down my cheeks unchecked. “I saw what he can do, and it won’t matter that Jax is a child. I promised that I would return before dawn tomorrow and that he and Vera would remain unharmed. If any of those stipulations aren’t met, he has ordered Jax to kill himself.”
Damian didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“I was trying to save him,” I said, fighting to keep myself from sobbing. I didn’t dare wipe the tears from my face, knowing my hands were still stained with Eljin’s blood. So much blood on my hands, and more to come. Would it never end?
“You tried your best,” he finally said, but he wouldn’t look at me.
The sudden silence was weighted with my failure, with the impending loss of the only family he had left. And then a new, desperate thought occurred to me. A dim, but fierce, hope. “I won’t let him die. I’m not going to give up, Damian.” This time, I stepped toward him. He watched me, his eyes brilliant but unreadable in the pale light of the slowly brightening sky. The thought of the rising sun, signaling the start of a new day, seemed incongruous with the horrible events of the last few hours. With what still lay ahead.
“What hope is there?” he asked, his voice toneless, his hands motionless at his side.
I stopped right in front of him, staring up into his beautiful face. “When you killed Vera, it broke her control. That’s our hope. I’m still going to go there, to that camp, as soon as possible. If I can kill Rafe in time, Jax won’t do it. He won’t have to die. If I can kill Rafe, his command will die with him.”
“And Jax will live,” Damian said, light springing back into his eyes.
I finally reached for him, taking his hand in mine, heedless of the blood on my skin.
“And Jax will live,” I repeated.
THE SUDDEN HOPE on Damian’s face was so exquisite it was almost unbearable. But I was determined to make this new plan succeed. I hadn’t known before now that if one of them died, their commands died with them. I could do this — I could kill him in time. As long as we found Felton, the man in the black and white robes, and all of Vera’s men, and imprisoned them before they realized something had happened to her and escaped to tell Rafe.
But if we wanted to kill Rafe, I had to do it on my own. If I brought a large force with me, he’d know what I was attempting, and he’d do something drastic to stop us. There was no question in my mind that he would stop at nothing to achieve his goal. He was even more ruthless than his sister.
As if he’d read my mind, Damian squeezed my hand tighter. “I’ll come with you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“You’re right. She shouldn’t be alone,” a voice came from behind us, taking us both by surprise. I whirled around to see Rylan standing there, sporting a black eye but otherwise looking unharmed. “But you can’t go with her, Sire. You have to stay here and protect your palace and kingdom, in case it goes badly. I’m going with her.”
“Rylan!” I cried out, letting go of Damian’s hand to run and throw myself into my friend’s open arms. “You’re alive!”
He caught me, holding me tightly. I had to suppress my cry of pain, but he noticed and immediately let go. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.” I brushed it off. “All that matters is that you’re alive. I was so afraid —”
“Of course I’m alive.” He scoffed. “Just got to waste a bit of time in the dungeon with the other guards not under Vera’s power. But about twenty minutes ago, our jailors suddenly remembered we weren’t the enemy and let us out.” Rylan glanced past me to our king, his expression darkening infinitesimally. “As soon as I heard what happened, I came straight here.”
“I’m very sorry for what you were put through,” Damian said, coming over to where we stood, taking my hand in his again, as though he were afraid to let me go. Maybe he was. Rylan looked down at our hands and couldn’t keep his eyes from widening.
“It wasn’t your fault, Your Majesty,” he said, his voice suddenly much more guarded.
“You don’t have to call me that when we’re alone, Rylan,” Damian said wearily. “Not after everything we’ve been through together.”
Rylan’s eyes were still on our clasped hands when he nodded. “If you insist, Damian.” There was a wry bitterness to his voice that I didn’t like, but now wasn’t the time for any of this.
“Could you go find Tanoori?” I asked Rylan. “Have her come to my room at once.” She deserved to know what had happened to Eljin — and I was hoping she could help me sew up my back and bind it for me. There was no time to wait for Lisbet to heal me. She would most likely be working on Eljin for days, and be completely drained from the effort, I was sure. “And send some men to find Felton and that man in the robes, immediately. They need to be imprisoned and questioned.” I quickly related what had happened to him last night, and my fears if news somehow got out and any of them fled the palace and reached Rafe before us. “We should also make sure all of Vera’s men and attendants are imprisoned, to be safe.”
Rylan finally looked away from our hands to meet my beseeching eyes.
“And you can tell me all about your imprisonment and how you got that black eye when we leave to find Rafe’s camp together, all right?”
“You can’t —”
I squeezed Damian’s hand harder, and he cut off his protest.
Rylan nodded, giving me a sharp look. I knew he’d want to talk about me and the king, more than brag about his battle wounds. “I’ll bring Tanoori to you, and I’ll make sure Vera’s men are all found before anyone gets away,” he said at last.
I nodded gratefully, and without another word to Damian, he turned and left.
“He’s not happy to see this, is he?” Damian held up our joined hands.
“No.”
He lifted his free hand to brush a lock of my hair behind my ear and then let his thumb trail down my jaw. “Doesn’t he wish for you to be happy?”
I shivered beneath his touch. Longing filled me, despite everything else that had happened and still lay ahead of us. Part of me wished to lose myself in Damian’s touch and never resurface. To let the world fall apart around us while we kept each other safe and protected, hidden in each other’s arms.
But that wasn’t possible, and no one knew it better than I did.
“He doesn’t think you’ll make me happy.” I couldn’t meet his probing gaze.
“Why would he think that?”
Damian gently tilted my face up to force me to look at him.
“Can we not talk about this here?” I was all too aware of the bloodstained floor and Vera’s body nearby.
Damian glanced at her as well and winced. “Of course. We need to get you to your room anyway, so you can lie down.”
Maybe he was right, though I didn’t want to admit that I needed to rest. But now that I was sure Felton and the man in the black and white robes would be caught and that the other men who had been in the delegation with her would be taken care of, we had a little bit of time before I had to rush back into the jungle. Still, a part of me — the part that had trained to be Damian’s top guard for so long — wanted to go to the dungeons and question them myself. Particularly the man in the robes. I still couldn’t get the look that had passed between him and Vera at that dinner out of my head. My instinct told me that he needed to be interrogated, and I didn’t want to entrust it to someone else.
But I ignored the instinct — for now — and let Damian guide me to the door. When we exited his chambers, one of the young women who had been at the dinner with Vera, the same one who had told her younger sister that I was vulgar, was standing in the hallway, talking to Jerrod. He looked rested and his uniform was clean — leading me to believe he’d been under Vera’s control and not imprisoned. Even though it was early, the girl’s hair was already coifed elaborately, and she wore a stunning, pale yellow morning dress. They both glanced up when we walked out. The young woman’s eyes widened when she saw us emerging together from the king’s quarters covered in blood. Her words in the hallway, her haughty glare that had been only partially hidden by her fan, and her laughter at the dinner rose up unbidden in my mind. But now, when her gaze dropped to our entwined hands, her jaw literally fell open for a split second before she snapped it shut again.
“Your Majesty.” Jerrod bowed to the king after looking me up and down quickly, his eyebrows lifting. I’m sure he wanted to know why I was covered in blood, if he hadn’t already heard.
“Your Majesty,” the young woman echoed belatedly, falling into a hurried curtsy. She’d probably come hoping to steal a moment of time relatively alone with the king. I couldn’t help but smile, just a bit, when her eyes dropped to our hands again before she clenched her jaw and looked away.
Damian inclined his head. “Jerrod, will you please see to it that the, ah, mess in my room is taken care of immediately? After you escort Miss Durand back to her rooms,” he added, his eyes flickering to the girl in the yellow dress briefly.
“Of course, Sire.” Jerrod bowed again, though he looked at me questioningly.
I was too tired and in too much pain to do anything other than shrug at him. He’d have to find out what happened another time — or from the palace gossip chain. Miss Durand stared at us openly, not even trying to disguise her shock and evident dismay at being dismissed so callously.
Damian turned, gently pulling me toward my room, and I walked away from them with relief. Before I knew it, he’d opened my door and led me to my bed. I sat down carefully but still flinched at the sudden pain that shot up my back.
“Will you let me look at it and see if I can help?” Damian knelt down in front of me, concern on his face.
I shook my head. “Tanoori will be here soon. She can help me.” I didn’t want him to see my body, not like this. Not bloody and torn.
He reached up to smooth my hair back from my face again, cupping my head with both hands, heedless of my scars. “I know it’s probably a really bad time to tell you, but I love seeing your hair down like this. You truly are beautiful, you know.”
I thought of the day Lisbet had stood beside me in his room, looking at my reflection in the mirror, telling me I was both fierce and lovely. I’d believed her then, but weeks of stares and whispers and worse had shaken my belief that I could still be attractive despite my scars. When Damian told me I was beautiful, though, for some reason I believed him. The truth was in his eyes, in his touch. In the way he looked at me — not just at the ruined skin.
The silence stretched out until the smile slowly slid off his face. “Alexa,” he began haltingly, softly, “I don’t understand why, after everything we’d been through …” He shook his head once, a sharp, jerking motion. The pain he’d buried, hidden away, seeped into his eyes. “Why did you push me away — why did you let me believe that you didn’t trust me? That you didn’t find me good enough for you? I truly thought you didn’t love me anymore. That it had been nothing more to you than some sort of game.”
His words — his accusation — sent a hot stab of regret beneath my ribs into my heart. I reached up to cover his hands with my own trembling fingers. “No,” I breathed. “It was never a game. How could you even think that of me?”
He didn’t say anything, just stared into my eyes, waiting. His unspoken answer hung heavily in the air between us. How could he not? With the way I’d been treating him, what other conclusion was there?
“I was — I am — afraid, Damian. I’m not fit to be your queen. You need to think of what’s best for your kingdom — and that would be someone of noble birth. Someone who could help solidify one of our alliances. The people of Antion deserve a queen who is equal to their king. Not your scarred guard. If they saw me on the throne beside you …” I trailed off, remembering the girls’ mocking giggles at that dinner, Miss Durand’s look of disbelief just a few moments ago when she saw us doing nothing more than holding hands. “It would diminish your power to have me at your side. It was never about you not being good enough. It’s about me. I don’t deserve you. All I know how to do is fight — I don’t know how to rule a kingdom at your side. I am the one who isn’t good enough for you.” Once I began to tell him the truth of my feelings, and my fears, it all came flooding out. The dam I’d built inside to protect myself — to protect him — had broken, and there was no holding it back now. “I led you to believe that I didn’t care about you so that you would forget about your feelings for me and do what was best for you and Antion.”
Damian’s lips tilted at the corners, a wistful, sad smile. “How could you ever think such a thing? First of all, how many times do I have to tell you how beautiful you are? Your scars aren’t something to be ashamed of; they are a mark of your greatness. And secondly, you know how to do much more than fight. You are a natural leader, and you love with your whole heart. I am the one who would be honored to have you at my side.”
“I know you feel that way — but what of your people? What will you do when they mock me? When they laugh at you behind your back for marrying your scarred guard? I’m no lady from the court — or nobility from another kingdom. I am not what they expect you to marry.”
“Oh, Alexa.” Damian stroked my hair back from my face, his touch gentle. “Do you really think I care what anyone else thinks — if your fears were even valid? Which, by the way, I don’t believe to be true,” he continued, not allowing me to protest. “You can’t judge the beliefs of our entire kingdom based on the immature reactions of a few girls at court or a couple of insecure men in the guard who don’t like being beaten by a girl.” His eyes suddenly took on a teasing glint. “But that brings up another point — I have never actually proposed to you. That’s a pretty confident assumption to make.”
My eyes widened and a sudden blush burned my cheeks. I dropped my hands into my lap. “I — I didn’t mean to … it wasn’t my intent to …”
“Alexa.” He brushed my lips with one finger, silencing my stuttering attempts to dig myself out of the hole I’d apparently created. “Can’t you tell yet when I’m teasing you?”
I opened and then closed my mouth. But when I finally met his eyes once more, I couldn’t ignore the way they glowed — a glow that somehow warmed all of me.
“This isn’t how I pictured asking you, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from all of this, it’s that we never know how much time we have. And I refuse to waste a single minute more.”
Damian shifted so that he was knee
ling on one knee in front of me. My heart felt fragile beneath my ribs, thrumming with tender hope as he took my hands in his, lifting the edge of his tunic and gently wiping the blood from them, until they were mostly clean. Then he pulled them to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my knuckles, first one hand, then the other. The pulsing of my blood through my body made my back hurt worse again, but I didn’t care.
“Alexa Hollen, you have served as my most trusted and valuable guard for quite some time. You have saved my life, and my kingdom, over and over again. But even more importantly, you have given me a gift more precious than life. You’ve given me your love.” He paused, his eyes as piercing as ever. “Will you marry me, my beautiful, indomitable Alexa? May I try to deserve you by cherishing you and showering you with all the love I possess for the rest of forever?”
The emotions I felt for him nearly overwhelmed me as I gazed into his face. My heart was so full it seemed impossible for my body to cage it any longer. I suddenly remembered Tanoori’s words, and I decided she was right — I wasn’t going to be stubborn anymore. I was going to seize my happiness and make it my own.
Tears stung my eyes as I nodded. “Yes,” I said, unable to suppress a sudden grin. “Yes, I will marry you, Damian.”
Joy suffused his face, making his eyes light up with such an intense happiness, I’d never seen anything like it before. In the warm glow of dawn trickling through my window, they shone like bright blue jewels. He kissed me once, hard, then pulled back before I even had a chance to reciprocate.
“I’m sorry I don’t have your ring with me right now,” he said. “But I know exactly where it is — I’ve kept it hidden for years. It was my mother’s, a parting gift from her father before she came to Antion to marry. I think she’d be very happy to know I was giving it to you.” He reached up and threaded his hand through my hair.