Chapter 39 Eviana #2
Eviana stared up at the ceiling, listening to Valter’s steady breathing beside her.
She’d had to sit through another dinner of him doting on Priya.
Coaxing her to trust him more and more while she watched on, unable to do anything.
A part of her wondered what he’d do if she suddenly shared his secret.
Not that she could. She was still bound by the vows and bargains she’d been forced to take over the years, including keeping his secrets.
But the more she observed them, the more she watched Priya stare at him and hang on to his every word, doing everything in her power to keep his attention and earn his praise, the more Eviana realized she couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t sit back and watch this. She had to do something. Maybe Corbin and Lange would come. Maybe they’d bring help, but she couldn’t depend on them. She’d never been able to depend on anyone. Plans needed backup plans, and she’d been putting one together these last weeks.
She waited another fifteen minutes before she carefully slipped from the bed.
If she waited any longer, she risked waking him.
He always slept deepest the first hours of the night.
Pulling a dress over her head, because that was all she had here to wear, she silently opened the door of Valter’s bedroom and stepped into the hall.
This place was as familiar as Arius House.
They came here often, and Valter preferred it to the penthouse in the Charter District.
A decent-sized manor house built into the depths of the mountains, just like the Shifter home.
This house was just on the other side of the Charter District border, and there were so many wards and enchantments around it, it was only possible to discover if you already knew it was there.
Even the Shifter Alpha and Beta didn’t know its exact location.
Valter kept his secrets here, and she was on her way to perhaps his greatest secret of all.
The hall ended with nothing but the rocky wall, but on the left side was a small closet door.
She winced when it creaked, holding her breath to see if Valter heard it.
When everything remained silent, she entered, finding not a closet, but a narrow stairwell leading up.
Her steps were fast and light, knowing she had little time to waste, and when she reached the top, she used her own teeth to bite hard enough to draw blood.
Then she drew a symbol on the wall, the stone pulsing with a faint glow before it dissolved, and she stepped through.
The female sat on the bed, shifting to face her fully and her emerald eyes settling onto hers.
If only Devram knew how deep the corruption ran between the Achaz and Arius Lords.
“Caris,” Eviana greeted in a flat tone.
“It has been some time since you accompanied him,” the female replied, her voice hauntingly beautiful. “And never alone.”
Her black hair was dark as midnight and was longer than the last time Eviana had seen her, reaching halfway down her back.
She sat on the bed in a simple black gown with off the shoulder sleeves that hit right above her elbows.
The dress allowed room for the two onyx cuffs that were around her biceps and showed off the Marks across her collarbone.
An empty tray was on a small table with two chairs, the dinner dishes empty.
A small stack of old leather-bound books were on the bedside table, the room lit only by candles.
No windows to even give the illusion of an outside.
The rug on the floor was the only source of warmth outside the heavy fur blankets at the foot of the bed.
A small chamber off to the left held a washroom, and while the room itself wasn’t tiny, it certainly wasn’t spacious.
It certainly wasn’t large enough to spend the last two decades in.
She should have brought her something.
That was all Eviana could think as she stared at the female.
How stupid of her. That was what Tessa had done.
Brought her small things to build trust. She didn’t have anything to give Caris, and it probably wouldn’t have helped in the end.
Not when she’d had a hand in why she was here to begin with.
Not when she was the reason those cuffs were on her arms.
“My mind has not changed. I will not do what he wishes,” Caris finally said, her hands in her lap. “I will spend the next millenniums in this room and not change my mind.”
Eviana believed every word.
Caris Emersyn. Once, she was to be a Lady of Arius Kingdom. Then she became the caretaker of the Heirs, and now she was locked away until Valter needed her bloodline.
“That’s not why I’m here,” Eviana said, clasping her hands in front of her out of habit. “I came to make a deal.”
Caris’s brow arched, her head tilting. “With me? On his behalf?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t know I’m here, and my time is short.”
“No,” she said simply.
“You haven’t heard what I have to offer.”
“Is it returning me to Penelope? Because if it is not, I do not care,” Caris said dismissively, reaching for a book on the nightstand. She had to have read that book thousands of times by now.
“What if it is your son?” Eviana countered.
Caris didn’t look up from the pages, but her breath stalled.
“I cannot offer you Penelope. I cannot call her back from death.” She paused, knowing Valter had told her when he’d had Pen killed.
Eviana had been here then and watched the female break all over again.
Had watched her beg for death to follow Pen to the After.
“But I can offer you your son and the ones who may as well have been your own.”
The female’s gaze flicked to her, then back to her book, as if bored with this conversation. Eviana didn’t know why. At least it was company. A conversation with someone other than oneself. Theon was so much like her, able to keep his emotions hidden so no one could read him.
“Does he know? That I live?” Caris asked.
Eviana shook his head. “If he does, I am unaware. Seeing your presumed death…did what Valter wanted. It broke him in a way he hadn’t been able to do before.”
“And where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Eviana admitted.
“Then it appears you can offer me nothing, Eviana,” she said, standing abruptly and placing the book on the table. “You can leave.”
“What will be required of me?” Eviana blurted, desperation winning out.
Caris turned at the words, her gown swishing on the cold floor. Eviana forced herself to stay still under her scrutinizing stare. Several minutes ticked by, and she grew worried. She needed to get back to Valter’s bed.
“There is nothing you can offer me,” Caris finally repeated.
“His death?” Eviana asked, backing towards the door. She’d already spent too much time away.
“Tempting,” Caris mused, filling a glass from a pitcher of water. “But even his death will not free me. And even if I found freedom, where am I to go? The kingdom was taken from my family nearly two centuries ago.”
“You…want to stay here?” Eviana asked, unable to believe that was possible.
“Where else would I go? Who do I have left?” she repeated.
“Perhaps outside,” Eviana all but drawled. “Anything has to be better than these four walls.”
Caris’s lips turned up in a bitter smile. “I think you, of all people, understand there are things far worse than these four walls.”
“You have a child,” Eviana tried one last time, scraping open the scab on her arm to access her blood once more. “You do not wish to know him?”
“If he broke him and is now like him, then no. I do not wish to know him,” she answered.
“He’s not,” Eviana said. “Despite Valter’s greatest attempts, all three of them somehow turned out honorable. Pen looked after them and loved them as her own, like she did when you were at her side. And the Fates…they had plans for Theon.”
Caris stared at her, long and hard. “What kind of plans?”
“A…love,” she answered, unable to think of a better way to describe it.
“Despite it all, Theon learned to love. That didn’t come from Valter.
That came from you.” When Caris only continued to stare back at her, staying silent, Eviana turned and pressed her palm to the wall as she said, “I’ll come back. ”
“No need. It is pointless,” Caris called after her.
But she knew it wasn’t.
Because she had said the same thing to Tessa, and all those visits hadn’t been pointless.
She’d go back as many times as it took because deep down she knew. Caris was a mother, just like her. In the end that would win out. It had to.