Chapter 26
THERON
My eyes blink open, and I reach for Helena, but the sheets are cold on her side of the bed.
As I rouse to full wakefulness, I sit up and scan the room, but I see no sign of her.
I jump out of bed and rush around the room, searching for her.
But she’s nowhere to be found. Not in the bathroom or the closets, and she’s not on the balcony either.
Fear slashes through me. There’s only the faintest hint of her frost flower scent. How long ago did she leave? Did she break through my wards, or did someone take her? No one in my army, no one in the Winter Court, should be powerful enough to break through my wards.
Yet Helena is gone.
I dress quickly. Then I search the castle.
There’s no sign of her. None of my commanders or soldiers have seen her.
I’m certain I look like a fool rushing through the castle searching for a lost human female, but I don’t care.
She’s mine. My mate, no matter what the priestess eventually tells us, and I will have no other.
Commander Ashvale is still absent, and Lord Blackthorn is also missing, so I’m unable to seek assistance from the two males I trust the most. Fucking fires. I rake a hand through my hair as I run into the courtyard.
I summon wings and rush to the bakery, but she’s not there. I visit Marlow Street, but she’s not there either. Flying low, I circle the city of Braemar repeatedly, taking deep inhales as I try to track her down by her frost flower scent.
Eventually, I pick up her scent near the gates, and a trembling fae foot soldier admits he witnessed a dark-haired human female slip out of the city as a contingent of Winter Court soldiers exited to return to the tents.
According to the soldier, she was alone.
My fear and worry give way to rage.
Somehow, Helena bypassed my wards and fled Braemar.
Why? Why would she run? We share a connection, and I recently told her of my feelings for her, the deep affection that brims in my heart.
We also joined our bodies as one, and I promised to call her my mate.
Was she pretending? Was she biding her time until the opportunity to escape presented itself?
As I continue to fly low over the forest, her frost flower scent grows stronger. I’m closing in. Rage boils in my blood. When I get my hands on her, I will… what? What will I do?
I’m not certain. But I must find her. I must bring her back to the castle.
She’s mine. Mine. And I will not allow her to run off.
The glimmer of ussha in the forest is stronger today.
Brighter. There’s no telling what sort of fae beasts might be lurking among the trees, fae beasts that hunger for human flesh.
The prospect of any harm coming to her guts me. I must find her. I must keep her safe.
There. In the forest below, I finally spot movement. I fly lower until I glimpse the morning sunlight glinting off her pitch-black hair.
With a resounding growl, I land directly in front of her, my wings flaring as I use them to keep my balance after descending to the ground so quickly.
She gasps and comes to a halt. Her eyes go wide with fear.
“Please.” She lifts her hands briefly in a show of defeat. “Please, Theron. This isn’t what you think. You must let me go. It’s… it’s the only way.” Her lips tremble, and tears gleam in her eyes.
“The only way? What in the fires are you talking about?” I march forward and grasp her shoulders though I don’t grip her hard enough to cause pain. Even now, even as anger flows through me, I cannot fathom hurting her. I made a promise. A promise I will keep.
She doesn’t answer, but her thoughts come to me. Visions, too. Shocking images, flashes of the past. A past she should have no knowledge of. And yet…
I see her visions. All of them. Every vision she’s had since I met her.
A vision of my mating night with Elssandra in the Winter Court palace.
Then, a vision of her conspiring with her family, and godsdamn Resshan, in a snowy forest near a bonfire. It’s just after she learned I was her fated mate, though before I officially met her.
The truth continues unfolding, and it’s a shock to my soul.
Helena isn’t just part-fae, she’s also Elssandra reborn.
For a moment, I feel as though I’m falling, plunging into an abyss, the same sensation Helena felt before and after each vision.
Her mother had tried to keep her hidden, yet it hadn’t worked.
Because my people are moving into human and orc lands, conquering the villages and cities that threaten our new settlements along the way.
The spread of ussha and the migration of fae from the four main courts had brought me to Braemar, brought me to this human city I’d never heard of until I learned of the Braemar soldiers’ attack on the nearby settlement of faefolk.
Helena’s mother had hoped to keep her hidden not just so her part-fae father wouldn’t try to take her away, whoever the male might be, but because a priestess recognized Elssandra’s soul in Helena.
Dear gods. Fucking fires.
I stare at Helena as I keep sifting through her thoughts, her memories, her visions…
Until I see the very last one. The truth I never wanted her to know.
The truth about what happened to Elssandra.
But her glimpse into our tragic, shared past cuts off at the last moment, the moment before the worst happens. Shame washes through me. Regret. Darkness. And yes, even echoes of the rage I felt as I chased Elssandra into the icy mountains beyond the Northern Isles.
“I won’t let you do it again. I won’t let you kill me. Not in this lifetime,” Helena says in an anguished tone that shreds my heart into pieces.
“Oh, my gods,” I whisper. I can scarcely believe it.
Helena is Elssandra. They are one and the same. The same soul, though with different life experiences.
All the pieces finally fall into place.
Why I was so drawn to Helena. Why she was so attracted to me. How we could hear one another’s thoughts. The deep, endless affection that bloomed between us.
“I-I don’t remember everything,” she says. “I’ve only seen those few visions, but I would like to think that Elssandra regretted her part in the plot against you. During the vision, I felt the bond. She cared about you… just as I care about you.” Her voice cracks over the last few words.
“Helena, I…” My words trail off. I’m in such a state of shock that I’m struggling to move forward, struggling to decide what happens next.
“I care about you,” Helena repeats, this time in a tone brimming with conviction. “In this life, I care about you and I would never betray you.”
“You ran from me,” I say with a growl. My fingers momentarily tighten on her shoulders.
“Because I thought you would kill me!” she cries.
She trembles in my grip, and a lone tear cascades down her cheek. It freezes, but I quickly wipe it away, brushing the frozen tear to the forest floor.
“You killed Elssandra. She was so afraid. She was running from you, desperate to escape, and you hunted her down and killed her.” A sob catches in her throat.
“No,” I whisper. “No.”
She gives me a hesitant, wary look. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t kill her,” I say slowly, “though I might as well have. It’s my fault she died.”
Helena blinks rapidly, and some of the tension leaves her body.
Please, she says down the tether. Please show me what happened. I need to know.
I stare at her, praying she won’t despise me when she learns the truth. Praying she’ll understand. I have no choice. I must tell her. I must show her. She deserves to know.
Before I begin, I send her a wave of affection, wanting her to understand the devotion that still brims in my heart, the tenderness that’s just for her, and she gasps as her eyes widen.
A flicker of hope brightens inside her, and I pray it will be enough, enough to see us safely through this uncharted darkness.
Very well, darling human, I say down the bond, even though I now know she’s not fully human. She possesses fae blood, a small amount of it, and her soul is that of a Winter Court fae.
Knowing that her legs are trembling and she’s struggling to remain standing, I guide her to a fallen tree and help her sit down.
I join her and draw her into my arms. My wings are still out, and I tuck them around her, the urge to protect her so overwhelming, my chest feels as though it might burst from the pain of it.
I show her. I lean my forehead to hers, and I send her a series of images.
I let her watch me chase Elssandra through the icy mountains as rage and betrayal consume me.
I let her watch as Elssandra tries to outrun me…
only to slip and fall through a crevice in the mountain.
She plunges into an icy ravine filled with a hibernating mangga swarm…
a swarm that wakes up and devours her before I can save her.
Helena shakes in my arms as I show her the rest. How I cried, filled with sorrow and regret, as I tried to heal Elssandra.
How the venom from the mangga swarm ate away at her flesh and even her bones.
In the end, I could only save her skull.
She was gone. Dead because I had chased her.
Dead because I had scared her so much with my anger that she believed she had no choice but to flee.
Helena withdraws slightly from my arms and peers up at me, her visage filled with shock… and compassion. I sense her understanding through the bond, and it brings tears to my eyes. I pray I’m not imagining it. I pray it’s real.
“You didn’t intend to kill her,” she whispers.
“You were angry, and you were devastated by her betrayal, but you’d planned to capture her and drag her back to the palace.
As your prisoner. In secret. You didn’t want anyone to know what she’d done, and you didn’t want anyone to know that your father had a son with a fae female who wasn’t his mate. ”
“Yes,” I admit as the resurfacing memories cause my chest to tighten further.
“I didn’t know what I would do with her, but I knew I could never kill her.
I could never really hurt her. She was my mate and I loved her.
As for my father and whether he truly sired Resshan…
I believe he did. He died a few centuries before I met Elssandra, but I found some letters in his private things that were from Resshan’s mother. ”
Oh, Theron. Helena’s voice echoes in my head. I am so sorry.
You have nothing to apologize for, darling human, I say down the bond.
But I betrayed you. I poisoned you. She shakes her head, a dazed look taking over her features.
I wish it had never happened. I wish… I wish I was still alive as Elssandra.
I wish her family had never plotted against you and convinced her to join their cause.
I wish none of this had ever happened. We could’ve spent the last few hundred years together. Happy… and in love.
I lift her and settle her in my lap, needing to have her closer. I hold her tightly to my chest and place a kiss atop her head, then draw back to peer into her eyes.
“We cannot change the past, darling human.”
“I’m not fully human,” she says, a teasing hint to her voice that brings me hope, hope that perhaps we can move past the darkness and find one another again.
In this life.
“You’re still my darling, human or otherwise,” I eventually say, “and I love you, Helena. Truly and deeply. In the depths of my icy winter soul, I love you. You are my mate, and I am yours.”
Tears glimmer in her eyes. “I love you too, Theron. But… where do we go from here?”
Slowly, I reach to cup her face, ready to catch any tears that might fall. We stare at one another as the breeze sweeps through the trees, ruffling her long, black hair and my feathered wings. A gentle wave of snow flurries falls from the sky.
Her question hangs in the air between us. Where do we go from here?
At last, the answer comes to me.
“We begin again,” I say carefully, “as two souls given one final chance to choose differently. Together.”
A smile graces her lips, and I feel her soften in my arms, the last of her fear and sorrow fading away to make room for the second chance we both so desperately want.
She touches my face. “Together,” she whispers. “Together.”