Chapter Seven
IT HAD BEEN four weeks since they had arrived in Alabria. Andrei hated everything about the place, and he hated the king most of all.
He was mercurial, ruthless and odd. He didn’t seem to respect anyone or anything but himself.
Andrei also found it dishonoring of Emerald, in a strange way, that the man allowed them to stay in adjoining rooms. Not that either of them had used the door.
He was standing in his control. He was here to protect her, to protect the Crown, the throne, and not to pleasure himself.
It was something that simply couldn’t be done, and yet she haunted him at night when he tried to sleep.
His every waking moment was taken with his desire for her.
And he did not know how he might combat it.
It didn’t matter. At this point, he wore it like a righteous mantle. Accepted it as part of who he was. The cost of protecting her.
He was being a martyr, and he knew it, but both he and Emerald occupied positions in life that demanded they martyr themselves.
What other choice was there?
Onyx was flying to Basilia with his wife, preparing for the marriage ceremony, and Andrei couldn’t say that he was looking forward to seeing his friend face-to-face. But this meeting between the kings would be very important, one last chance for all of the diplomacy to fall apart, he figured.
There would be a rousing party in celebration of the wedding, and Andrei couldn’t imagine what sort of party a king like Lucian might throw.
“Not a very fun one,” the housekeeper said to him when he’d asked. This was the benefit of the way that he moved between worlds.
He could get information that other people could not.
“In what way?” he asked.
“Lucian likes to display his wealth and power. He doesn’t especially like to share it.”
“I see. And are the rumors about him true? Has he murdered his other wives?”
“Oh,” the housekeeper said. “I think those rumors are greatly exaggerated.”
“You think?”
“Yes. Lucian is coldhearted, that much is true. He is ruthless, but I don’t believe that he’s a killer, because it simply wouldn’t benefit him. To kill someone implies passion. And I don’t believe that he’s ever felt passion for anyone, or anything but himself.”
“You don’t paint a kind picture of him.”
“He doesn’t paint a kind picture of himself.
But then…” Her face softened. “I remember when he was a boy. Before there were troubles in the country. Before the attempted revolution. His own father was a monster, and then he was caught between a monster and a righteous horde bent on ridding this entire nation of a royal family that was corrupt. They tortured him.”
Andrei nodded, not shocked at all. These were things that he knew from reading about the country. “Yes. And does he see it as his sworn duty to torture everyone else around him?”
“I think mostly he tortures himself. But again, I cannot imagine him raising a hand to kill anyone, much less a woman. Much less any of his wives, who were simply spoiled and selfish.”
He thought the older woman was a bit overly taken with Lucian, but took her commentary to heart.
He carried the story with him to Onyx when Onyx and Circe arrived. “Your Highness,” he said.
“Don’t stand on ceremony with me,” Onyx said. “It bothers me.”
“Sorry. I have spent the past month engaging in nothing but protocol. This motherfucker has a throne room.”
“Yes, I’ve been,” Onyx said. “I cannot believe that my sister is intent on marrying him.”
“She is.”
He and Emerald hadn’t even spoken privately in the past four weeks.
He was there, doing his job, guarding her, as she got acquainted with the palace, and the people in it.
He had watched her begin to relax there, had watched as she had found ways to make herself consequential, had found friends.
It was wrong of him to find that enraging.
That he found it irksome. He should be glad that she was finding her way in this life that she had chosen.
“It is good for the country, and I can’t deny it, but I worry about her.”
“There is no need to worry.” Flashes of his night with her played in his mind. “You know I would die before anything happened to her.”
Onyx got a strange look on his face. “Yes. I do know that.”
Circe made herself absent during the conversation, as she always did. The tension between her and Onyx was always palpable.
It wasn’t sexual tension.
She simply didn’t like him.
Onyx could be a difficult bastard, nobody knew that better than Andrei, but he found his wife’s dislike of him to be incomprehensible. He was a good man. He didn’t deserve her vitriol. And yet he took it.
The night before the wedding was the event, and he could certainly see what the housekeeper meant.
Lucian liked to show off his wealth. And it was on full display in the ballroom.
The large, cavernous room was decorated with glittering lights, each one made from crystal—so it was rumored.
There were twisted tree branches all lit up as well, the whole thing like a dark fairy forest. He wasn’t simply demonstrating wealth, he was flaunting it.
The goblets were gilded, every plate studded with gemstones. It was ostentatious to a rather obvious degree, and it was clear that Lucian didn’t care. He did what he wanted, and didn’t care for the greater good, and yet he was marrying Emerald, which would benefit his country, and hers.
He was a strange man, and Andrei did not quite have the measure of him. It would be easy for him to call him bad and let that be done. In fact, that was what he wanted to do. Find him to be a threat so that he could cut off his head.
And yet it wasn’t that simple.
The entire event was designed around Emerald making her debut, and he was positioned at the back of the room, waiting for her when she walked through the double doors and came to the edge of the steps, like Cinderella.
But she was wrapped all in gold, as was everything else, and he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the dress was woven with real golden thread.
Her red hair was captured up off her shoulders in an elaborate design.
Her lips were red, tempting, beautiful.
He remembered that mouth being on his body. Knew exactly what those lips could do.
She would do that for him.
The burning hatred at the center of his chest was a living, breathing thing. His envy was a monster, and if it would not create an international incident that would utterly devastate both Emerald and Onyx, Andrei would’ve been tempted to kill Lucian then and there.
To carry her away like a marauder.
His father would never have allowed this wedding to continue.
His father had been selfish. He had cared only for his own desires. He would’ve picked a woman up and carried her off whether she wanted to be or not. He would’ve taken what he wanted, what was his.
He’d always known that about his father. It wasn’t until he was older that he’d realized that was wrong.
He had decided that was a weakness. That true strength was giving desire over for the greater good.
He would do that now. Unless Emerald said otherwise.
He could feel a collective breath of the room catch as they saw her. Could feel the impact of her beauty, not just on him. She was ethereal, a creature from another world. Except he had held her body in his hands. Had touched her everywhere. Had experienced the glory of just how earthy she was.
It would haunt him for the rest of his life.
But he would rather be haunted by the memory than by what could’ve been.
He watched as she floated from person to person, a bee pollinating flowers, leaving sweetness wherever she went. He watched, and felt as if his heart was walking outside his body.
He had never loved anything in this world, anything but her.
The housekeeper was right. The party wasn’t fun, but that could be because it felt like engaging in torture.
What a way to die.
He would give himself over to her protection now. To her mission. He would not compromise them, not ever again.
He repeated that mantra the entire evening. And when it finished, it was up to him to accompany Emerald out of the ballroom, down the hall and to her bedroom door.
“Good night, Princess,” he said.
He turned away from her. “Andrei,” she said.
He turned back to her. “Yes?”
“Is this how it’s going to be? You… You’re not going to speak to me anymore?”
“There is nothing to say.”
“I think that you should leave.”
Rage poured through his veins. It was like she had stabbed him through his chest with the sword. And yet he could see the wisdom of it. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t look upon her every day, and yet he didn’t trust anyone else to protect her. There could be no one else but him.
“You’re a fool,” he said.
“It’s right. And you know it.”
“Then I will speak to your brother after the wedding tomorrow.”
“Good night.”
“If it pleases Your Royal Highness. After all, next to you, I am nothing.” With that, he bowed with no respect at all, and left her there, along with a piece of his soul.