CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT #2
I stiffened, but before they could finish the thought, fire flared through the trees, moving closer, until it lit up the plot of dirt they dragged me to.
Brennan led the charge, holding a torch in his hand.
His eyes found mine at once, and he took exactly one second to observe the scene before roaring Olivay’s name with the vengeance of a God.
Rowan rushed out to join him, and half a dozen guards, their blue cloaks flaring behind their shoulders. A sight I never thought I’d be happy to see.
Brennan didn’t hesitate. There was anger rolling off his body I’d never seen before. He swung his torch, fire crackling and hissing as he used his fist to punch out the man closest to me. I heard the cracking sound, and then the thud as Donovan flew to his back.
“Olivay!” Brennan cried out. He turned, handing the torch off to Rowan before sliding to his knees and hitting the ground.
He scooped an arm behind my legs, pulling me up against him, and then he rose to his feet, holding me tight.
His eyes searched mine in the firelight, worry all over his face, before he faced my captors, baring his teeth. “You fucking scoundrels!”
“We didn’t—we didn’t know! We didn’t know it was her—we couldn't see!” Stephen pleaded. “It was dark, Your Highness, please, we swear!”
“You think it matters that you did this in the dark?” Brennan growled. “You had her on the ground! I know exactly what you were about to do!”
“But we didn’t! We didn’t have time! And we didn’t know it was the princess!” Erick shouted.
“But it was, and you will pay with your Godsdamned lives!” Brennan said.
“No!” all three captors were yelling then.
“We didn’t see her! We didn’t,” Erick begged.
I buried my head against Brennan’s chest, startled that real tears were streaming down my cheeks.
At that moment, the reality of what they had done to me, what they would have done if I wasn’t Azete, I could feel it, feel all of it.
Everything started to catch up to me. Years at the tavern.
Memories I’d suppressed because they were only “almosts” like tonight. Jaron. Cecelia.
And suddenly, I was actually crying, because for once, someone had come, someone had defended me, had believed me, had come to protect me.
No one had done that for years. No one had cared.
I’d had to be the one to save myself again and again, had to be the one to save Cecelia, and then doing so cost me my body, my name, and the life I’d fought for.
I had to lose everything to survive, and all because a fucking man thought he was entitled to what he wanted.
I buried my face deeper into Brennan’s cloak, my chest rising and falling in explosive bursts.
He stroked my hair. “Shhh. It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I swear.”
Maybe I was. But he wasn’t, not as long as he held me, not as long as he stayed with me. And I couldn’t take it. Couldn’t stand it anymore.
“B-Brennan,” I cried.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he said. “Far from this scum.” Then loudly, his voice carrying all the command of a king, he ordered his men. “Bind them all and keep them the fuck away from me. Or I’ll rip them all apart!”
And then he turned toward the lodge, rushing me back toward the clearing as screams erupted. I could hear the distinct sound of flesh pounding on flesh as the men weren’t just being bound. They were being beaten.
Good.
“Olivay?” Brennan’s voice shook as he rushed back through the trees.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked, hoisting me up in his arms, holding me closer.
He was anxiously looking at me all over.
Then his green eyes widened, brimming with worry and concern as the torchlights outside the lodge lit our bodies in the clearing. “Did they touch you?”
I sniffled and shook my head. “They tried.”
His eyes darted wildly over my body, taking in my bare arms, exposed hands, collarbone, and ankles. Every inch of skin was soft, pristine, unblemished. As if I hadn’t been attacked at all.
“I don’t—” Brennan frowned, “I don’t see a single scratch or—” He swallowed roughly, hoisting me up in his arms, readjusting his hold. His gaze narrowed, and he shook his head. “Even your dress, there’s no tears or-or dirt.”
Shit. Shit! I had been injured, cut and scratched.
I could feel the bruises across my arms and back already forming, the ache across my body dull.
There’d been scratches all over my legs from their disgusting hands and unkempt nails, and scratches I’d gotten from running through the woods, from fighting the chimera.
But I’d been so focused on becoming Olivay again, on maintaining my appearance, and how she had looked when I’d last been her, on separating myself from the Azete, I’d shifted into her perfect, unblemished form.
There was a sudden burst of emotion from Brennan—so powerful that I connected to his mind.
I was Samara again, in the tavern room that first night we met. My long hair was curly and brown. My breasts swelled from inside my red coin bra.
Brennan swept my hair over my shoulders, inspecting my skin, looking for cuts, for the evidence of what he’d seen Geoffrey do.
He knew it wasn’t the first time. He knew Geoffrey had been hurting me regularly.
But he couldn’t find a single scratch. No evidence he’d ever put his hands on me tonight—or any night.
How? It didn’t make sense. He’d seen it—seen him hurt me with his own two eyes. Seen the tears form in mine. But they were gone. Healed. Except …
No one’s injuries healed that quickly.
I was thrown from the memory, the connection between us breaking as his emotions shifted from me to Samara, then to the Azete he’d met in the woods.
My heart thundered, and I sent a burst of magic to my dress, adding tears, some leaves from the ground, and then some mud, keeping it all to the underlayers, then sent the appearance of some cuts to my arms, hating I had to do this, had to stoop to this level of deception.
But before I could show him, a knight caught up to us. Half a dozen more trailed behind.
“You found her?” he asked. “Princess Olivay!
“She’s safe,” Brennan said.
There was a cry of worry, and Olivay’s parents were running frantically toward us, their emotions running ahead of them, reaching out to me.
“I can stand,” I said.
Brennan was pale, like he’d seen a ghost, but he nodded and set me on my feet.
“Olivay!” Queen Noemay cried out.
“My daughter,” roared the king. “What the fuck happened to her? Where was she?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you!” I said, my vision blurred by tears. They threw their arms around me. “I just got too near the trees. I wanted to see if Brennan was back,” I lied. “I was so worried. And then these men grabbed me and dragged me from the clearing into the dark.”
“Which men! Who?” barked King Dairen, releasing me. He was already looking through the trees. “I’ll have their heads!”
“Or I will,” King Tirian said slowly. “She’s an Eskalon princess now, this is an Eskalon matter.”
King Tirian breezed past Olivay’s father, looking at him with disgust, before coming to stand by me and his son.
Brennan’s jaw clenched, and he took my hand, angling his body before mine. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
“Look at me, princess.” Tirian reached for my chin, pulling my face to look up, his fingers pinching my skin. “Tell the truth. Did they touch you?”
“Your Majesty!” Queen Noemay cried out in outrage. “Please!”
“I have to know before the wedding,” King Tirian said.
Brennan shook his head, squeezing my hand. “Father, please. Just give her a minute.”
“You need to know as well,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter to me!” Brennan argued.
“It doesn’t matter? It will matter! It will matter to the state!
You understand how this looks? What people will say?
This will only lead to questions and rumors we can’t afford to spread.
” He lowered his voice. “You understand, above all, how important the line of succession is. You understand that there can be no doubt that the child she conceives is yours. Now, I must know exactly what transpired.”
I wanted to scream. Because why did it fucking matter if they touched me or not.
They wanted to. And why would it change who I was as a person?
Why should I be perceived differently because of an act someone else did!
The injustice was maddening, but it wasn’t the time to feel that.
Nor was I in a body who would be aware of such things.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes as I bit my lip, carefully choosing my words. “They dragged me to the ground, told me they’d remove my clothes,” I said. “But they didn’t have the chance.”
The king took a deep breath, his expression thoughtful, his emotions flat. He had no care what had or hadn’t happened to me. Only if this hurt the crown or not.
“I see,” he said, his eyes dipping down the length of my body, his gaze snagging on one of the tears I’d made in the skirt. “And do you swear you remain intact? They did not ruin you, even with your clothes on?”
“Father,” Brennan protested, but the king ignored him.
“They did not,” I whispered, disgusted at the question.
“My soldiers are binding the criminals as we speak,” Brennan said, his voice low.
“I want them executed in the morning. What they tried to do is enough. Now let us go. Question them, interrogate them, torture them until they scream—I don’t fucking care.
But she was injured and traumatized. I need to take her to the healer. ”
A gust of cold wind blew through the clearing, lifting everyone’s cloaks as it passed.
The king clicked his tongue and sighed deeply before waving Brennan off.
“Very well.” But it was at that moment when Rowan stepped out into the clearing, and Brennan’s guard emerged with the criminals, bound and beaten.