49
Theela had been waiting for me when I finished bathing.
Dusk was still with Celestine. I’d had every intention of retrieving her before the wedding, but I’d needed a moment first. Lots of moments in the warmth of the bathing tub, ruminating over all that had transpired.
More than once, I’d been tempted to touch myself—overtaken by a hunger I hadn’t felt before. The bond, I’d surmised. Hunger felt by a freshly mated pair.
My tenderness and what awaited kept me from daring.
Theela was silent as she applied lash ink to my eyes and crimson rouge to my cheeks and lips. So it stunned me when she said, “Your father arrived after breakfast.” She lowered the lid on the rouge pot. “I escorted him to a guest room.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
With my capture, he’d been given no choice but to finally accept defeat. To stay down. But I did wonder why. Why he’d attend when this wedding was a reminder of his failures. A humiliation.
“Did he come alone?” I asked, though I really wanted to know if he’d brought her with him. Dena, his hidden mate.
Possibly even Evexon.
“No, Princess.” Theela returned the rouge to the basket of supplies perched upon the table. “He has his personal guards.”
My father didn’t want to risk them, then. He didn’t want to bring his mate and his new heir into enemy territory. That heightened my curiosity. It also ignited that uncomfortable anger I’d left home with. But I kept quiet as Theela traipsed into the dressing chamber.
She returned with a silver gown. “It arrived yesterday.” Carefully, she held it up to show me. “What do you think?”
The entire gown seemed crafted from moonlight. Delicate lace wrapped the voluminous skirt. Diamond snowflakes adorned the strapless bodice like stars.
“I cannot think,” I said. “Never have I seen a gown quite so beautiful.”
Theela smiled and turned to look at it. “That is a high compliment. Cloverleaf is rumored to have some of the most creative gowns in all of Avyshla’s realms.”
“Creative, yes,” I said with a slight laugh. “Uniquely beautiful. But this…” I shook my head. “Simple yet so striking.”
She laughed too, then helped me into the gown so I wouldn’t ruin it. As she fastened the bodice, I gathered my hair.
“Where was it found?” I asked.
“A tailor made it, Princess.” Theela’s fingers slipped. “The king had three of them design dresses, then gave me the honor of picking the best one.”
I sensed a change in her tone but waited until she finished before turning to inspect her face. She was too slow to mask that something bothered her. I shouldn’t have pried. But given what would shortly happen, my fear got the better of me. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, then gestured to the chair. “Please sit, Princess. I am to braid half of your hair into a loose crown.”
I did as she needed and tried to ignore the shift in her demeanor. As she twined my dark hair through her gentle fingers, I failed. “If there’s anything I should know, then you can trust I’ll be glad to learn it. I won’t repeat it.”
Theela’s fingers paused. Only momentarily.
She resumed collecting strands from near my temple to make another braid. “I don’t think you need to be concerned. But just be aware that he enjoys games,” she said. “And if you do not play, you put yourself at risk.”
Confused, I thought back to what she’d said before. “The dressmakers.” I asked, “Did one try to refuse the king?”
“No one would ever refuse Raxon.” Her words were barely audible. “He told me to choose a gown, and I knew. I knew what he’d do to the makers of those I didn’t choose, and I…” She rasped, “I picked a gown anyway.”
As if I were back in that snow-drenched valley and wearing nothing but a pelt, my limbs instantly chilled.
Some labored heartbeats later, I whispered, “Does he often do that to you?”
“He does it to many,” she whispered back. “Those who do not know of his games…” She leaned away to seize a silver ribbon from the table. “They think they’re being rewarded. That he is not the evil many say he is.”
“You once thought that.”
“Yes,” Theela admitted.
And now she was warning me. Preparing me for the future that awaited me.
“Thank you,” I said.
Her fingers stilled again. Then she finished the braids and began to maneuver them into a crown, silver ribbon woven among the strands.
“The pelt you wore for the trial,” she eventually said. “It carried the prince’s scent.”
It was then that I recalled what Raxon’s guard had said. That Theela lusted after the prince, and that she was his feeder. I hoped that last part would no longer be necessary, and Voran would get what he needed from me alone.
Even so, I spoke carefully to keep my secret and to keep from potentially wounding her. “He helped me off the ice.”
She gasped. “The river?”
“Did you hear what happened?”
“No,” she said. “Apologies, Princess, but when the king returned, I was given orders to tend only to you until the ceremony.”
I saw no harm in sharing the story. So I did. I told her about the serakan. I even told her about the blood vow. And when she placed my heeled silver slippers on my feet, I also told her it wasn’t her fault.
Straightening, she frowned at me.
“The tailors,” I explained quietly.
Her eyes glistened. “I’ll return shortly to escort you to the king.”
The king stood in the dim hall outside the throne room.
On his head sat a simple crown of brilliant and solid silver. His typical brown furred cloak had been replaced by a smoky gray that fell beyond his knee-high charcoal boots to the stone. A silver chain with citrine gemstones held the cloak in place.
My stomach soured when I realized what he was wearing.
The pelt of a direwolf.
Surely, it wasn’t Tolvos’s. Surely, it wasn’t his brother he’d draped—
Strenard belted out a gruff laugh. He wore his white-furred cloak, that silver blade brooch winking in the shadows. Bryken’s long red coat was different. This one had rubies lining the hem and gleaming in each button.
Strenard sensed my approach first. His bushy brows flattened over his gold eyes. Bryken noticed his stillness and ceased whispering to the king, who turned toward me.
As he did, that sharp smile curved into place. “You glow like the stars, Princess.” Before I could force a smile, Raxon added, “Like a freshly bonded female.”
My heartbeat faltered. My steps, too.
I stopped a few feet before him. Quickly, I wrangled my expression into one of confusion. “My king?”
It only served to make him cluck his tongue. “Princess, you walked in front of my nephew through hundreds of my wolves.” A mirthless laugh echoed down the hall. “And let’s not forget the scenting. Did you really think no one would know?”
I hadn’t assumed that at all. But I had foolishly thought we had time before the king learned about the bond.
He took a step closer, voice menacingly low. “Did you really think I would not know?”
Unsure what to do, what to say, I merely shook my head.
“What I want to know now…” Another step, then he tilted my chin to meet his narrowed eyes. “Is whether you knew Voran was your fated before the bride trial?”
The king’s fingernail indented my skin—threatened to draw blood.
You say that I forced you to accept the bond.
“No, my king.” Again, I shook my head. “I didn’t realize until he…” Heat crept up my neck, and I let it infuse my cheeks. “Well, until he forced me to accept him.”
Silence.
Raxon searched my eyes. My face.
Then he sighed. “Of course, he did.” His finger left my chin. “I should have warned you that the beast is prone to striking me however he can.”
“I’m sorry. If I’d known—”
“Nonsense. I’ll not hear any apologies from those sweet lips. Not for this.”
Shocked, I couldn’t resist asking, “You are not displeased?”
A loud burst of laughter eroded the tension in his jaw and shoulders.
“Goddess, no.” He eyed the hall, though it was empty, then murmured, “This bond will ensure you’re carrying my babe in no time.
I’d wager by the next moon.” He then smiled at Strenard.
“Once we are certain, I’ll have you freed from Voran. ”
My heart turned to stone.
But before he could notice the horror blanching my cheeks, the king spoke to Strenard. “Arrange for the prince to deal with filling the goblet. I want to see his face as he watches his mate drink my blood.”
Strenard scowled. He opened his mouth, as if to speak against it, when footfalls over stone came from down the hall.
That sinister smile returned to the king’s face as he whirled with his arms spread. “Just the priestess I’ve been hoping to see.”
I turned, and that horror reached the marrow of my bones.
High Priestess Nellassa.
But of course, she would officiate the marriage of the new high king and his bride.
“Greetings, King Raxon.” Her cool tone climbed down the hall. “Princess Ayla.”
Her signature blue robes, that jewel on her head agleam in the dim, made me feel as if I’d walked back through time to the archives. But the subtle rise of the high priestess’s pointed chin and her knowing auburn eyes brought me back to the present.
I dipped my head. “High Priestess.”
The king stepped in front of me, blocking half my view of Nellassa. “I trust you received my letterleaves.”
“I received them,” said the high priestess. “Both of them.”
The ensuing silence stiffened my spine.
Then it was broken by a dry and forced laugh from Raxon. “Am I to assume something befell your writing hand?”
Nellassa merely responded with, “I’ve been busy, King Raxon.”
More silence.
Strenard muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
Bryken came forward and bowed. “High Priestess. Always an honor to have you in our midst.” Straightening, he said to the king, “Everyone awaits. Perhaps we can discuss this after the ceremony, my liege.”
Raxon’s smile was thin. “Of course, of course.”
He then offered me his hand.
I hesitated for a single heartbeat before placing mine over it.
We waited for the high priestess to reach the dais. Afterward, King Raxon pinched my fingers between his and held our hands high as we entered the cavernous room.