Chapter 72 Rhea
Chapter Seventy-Two: Rhea
“Come now, Rhea, this is a time of celebration!” he shouts, eyes growing wide as I continue to ignore his outstretched hand.
“Lady Nele,” I counter, curling my fingers in to hide the way they tremble. “Isn’t that who I am supposed to be now?”
My uncle’s facade slips, his smile cracking as his true nature peeks through.
“Everyone here already knows who you are. These guards? Given blood oaths to not speak a word to anyone.” His hand sweeps grandly over the line of men that stand along the wall.
“And these ones? My council?” he says, turning to face the men sitting on the benches.
“Well, they hold no objections to my want of you.”
I scowl as I look at them, heat flaring at my chest and rising up my neck.
Is this true? I want to ask. Are you truly alright with your king marrying his niece?
And maybe I look poised to ask just that because, abruptly, King Dolian’s grip is on my arm, tight and unforgiving as he pulls me hard enough to spin me around, my hands planting on his chest.
“If you are looking for someone to save you, I’m afraid you’ll find our company lacking. There is no one coming for you, Rhea. No one who cares whether you live or die or who you fuck or what crown you wear.” His eyes flare as the skin beneath his short beard flushes red. “There is only me.”
“And yet you will never be enough.”
Still clutching my arm, he slams his opposite palm across my cheek, snapping my head to the side.
My legs wobble beneath me as ringing fills my ears, my vision hazy and eyes watering.
King Dolian pulls me closer, my shoulder hitting his chest as his lips brush against my temple.
“You think they will help you?” I look to the men, that void inside of me growing when I see Simon, his hand propped against his jaw and that sadistic gleam in his eyes that I knew all too intimately.
He and the others sit and watch, varying degrees of enjoyment playing across their faces.
“He’s not coming,” King Dolian whispers, breath hot on my skin.
“Just as easily as he gained his interest in you, he lost it the moment you left him. Like the vermin he is, he’s already moved on to the next most appetizing thing. ”
I grit my teeth together, drawing up invisible shields as if they can save me from invisible arrows.
But the king has already laid his traps in my mind, and I blindly step into them.
One right after the other. Nox not answering the Mirror.
Nox not being in Vitour when I returned. Nox not wanting me. Nox moving on.
King Dolian’s fingers grip my chin and tilt my head up roughly, forcing me to look in his hazel eyes. “It’s time to earn your title, darling. Bring in the prisoner!” he shouts, making me jump.
I spin out of his hold to look as the doors to the room open again, and two guards haul the slumped man through.
His head hangs heavily between his shoulders, blood—old and new—stains his bare chest. The scent of sweat is thick in the air when they force him to his knees in front of us.
This was Sterling, the guard who would have killed me were it not for my magic.
I attempt to step backwards, but only manage to bump into the king.
“Commander, hand Lady Rhea a dagger,” King Dolian commands.
My eyes widen as I look from Sterling to Xander, a breath trapped in my chest. His face is completely placid, devoid of any emotion. And, yet, he still asks, “Your Majesty?”
“Give the lady one of your daggers. Now.”
“Your Majesty, I don’t know that giving her a weapon—”
King Dolian releases me to stalk towards Xander, reaching for one of the blades stored on his belt.
“Let me remind you, Commander, that I do not have you here because I value your opinion. You are muscle to do my bidding. Nothing more.” He pulls a large dagger free, and though Xander tracks the movement, he doesn’t intercept.
The king turns towards me, spinning the blade gracefully until the hilt faces me. “Take the weapon, Rhea.”
There is no magic behind his words, so I shake my head, blood rushing in my ears as I struggle to speak over my racing heart. “You’re insane,” I whisper, swallowing the urge to scream. “Whatever this is, I will have no part in it.”
“Do you truly think you have a choice?” he bellows, his intensity knocking loose a new thread of fear within me.
There is only so much one person—one mind—can endure before it crumbles completely.
My nightmares already bleed into my reality.
My dreams are no longer a place of refuge but just another way for me to hurt.
Over and over again, I have been pummeled by my uncle’s rage and jealousy and lust, reduced to nothing but a collection of mismatched rubble, never to be fit together again. Never to be whole.
Yet I recognize that, through all of that, I have remained. I have persevered, sometimes against my will. Has it all been just for this? Just to add another scar on top of an already unrecognizable body?
King Dolian faces the guards who stand as impassively now as they did when they entered the room.
“This is the man who attempted to kill your future queen. He viciously attacked her in her bedroom, and were it not for the quick actions of the healers, she would be dead! She is owed vengeance, and today, she will take it. Let this serve as a reminder to all of you that you do not touch what is mine!”
His attention returns to me, gaze feral and eyes bloodshot.
“I will not do it,” I growl past the tight feeling encircling my throat.
“Then what is his life worth to you?”
“What?”
“This man who tried to kill you.” He grips Sterling’s hair, yanking his head back. A gasp slips from me at his bloody and swollen face, one eye completely shut while blood actively leaks from his bottom lip. “What is worth giving up so that he may live?”
“I— I don’t—” I shake my head again, my lips attempting to close around words that won’t form. What he’s asking is an impossible question with a terrible answer. And King Dolian knows that.
“Here is what I propose: his life for a night in my bed.” He releases his grip on Sterling, dragging his hand down his trousers before returning to stand next to me.
“Excuse me?” I whisper, my palms growing clammy.
“Well, I will have you on our wedding night regardless, but I have waited a long time, Rhea. I have been thinking of why you fight me so, and I realized that while holding to tradition may have worked if our relationship were at all traditional, what we have between us is new. Uncharted. As such, it must be approached differently. Waiting is only tearing us apart.” His eyes take on a sickening gleam.
“I’m simply a man wanting to drink at the fountain of his beloved. ”
I rear my head back as I wade through my grief and cling on to the last remnants of my defiance. “If you think I will ever—”
“I don’t need you to agree to it, and you know this,” he cuts in. “So? Is a night without you fighting me before we are officially wed worth sparing the life of the man who tried to kill you?”
“I—”
Sterling tries to pull away from the guards holding him, his body thrashing until one of them sends a boot right into his ribs. A crack rends the air, and Sterling is reduced to whimpers.
The room narrows as I struggle to breathe, my fingers diving into my hair.
I don’t value my life above anyone else’s, but what King Dolian is demanding…
How could I agree to that? A shriveled part of me wishes he would just command me because at least then my culpability would be reduced to not being able to stop him.
But this? This is not a choice. This is a consequence.
This is the king demonstrating that no matter how vile and foul and evil I find him to be, he has the depravity to dig deeper. To show just how black his soul is.
“Perhaps it’s for the best that you’ll never see Prince Nox again. After all, what would he say to learning that you not only have my mark on you but inside of you?”
“Fuck you.” The words erupt without restraint, and regret immediately fills me when he steps forward and drags the dagger down Sterling’s cheek in one fluid movement.
Sterling screams in pain, the hoarse sound adding to my anguish as I watch blood bloom.
I look to the guards. To the advisors watching and, finally, to Xander.
His jaw clenches, the only tell he lets slip, but even he doesn’t move to interfere. No one does.
“Come on, darling. Time is wasting.”
I can’t kill him, but to willingly give myself to the king? Gods, I can’t. It’s selfish and cruel—I’m selfish and cruel—but I can’t do it. “Please, don’t do this,” I beg. Foolishly, I beg.
King Dolian snarls, and I know I’ve lost before his next words are even spoken.
“If you will not give me what I want, then you will coat your hands in his blood. Extinguish him.” This time, magic backs his command.
It rushes over me, thick and suffocating, as it stuffs my own wants and desires back and forces me to reach for the dagger in King Dolian’s hand.
I hold it the way Cass taught me, devastated that the memory is now tainted.
My morality frays at the seams as the inches between the tip of the dagger and the man’s chest disappear, all because I did something I never should have—I chose myself.