17. Chapter 17
17
Chapter 17
Sebastian
I listened to her footsteps as she ran back to the castle and then to her room, which seemed to be the only place she wanted to be anymore.
And now I knew why.
I could feel the anger and darkness building up inside of me at the thought of what her confession meant.
But it made sense.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why she tried so hard to stay away from me. I knew she felt the pull, even if her side was suppressed from those stupid pills she’d been taking.
I may be the bad guy in every story she’d heard, but that shouldn’t have been enough for her to fight her feelings so adamantly. But another male, one she’d been attached to for almost two decades, would do it.
If it was just for a fuck, which was all it should’ve been on his side given the rules of the Sovereigns, I could have handled it a lot better.
But a relationship? A relationship that had lasted for so long? All I wanted to do was go to Calum’s room and rip his head off.
He was here preparing to wed my sister and yet he was still with Violet. He should have broken it off the moment he left to come to the Night Realm. She didn’t deserve the life of a Sovereign’s mistress.
As if I didn’t have enough to deal with already, now I had this too.
Something was taking my power from me. It felt like there was a leak through which my powers were slowly draining, and I was not generating any more power to replace what I was losing. I was trying to conserve my power until I could find the object or person who was behind it.
My shadows once roamed the entire Night Realm. They were my eyes and ears to ensure nothing happened in my realm without me knowing. Once I felt myself losing my powers, I brought them in to watch over just within the castle walls. I felt Calum place a ward on Violet’s room, but I thought it was to give his Commander peace of mind. Even though I wanted to know what she was doing at all times, I felt like breaking through the ward wasn’t a necessary use of my dwindling power because I knew she was safe and that’s all that mattered.
Idiot.
I now only used my touch of death, something I once used without giving it a second thought, when absolutely necessary. The disgusting fae that touched my Violet was an easy kill without any power, but with the paramic, I had to use my power. The only other way to kill a paramic was with a silver dagger, which I didn’t just keep on me, and nothing mattered in that moment other than killing the thing that she was afraid of.
I had always kept a force field around the castle, only allowing who I wanted to enter and exit, and that was something I knew I couldn’t let go of easily. It was the only thing keeping the monsters of the night away.
I was growing weaker by the day, and somehow this paramic was able to push its way through my force field and creep through the castle without me knowing. I only knew it was here because of Violet’s little scream. Nothing could keep me from hearing her.
Violet couldn’t have come into my life at a worse time. All I could think about was being with her—protecting her—but now I was at my weakest, and I had yet to find a way to stop it.
The next issue had to do with those bloody pills Violet took.
She had haunted my dreams for almost a century. I should have been able to picture her, but I couldn’t because something was suppressing the connection.
Instead of seeing her face, I saw damn flowers in my dreams. Violets.
Even if I couldn’t see her, I knew what the obsessive dreams meant. I had a mate.
Violets consumed every thought I had. The castle garden that once was nothing but a few tall hedges was now covered in violets.
Dreaming of violets took me to the Flower Realm. I spent every free moment I had searching for her. I thought the violets in my dreams meant she was in the Flower Realm. It never once crossed my mind that it was her damn name.
Nothing seemed to bring me closer to finding her. I had almost given up hope. I thought it was some type of punishment for everything that I’d done. I had a mate but could never find her.
Then one night, while I was staring at the violets in my garden, like I did every night, it hit me.
Well, she hit me.
I knew from the moment our eyes met that the search was over. I looked into her big brown eyes, eyes that made me forget to breathe in that moment, eyes that made everything around me fade away.
I had found my mate.
The pull I felt made me want to fall to my knees and never let go of her.
But I could tell she didn’t feel what I felt. By the way she looked back at me, I could feel her fear.
And then came the pills. A faerie with a heart condition? Bullshit.
When I wasn’t searching the castle for the object that was slowly killing me, I was contacting every healer and scholar I knew to figure out what those pills were.
Violet said she had a heart condition, and she was telling the truth when she said that. At least the truth to her. I could tell when she was lying. She rubbed the palm of her hand on the side of her thigh, and she didn’t do that with the heart condition.
She believed she had a heart condition, but I knew she didn’t. It was impossible and yet everyone around her believed the bullshit. Either that or they all were in on it.
I wanted to just take her pills and force her to stop taking them. To prove to her that she was fine, for her to feel what I feel, and for us to figure out why she was given the pills in the first place, but I couldn’t do that. If it was anyone else, I would. But not her.
She had spent her entire life being a submissive Mountain Realm lady. Not anymore.
She had to make the decision herself. I just had to do enough research to prove to her that I was right. One thing I’d learned in the short time she’d been here was that she loved to read and learn. She liked to know things. Maybe if I came to her with facts she would listen and stop taking the pills.
What did she tell Bronwen? Knowledge is power .
I’d like to show her what real power was.
But on top of all of that, I now had to deal with her being in love with someone else.
It hurt. I hadn’t felt hurt like this in three centuries.
She was mine.
But she needed to realize it herself. I would not force her.
Since she didn’t realize I was her mate, Bronwen had been working so hard to make her comfortable here. To make her not want to leave after the wedding so she could choose to be here, close to me.
But a relationship with Calum just complicated it all.
A week ago, I wouldn’t have had a problem killing whoever stood in the way of me getting what I wanted.
But now I cared more about her and her happiness than I did myself. If she wanted him, I wouldn’t stand in the way. I wouldn’t force her to choose me.
I would spend eternity in misery if it meant she was happy. But how could she be happy? Calum was to marry the daughter of a Sovereign. If not Nathara, it would be one from another realm. He was a rule follower and that was one of the rules Queen Mother created. He would never put her first.
I was assuming he planned to keep her as his mistress, which never ended well. I’d seen it happen firsthand. Her needs would always be second to his wife’s needs.
But with me, I’d let the world burn before I put someone above her.
I’d like to see Queen Mother try to stop me.
All I wanted to do was go to Violet and make sure she was okay. But as long as I knew she was safe in her room, I had to focus on finding the object that was draining me.
It started nearly a year ago. At first it was a small feeling that I was missing something. I disregarded it and assumed it would go away, that it was more mental rather than a physical loss of something.
After a few weeks and a few incidents of having to deal with some rather large and powerful creatures that needed to be reminded who they submitted to, I realized that my power wasn’t replenishing after being used.
I traveled to the Land of the Healers where I learned of a rare black opal found in the bottom of the Druan Swamp that has the ability to absorb power. When mixed with a few other things, a witch can place a spell on it to have its absorption ability directed towards one thing.
And someone chose me for this. It didn’t surprise me. Being the most powerful Sovereign makes for an endless number of enemies who would love to see me fall.
The problem was that when creating the spell, the black opal is turned into liquid which can be used to forge any object, which makes finding the object virtually impossible.
I knew the object was in my castle. When I was outside of the castle walls, my power stopped draining. I was still unable to replenish what I was missing, but I seemed to be too far out of reach from the object for it to continue to absorb my power. Since I had no leads in finding the object, I was going to leave my castle while Bronwen and Adar continued the search. I was getting ready to leave when Violet showed up.
I couldn’t leave her.
I’d rather lose all of my powers than spend a second where I couldn’t feel her presence.
So now I was slowly replacing every object in the castle until the object was destroyed.
We should take Violet dress shopping with us.
Anytime someone said her name, my shadows brought the conversation to the front of my mind. I wanted to know anything and everything that happened with her. Why would we do that? Nathara asked Celine.
I wanted to know why they would want to take her with them. Celine had to know about Calum and Violet’s relationship, so why would she want Violet anywhere near Nathara?
Well, I don’t see her ever leaving the castle, so it might be good for you to get to know her. She could become one of your ladies in waiting. She should have to earn her stay now that she is no longer a faeling. We don’t want her to think she can do as she pleases.
I knew Celine was a snake. She brought Violet here when there seemed to be no reason to do so, and now she was pushing to have Nathara around her. It was like she wanted Nathara to learn of Violet and Calum’s relationship. Like she wanted Violet to get hurt.
If only she knew the fire she was playing with. If she knew what Violet was to me, she would never put her in harm’s way.
But if she even tried to hurt her, I would become her worst nightmare.
I had to warn Violet of what I had overheard. She needed to be prepared before she was forced into the lion’s den.
I transferred to her room before I even thought about what I was doing. She was in the middle of taking a sip of water when I appeared in front of her.
Every bit of water in her mouth ended up on my face. I definitely should’ve used the door.
The shock on her face immediately turned into fear after she realized she had spit all over me.
The last thing I wanted was for her to be afraid of me, and yet I kept doing things that scared her over and over again: threatening her with my shadows in the hall, killing a fae right in front of her, forcing the truth out of her about Calum and then reacting the way I did. And now transferring unannounced, unwelcomed, into her room. Well, the last thing may have shocked her more than anything. I think she feared more about how I would react.
“I-I’m so sorry,” she said as she waited for my reaction.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come into your room like that,” I said as I wiped my hand over my face.
She looked at me, still scared, but also confused by my apology.
“We need to talk about last night.”
“Look, I know you are upset because you want Nathara out of the Night Realm, and I seem to be standing in the way of that but please don’t tell her of our relationship.”
Dread settled in my chest at what she said. Did she really think I acted the way I did because of . . . Nathara?
Was she truly that blinded by her pills that she couldn’t see the way I looked at her? The way I was unable to do anything but look at her when she was in the same room as me?
I knew I had to tell her something to help her understand why I was so bothered by her confession. I had to keep part of the truth hidden because I didn’t want to tell her we were mates. I didn’t want her to feel like she had to be with me. I wanted her to want me the way I wanted her.
“I was upset because I know what your future entails if you keep a relationship with Calum once he is married.”
“I don’t understand,” she said with a confused look on her face.
“How much do you know about me?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked nervously.
“I know you like learning things. That’s why you were in my library. You spend your time reading, so what all have you read about me?” I was trying to approach this in the best way I could, by playing into her interests.
“Considering your reaction to what I said about your shadows, I don’t know if my information is correct.”
“Well, tell me what you know, and I’ll correct you if you’re wrong.”
She looked at me for a moment with apprehension on her face before she crossed her arms and began, “You became the Sovereign of the Night Realm when you were still a faeling, making you the youngest Sovereign in the history of Alentara. You were born with the gift of wielding force fields, which every Night Realm Sovereign has, but you also have other gifts.”
“Do you know all of my other gifts?” I knew I should get to the point, but I knew the quicker we made it to why I was here, the quicker I would have to leave her. And I also wanted to see how she acted when she talked about my powers, to learn whether she was truly terrified of me and what I could do. I’d gotten mixed signals from her every time I’d been around her.
I knew it was because she was fighting the pull. Sometimes she let it bring her to me, like the night she let herself dance so closely to me, and sometimes she pushed me away. When she wanted to push me away, she must have thought of all the things I’d done and what I was capable of.
My gods, that night. It had played on repeat in my mind the past few days. Feeling her body on mine, how she melted into my touch, the things I wanted to do to her.
“The shadows, mind reading, and,” she paused as she glanced down to her feet, “the touch of death, like what you did last night.” Every time she looked away from me, I did everything I could to get her to look back at me. So I could see her beautiful brown eyes again.
“What you saw was only a glimpse of what I can do, love.”
“What do you mean?” she said as she looked back into my eyes. “You touched the paramic and it just misted into nothing.”
“My ‘touch of death,’ a name the scholars have come up with since they have never found another faerie with this gift, can kill any creature that I touch. But do you remember how I told you my shadows were an extension of me and my senses?”
“Yes,” she said, waiting for my response.
“I have learned how to use my touch of death through my shadows,” I paused for a moment as I listened for her heartbeat. I wanted to see how she reacted to the darkest parts of me. “Meaning, I can kill anything or anyone I want no matter how far away they are.”
I waited for her heart rate to jump or for the fear to come over her face again, but instead she said, “So I was right.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, taken aback by her response.
“Your shadows can consume others.”
I thought about what she said. My shadows do not eat , but from an outsider’s perspective, shadows circling a creature and then the creature disappearing may look like the shadows consumed them.
“I guess they do,” I said, smirking. She was so focused on learning everything she could that she wasn’t fighting the pull. She wasn’t forcing herself to think about how evil I was. Instead, she was hanging on every word I said, and I didn’t think she realized that she was slowly moving closer to me.
“What do you know of my parents?” I asked. I didn’t want to give her a chance to think about what she was doing.
“I thought Lilian was your mother, so anything I’ve read is probably wrong.”
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t let my hatred for Lilian ruin this conversation with Violet. I needed to stay around her for as long as I possibly could. To test how close she would get to me before either her relationship with Calum or her pills would pull her away from me.
“What did you read?” I asked.
“Why don’t you tell me the truth, and I’ll tell you if the Mountain Realm history books have it right,” she said.
I smiled at the attitude she had given me. Without even realizing it, she was getting more comfortable with me.
“I killed my father,” I said as I held my breath.
“Maybe he deserved it.”
There was the pull. The bond that would make her believe anything I did was done for a good reason. I watched as her face immediately changed as if she was shocked that she said that. The pills seemed to fight the bond every time it tried to show itself to her. I knew the pills weren’t to suppress our bond. No one could have known we were mates when she was a baby. The suppression of our bond was just collateral damage to the pills suppressing something else inside of her.
But that was something I could deal with at another time. Right now, I needed her to trust me.
“Why don’t I tell you everything and then you tell me if my father deserved it?”