Chapter 19 True Love
True Love
Pharis
The night before Stellon’s wedding, under cover of darkness and my shadows, we arrived at the gates of Seaspire.
I’d almost turned back toward my own castle a thousand times, but in the end, Raewyn was right. I couldn’t keep her in limbo forever, even in the name of keeping her safe.
She was also correct that Stellon still wanted her, still searched for her, even up until the day of his wedding.
He didn’t deserve her. He’d failed her too often in the past.
But so had I.
And the things she’d said about him—that he was honest and good and more than willing to love her… they were all true.
Ultimately she would be safer with him. He was safer for her.
I’d been lying to myself to ever think otherwise.
Stellon was King now. He could protect her at least as well as I could, probably better.
Most importantly, if Raewyn stayed with me at Stormcrest, I wouldn’t be able to protect her from me.
My inability to resist the incessant temptation of her had become abundantly clear over the past few days. Her offer to bond with me had almost been my undoing.
If she stayed any longer, I would make her my bond-mate, and that could not be allowed.
I could not let Raewyn end up like my mother.
I’d always known I wasn’t worthy of her but, selfish bastard that I was, I hadn’t been able to stand the idea of anyone else having her.
It was time to do the right thing though.
It was time to let her go. Keeping her close was painful for the both of us.
We’d spent most of the ride in steely silence, communicating only when absolutely necessary, but Raewyn spoke when I brought the horse to a halt.
“It’s Seaspire,” she whispered as she stared at the castle’s white stone walls. “We’re really here.”
“We’re here,” I confirmed, dismounting and offering my hand to help her down from the large horse.
She looked down at me, her eyes displaying surprise and something else. Dismay? Disappointment?
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” she said.
Keeping my voice as neutral as possible, I said, “I’m giving you what you wanted.”
This was not the time for displays of emotion, though my insides were turbulent.
“I’m giving you what you should want—a life with Stellon.”
Though Raewyn was shaking her head, I gripped her waist and lifted her out of the saddle, setting her feet on the ground.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and glossy with gathering tears.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked.
No, my own voice screamed in my mind, but I kept the thought to myself.
“I want you to have a good life,” I said. “I want you to have the love you want.”
“What if the love I want is yours?” she whispered.
Fierce desire swelled my heart so quickly it stole my breath. My hands ached with the suppressed impulse to throw Raewyn across the saddle and gallop away.
Instead, I held my ground.
“It isn’t possible,” I told her. My insides were caving in, but I willed my face and voice to remain steady.
Nodding toward the palace, which was beginning to glow a peachy orange in the first rays of dawn, I raised my arm and pointed toward my childhood home.
“But my brother is right inside those walls. He’s always been the better man, and he… he loves you. You should be with him.”
Raewyn was shaking her head back and forth. She placed her hands on my chest, gripping my shirt.
The frantic look on her face crushed my heart.
“Pharis, no.”
There was no choice. I was going to have to compel her—and use every other glamour in my possession to make her walk away, if that’s what it took.
Taking Raewyn’s cheeks between my palms, I looked into her eyes, and put the full force of my Sway and Compelling glamour into my words.
“Listen to me. Stellon loves you. And you love him.”
Her head shook a little, and she tried to turn away, but I held her in place.
“You’ve always loved him, only him. While you were in my castle, all your thoughts were of getting back to Stellon.”
Raewyn had stopped struggling, going still.
“Back to Stellon,” she repeated, her voice sounding dazed, and her eyes glazing over in inevitable obedience.
My own voice cracked, but I kept going.
“And now your dreams have come true. You’re home at Seaspire. You’re going to walk away and go inside those walls and be reunited with your true love.”
“True love,” she whispered.
“Yes. You’re going to have everything you’ve ever wanted and be loved every day for the rest of your life… for eternity.”
By me as well as my brother, though he’d be the one with the privilege of actually being with her.
“And you’ll be happy,” I said. “Do you hear me, Raewyn? Happy.”
She nodded dutifully, her beautiful face blurring as bitter tears filled my eyes.
“Happy with Stellon,” she said, and I felt one leak out and roll down my face.
“Now say it. Tell me you love Stellon.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
So I intensified the compulsion.
“Tell me,” I ordered. “Repeat after me. ‘I love Stellon.’”
This time she did as she was told.
“I love Stellon,” she said, albeit weakly.
“Again. Like you mean it this time. I love Stellon. Say it.”
“I love Stellon,” she said in a stronger voice.
Hearing the words from her lips was nauseating. I felt like I might vomit.
Clenching a hand over my gut, I said, “Good.”
“Now when I tell you to, you’re going to turn around and walk, and you’re not going to stop until you’re standing in front of him,” I commanded.
“Try not to mention me if you can help it. If you can’t… if he demands an explanation for where you’ve been… I don’t know. You definitely shouldn’t tell him you had any desire to stay with me,” I said.
I thought for a second. “Tell them all I kidnapped you, and you escaped on a stolen horse or something. Tell them how… relieved and overjoyed you are to be away from me and back where you belong. They’ll find it easy enough to believe, especially Stellon.”
Raewyn gave a slow blink and nodded.
I stared down at her for another long moment before bending and pressing my lips to her forehead.
Then I removed my hands from her face and let them drop limply to my sides.
“Now go.”
Raewyn turned and started walking.
The second her back was turned, my shaky control on my tear ducts failed. Tears streamed down my face as I watched her walk away.
After only a few steps, Raewyn stopped and twisted to look at me.
“Pharis,” was all she said.
Gritting my teeth and balling my hands into tight fists, I hardened my voice.
“Why are you stopping? I told you to walk,” I barked harshly. “Go. And don’t come back. Ever. Don’t seek me out. You won’t be welcome anymore at my doorstep.”
There was a momentary flash of pain on her face, but she nodded and turned back around, resuming her walk toward the palace and my brother.
Feeling all the strength drain from my body, I collapsed to my knees and watched her go, not taking my eyes from her retreating form until she disappeared inside the walls of Seaspire.
Gods, what have I done?
I wrapped my arms around my head and rocked, overcome by a tunneling agony that felt like it would hollow me out entirely.
A moment later, I was grabbed from behind and quickly surrounded by the King’s soldiers.
“Prince Pharis?” one of them said when he got a look at my face. “We thought you were dead.”
I will be if Raewyn tells my brother where she’s been.
“What should we do, Captain?” he asked the man behind me, the one holding my arms in such a painful position.
“Take him to the King,” a gruff voice said beside my ear. “His Majesty will either be happy to see his brother… or he won’t.”
The numerous guards were joined shortly thereafter by many others, and they shackled me in iron, used for Fae prisoners because the material weakened and sickened our kind.
I probably still could have overpowered them and escaped. At the moment though, I couldn’t muster the ability to care.
Raewyn was gone.
The idea of going back to my castle without her held no appeal for me. Neither did going anywhere else.
I could travel to the ends of the earth and not find a place where her memory wouldn’t haunt me.
Might as well allow them to escort me inside my ancestral home and take me before the new King.
My brother.
My soon-to-be mortal enemy.