Chapter 20 Forget About Him
Forget About Him
Stellon
A young page ran into the throne room, red-faced and winded.
He bowed, and I waved my hand, indicating he had my permission to speak.
“Your brother is here, Your Majesty,” the boy said between pants. “Prince Pharis is alive. He’s being brought inside the gates as we speak.”
I bolted to my feet, the breath shocked out of me.
After so long with no contact from him, Mareth and I had concluded that Pharis was lost to us forever, killed on that tragic day in the arena along with so many others.
Though we’d been in conflict there at the end, his absence from my life had left a gaping hole behind. I regretted my part in fracturing our relationship, especially after having time to consider some of the choices I’d made.
But if Pharis really was alive, where had he been all this time? Injured and recovering somewhere from dragonfire?
Or was this an imposter, assuming my brother’s identity for some nefarious purpose?
“Tell them to bring him to me immediately,” I instructed the boy, and he ran from the room.
I paced the floor in front of the throne, waiting for my soldiers to bring me the man claiming to be my brother.
Someone else might mistake his identity, but I would not. If it was a pretender, daring to impersonate my lost—
The throne room doors opened. The second I saw him, I knew.
Forgetting any sense of dignity and kingly decorum, I ran to him, pushing through the soldiers surrounding Pharis to embrace him.
“Brother,” I exclaimed. “Where have you been? I’m overjoyed to see you.”
He gave me a wan smile. “Stellon. You look well. Kingship agrees with you.”
His lack of exuberance surprised me, but perhaps he’d been injured in the dragon attack after all. Pharis might have been to Hell and back since the last time we’d laid eyes on each other.
“Come, sit,” I urged, leading him to one of the chairs along the wall. I took the one beside him, leaning in.
“Tell me what has happened to you. I’ll send for Mareth.”
I turned to speak to one of my men, but Pharis put a hand on my arm. “No, don’t. You might want to hear my story first.”
Was it too awful for our sister to hear?
Mareth wasn’t a weak woman, but still, I did as Pharis asked and put out a staying hand to my man. I was getting a bad feeling.
“Tell me then,” I said. “We didn’t part on the best of terms, but I’ll do my best to understand.”
Pharis shook his head. “You won’t understand. But I’ll tell you anyway.”
Before he got the chance, another page entered the throne room, looking as wild-eyed and excited as the boy who’d announced Pharis’ arrival.
“A woman is here, Your Majesty,” he said. “She says her name is Raewyn and that you’ll want to see her right away.”
Popping up from my chair, I cried, “Raewyn? Yes, bring her in at once.”
And then that vague bad feeling solidified, turning black and moldy inside my chest, souring the sudden joy I’d felt at hearing her name.
First Pharis, now Raewyn.
The two of them.
Showing up on the same day, minutes apart. After being missing for months.
I looked back down at Pharis, who sat with his head bowed.
“You were… together?” I asked. “She was alive all this time—and with you?”
He lifted his head, appearing exhausted from the effort.
“Yes,” was all he said.
Anger and hurt blazed through my body, inflaming me from head to toe.
“I grieved myself half to death over her—and over you. You took her. How could you do that to me? Why have you done this?”
“Simple,” Pharis said. “I couldn’t let Raewyn die. You wouldn’t step up and do what had to be done. So I did.”
“You’ve been plotting since the night of the ball to take her from me, and you finally did it,” I accused.
“I tried to stay out of it, believe me,” he said. “But you didn’t have the bollocks to defy Father and put her first. To choose her over everything.”
“And is that what you did?” I asked. “Chose Raewyn over everything? Your family? Your honor?”
“I have no honor,” my brother said.
“Truer words have never been spoken.”
Pharis had faked his own death and Raewyn’s. He’d let me believe a dragon had killed the woman I loved.
Based on what he was saying, he’d been behind the dragon attack, which meant he’d killed our father and some innocent bystanders as well.
He’d been hiding somewhere. For months.
With Raewyn.
And now he’d apparently brought her back to me. A sickening suspicion snaked over me, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Wait a minute… have you bonded with her?” I felt my hand reaching for the dagger at my belt. “Did you bring her here to taunt me?”
“No. We didn’t bond,” Pharis said. “But it was going to happen. It was inevitable.”
“What do you mean ‘inevitable?’”
Pharis sounded resigned, drained of all energy.
“That was what the matchmaker’s glamour revealed the night of the welcoming ball. I told you ‘Lady Wyn’ was the worst match for you out of the whole Assemblage. What I didn’t say was that the matchmaking glamour showed she was the perfect match for me.”
“It said she was mine,” he continued. “And the chemistry between us lined up with that. It was too strong to keep resisting.”
“But I’m supposed to believe you did resist… all this time… out of the goodness of your heart?” I sneered.
It’s true, he said mind-to-mind. We haven’t bonded.
I was surprised but still incensed.
“How noble of you. So why hold yourself back?” I asked. “If your story about the matchmaker’s glamour is true, and you believe Raewyn’s your fated mate, why not just keep her away and let the ‘inevitable’ occur? One more day, and I would have been married to someone else.”
Looking at my brother’s powerful form and handsome face, I added, “I’m sure she would have given in to you eventually. You could have had her all to yourself for eternity.”
Now Pharis looked me straight in the eye. “It wasn’t up to me. She escaped. I followed her back here, but she slipped inside the gates before I could catch her.”
He swallowed hard and added, “She chose you.”
“What?” I blinked several times.
Pharis nodded. “She loves you.”
I heard it from her own mouth, he added mind to mind.
“Raewyn loves me,” I repeated.
This was not the story I’d expected to hear when Pharis told me he’d been holed away somewhere with her for several months.
“Until you screw it up again,” he said. “Which you probably will.”
I gave my brother a hard, humorless grin. “And I assume you’ll be waiting for that day, ready to swoop in and take her back?”
He shook his head slowly, but then he said, “I can’t promise I won’t.”
“Well your wait won’t last long,” I told him. “I plan to marry Raewyn tomorrow instead of Lady Helina, assuming you’re telling the truth and she’s willing.”
Pharis’ head dropped again. Though he muttered it to the floor, I heard his reaction.
“Good.”
I ordered my men to seize my brother and take him to the dungeon, expecting him to fight them, to use his powers to try to escape and possibly to murder me.
But he didn’t.
As they dragged him toward the door, he turned his head and spoke to me over his shoulder.
“Be good to her, Stellon, or you’ll have me to answer to. I’ll always be watching.”
“You’d need eyes for that,” I said. “And I have a good mind to let my torturer remove them.”
In all honesty, I had no idea what I was going to do with him. It depended in large part upon what Raewyn had to say. I wanted to hear from her that nothing had happened between them.
The guards marched Pharis through a door at the rear of the throne room just as the front doors opened and she entered, flanked by two more soldiers.
My eyes watered watching her approach.
I would have thought it was impossible for Raewyn to get any more beautiful, but somehow she was. She smiled when she saw me and left her escorts to run into my arms.
“Stellon,” she breathed into my tunic. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Embracing her tightly, I spoke against the top of her head. “I missed you, Firebug. I thought I’d lost you.”
Setting her back a bit so I could look at her, I felt pieces of my heart that had been missing snap back into place.
“Never,” she said. “All I could think about was getting back to you.”
“Where have you been all this time? Can you tell me? Did Pharis kidnap you?”
She shook her head, blinking in confusion. “I don’t know. I know a dragon carried me from the arena, and I was horribly injured, but I’m much better now. I woke up at Stormcrest a few weeks ago. I’ve been wanting to get away ever since. I think I… I guess I escaped.”
I kissed Raewyn’s hair and held her against me tightly, relieved and happy and filled with gratitude. It seemed too good to be true that she was back in my arms.
“What a brave girl you are. But then I always knew that, didn’t I?”
Relaxing my grip, I held Raewyn at arm’s length again and looked her up and down. She seemed healthy, her cheeks rosy and her figure filled out.
“Are you well? Was it awful there with him?” I asked.
She opened her mouth to answer but hesitated, looking confused again.
“I don’t think so,” she finally said. “It’s a little hard to remember.”
The brute had compelled her to forget what had happened to her.
That eye removal threat was looking more and more likely all the time. He might lose those wandering hands of his as well.
Well, it wasn’t her fault. Working to control my temper, I prompted Raewyn to tell me whatever she could recall.
“You look well, so I assume he at least fed you regularly. And I see he gave you a nice dress to wear.”
“Oh, he gave me lots of dresses,” she said. “And lots of wonderful food.”
Her tone was a little too grateful.
“And yet… you wanted to escape and return to me?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “I love you.”
Reassured by her enthusiastic declaration, I took Raewyn’s face in my hands.
“I love you, too, Firebug. I cannot tell you how happy I am that you are alive and well and back here where you belong.”
Unable to wait any longer, I kissed her.
Raewyn didn’t respond the way I’d anticipated. Her lips failed to move with mine, and she did a little shimmy move, wriggling from my grasp and stepping back.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head, her brows drawing together.
“I… I’m not sure.”
Touching her lips, she looked up at me apologetically.
“It’s been a long time, I guess. A lot has happened. I think I need… I think it might take a little time to feel… comfortable again with you like that.”
I gave her a gentle smile. She was still so innocent. Reaching out for her hands, I drew her close again but restrained myself from attempting another kiss.
“Of course. You and I have all the time in the world. And we’ve had far too much of it stolen from us, thanks to my brother. Pharis will pay for that, believe me.”
Instead of relaxing, Raewyn only grew more tense.
“Pharis has made mistakes, but he did save me from the gallows.”
Then she gave me a quizzical glance. “He said you did nothing to stop the execution.”
My temper flared. Pharis would lose not only his eyes and hands but those lying lips of his.
“You know he lies,” I told her. “I did everything in my power to save you. You couldn’t see because your head was covered, but I managed to get out of my bonds up on the viewing platform.
I grabbed a crossbow and fired at the dragon, trying to save you from being carried away.
I wanted to stop execution day from even happening, but as you know, my father was too strong. ”
Using my palms to hold her face, I smiled into Raewyn’s eyes.
“But he is gone now, and I am King. Now I can make everything right again, just as I promised you I would. With you by my side as my Queen, nothing can stop me.”
“As your Queen?” Raewyn asked, looking surprisingly disturbed. “Just like that? What about your betrothed, Lady Helina of Hyland? Won’t her family be outraged? It could lead to civil war.”
“Lord Hyland wouldn’t dare challenge me,” I assured her. “I am King of the Sixlands and all of Avrandar. I’ll marry whomever I choose… and I choose you. Thinking I lost you showed me there is nothing in this world more important than love.”
My tone grew darker. “Not even family.”
Raewyn looked concerned. “Do you mean to seek retribution against Pharis? Let’s just forget about him, okay?”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “I’ll never forget what he did to you—to us. Keeping us apart is a crime beyond forgiveness.”
The furrows in her brow grew more pronounced. “I’m sure he’s a villain, and as you say, he probably should be punished, but I don’t want to waste any more time on him. I don’t want you to track him down and hurt him. Promise me, Stellon.”
Pushing the fallen hair back from Raewyn’s face, I kissed the tip of her adorable nose and then the space between her gathered brows.
“I won’t track him down,” I said.
I didn’t need to. I already had him in my dungeon.
“Now go and get some sleep. You’ll be waking early tomorrow to start preparations.”
“Preparations for what?” Raewyn asked.
“Tomorrow is our wedding day. I’m going to make you the happiest bride who ever lived.”