Chapter 32
Elariya
“The Taste of Ash”
Istared at my reflection in the mirror while one handmaiden wove my hair into an elaborate braid. Another tugged at the laces of my corset, pulling tighter and tighter until my ribs protested.
“Just a bit more, my Lady,” she murmured apologetically.
I was in the capital. I'd arrived at Rohlorian Castle last night with my family. And Thayden.
Today, we were having a special brunch with Prince Maelor. A treat before the wedding tomorrow.
Gods, tomorrow.
Everything was happening so fast. Too fast.
It had been two days since I’d left the magical realm, and the grief inside me had rooted deeper.
I shouldn’t feel like that.
I’d gotten what I wanted. The goal was accomplished. My family were safe.
Thayden returned and greeted my family as if all was well. And he gave me that doting stare that grated on my nerves.
The secret was safe. He wasn’t going to tell anyone that my powers hadn’t been bound.
At least for now.
I guessed we’d see what would happen after tomorrow when I became his wife.
I tore my gaze from the mirror and looked out the window instead.
The city stretched in the distance in shades of gray.
Weathered rooftops clustered together like huddled mourners, broken only by the dark spires of churches that stood sentry over the capital.
Smoke drifted from chimneys, and somewhere in the distance, bells tolled, marking time I didn't want to count.
Rohlorian was nothing like the magical realm. Nothing was like it.
The air was heavier here. Oppressive, like the weight of a thousand watching eyes.
Here, everything was stone and silence and scrutiny.
I kept remembering the way Wolfe looked at me as I left.
If that was what nothingness looked like, I completely understood how he’d felt. He’d gazed at me, but it was like I was no one. No different from a stranger on the street.
And he just let me go.
I couldn’t even be angry that it was so easy for him to switch his emotions off so effortlessly. He was just doing what any normal person would do in his situation.
I didn’t remember loving him, so him pulling back to protect himself was completely understandable.
The problem wasn’t him. It was me.
And on top of everything, it seemed I’d forgotten basic manners because I never even thanked him for what he’d done for me.
A hundred years.
What would that do to him?
Would he reach a certain age then feel the moment his life changed?
The Fae lived for a long time. What if the hundred years he was supposed to live were going to be his happiest?
We’d never know.
The handmaiden stepped back, pulling me out of my daze. She admired her work. "You look lovely, my Lady."
“Thank you.” I gave her a warm smile, even though I felt far from lovely.
“I just need to finish your hair.”
The handmaiden was just securing the last pin in my elaborate braid when the door opened without so much as a knock.
Thayden stepped inside, filling the doorway with his presence. He was impeccably dressed as always—burgundy velvet doublet with gold thread embroidery, his dark blond hair perfectly styled. But there was something in the way he carried himself that made the air in the room tighten.
The handmaidens froze, their hands stilling on my hair and dress. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who found him unsettling. It was good to know, but I was the one who had to marry him.
By default, my stomach was already in knots just from the sight of him, but now I couldn’t unsee the nightmare vision of Thayden Erethis had shown me.
Now I was trapped with the real version.
"Ladies," Thayden said, his voice smooth as silk. He inclined his head in what might have passed for courtesy if you didn't look too closely at his eyes. "Would you mind giving my betrothed and me a moment alone?"
It wasn't a request.
The older handmaiden—the one who'd been working on my corset—curtsied quickly. "Of course, my Lord. We were nearly finished anyway."
"Wonderful," he replied, that polite smile never wavering. But I caught the way his fingers drummed once against his thigh in a barely-contained rhythm that spoke of impatience beneath the veneer.
The younger girl gathered the ribbons and pins with trembling hands, casting a nervous glance between Thayden and me.
The reaction made me wonder what she’d seen or heard about him.
I’d never forget the man Thayden had punished for stealing bread to feed his family.
But that was only one thing I was sure of.
There were other things, other terrible things I suspected him of but could never prove.
And I was sure the list had grown substantially over the years that I’d been cursed.
With his gaze trained on me, Thayden stepped aside to let the handmaidens pass.
They curtsied again as they went by and hurried out, leaving me alone with him.
The door clicked shut behind them with a finality that made my skin crawl.
I brought my hands together to stop them from shaking. It didn’t work, but at least he couldn’t see them.
Thayden moved deeper into the room with that measured grace of his, hands clasped behind his back like he was strolling through a garden.
"You look radiant," he said, his tone warm and appreciative as his gaze swept over me. "That shade of blue suits your skin perfectly. I chose well."
He’d chosen everything for me. From my dress to my hair, every little detail had been decided by him.
"The seamstresses outdid themselves," I managed, forcing politeness into my voice.
"Indeed, they did." He paused by the window, glancing out at the gray cityscape before turning back to me. "Are you nervous about tomorrow? It's natural, of course. Most brides experience some... trepidation."
Trepidation?
No, Thayden, trepidation is what you feel when you’re scared of spiders and you see one crawling up your arm.
This was not fucking trepidation.
This man had threatened my family and was holding their lives above my head as leverage.
But I kept my expression carefully neutral. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be able to see the truth beneath—that I wanted to kill him. "I'm fine."
"Good. That's what I like to hear." His smile widened. "After all, we wouldn't want any last-minute... complications. Not when your family's wellbeing depends on everything proceeding smoothly."
There it was. The reminder wrapped in a yard of silk but still sharp as the tips of briar thorns.
He moved closer, abandoning all pretense of casual conversation.
"You do understand what tomorrow means, don't you, Elariya?" His voice dropped lower, more intimate. "You'll be mine. Completely. In every sense of the word."
I took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. The vanity table pressed against my spine.
"I understand the terms of our arrangement," I said carefully.
"Our arrangement." He chuckled, the sound devoid of warmth. "Such a clinical way to put it."
Before I could respond, his hand shot out and captured my arm, fingers digging into the silk of my sleeve. He pulled me forward with surprising strength, hauling me flush against his chest.
His other arm snaked around my waist, trapping me there.
"Let me be clearer," he murmured against my ear, his breath hot and unwelcome. "Tomorrow, you become my property. My wife. Mine to do with as I please."
"Let go of me." I pressed my hands against his chest, trying to create distance between us. But he was stronger than I'd expected, all lean muscle beneath the refined exterior.
I pushed harder, twisting in his grip. "Thayden, release me. Now."
But his hold only tightened, fingers bruising where they gripped my arm.
With his other hand, he grabbed my face and held me there, so when he crushed his lips to mine, I couldn’t move.
I struggled to break away from him, but he was too strong.
He kissed me, and it felt like being poisoned. Like death had come for me and sealed my fate.
How twisted that Wolfe kept associating himself with death, yet I felt alive when he kissed me. He’d been the absolute antithesis to Thayden.
My despicable husband-to-be pushed his tongue against my lips, demanding entry to my mouth, and that snapped me. Using all my strength, I shoved him hard and slapped him across the face.
The sound cracked through the chamber.
For half a heartbeat, he pulled back and simply stared at me. Then something ugly shifted in his expression.
His jaw tightened, and a low snarl tore from his throat before his hand came at me fast and brutal. The back of it struck my cheek, snapping my head to the side.
A cry tore from my lips. Pain burst across my face as I stumbled and fell, my shoulder hitting the marble floor hard enough to rattle my bones.
I barely had time to breathe before his hand fisted in the front of my gown, and he hauled me upright with a violent jerk that stole the air from my lungs.
“You little bitch. You forget yourself,” he hissed.
And then he threw me.
Gods. I screamed as my back slammed against the stone wall. The impact knocked the breath from my chest in a sharp, strangled gasp. White light exploded behind my eyes as I slid down the cold surface, the room spinning around me.
He advanced, fury replacing the polished charm he wore so easily in public.
“You will not strike me ever again,” he growled, looming over me.
“And you will not defy me. You are mine, Elariya. Mine.” He came closer, stopping a breath away from my face.
“You have no idea who you’re fucking with.
So, let me give you a rude awakening. I know your powers aren’t bound.
Your miserable family broke the laws between realms for allowing such a thing.
That means death. Death to all of them if I tell the right people. ”
Straight from the horse’s mouth.
What a fucking asshole. But this was who he was. The real Thayden.
I widened my eyes, pretending this was the first time I’d heard the threat. “You bastard. Our fathers have known each other since they were children. I grew up with you. Do you seriously have no love for my family that you would have them killed?”
The wicked smile that slid across his lips sent a shiver through my nerves.
“Your loathsome, magical family? No. I have no love for them. All knowing them has done is cost me my reputation. So, no, there is nothing in my heart for them. But you. You’re different.
I have love for you. And you will love me, too, if you want to keep your family alive. ”
“You are evil.”
“Poor girl. Evil is that bastard you spread your legs for.”
He was talking about Wolfe, but I had to pretend I didn’t know what he meant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He chuckled off key. “Of course, you don’t. How convenient to be cursed to forget certain things. In your world, it’s like those things never happened.” He caught my throat and squeezed. “Just be sure you spread those legs wide for me, too, when I fuck you. Or there’ll be hell to pay.”
The demon's illusion of Thayden had been rooted from my deepest fears, but standing here, trapped against him, I realized it hadn't been an illusion at all. It had been a glimpse of truth. A warning of what I was walking into with my eyes wide open.
The man holding me now, with his perfectly-styled hair and refined manners, was the same one who would ruin me without hesitation if I didn’t do as he said. He’d watch my family burn and feel nothing but satisfaction.
The dread that had been simmering beneath my skin since returning to the mortal realm crystallized into something sharper.
Every fiber of my being wanted to flee, to tear myself from his grip and run as far as my legs could carry me.
But there was nowhere to go. No magical realm to escape to.
No Wolfe to tear through dimensions to save me.
Just me and Thayden and the terrible inevitability of what tomorrow would bring.
“Do you understand me?” He stared me down.
I was too choked up to answer, but when he squeezed my throat, I cried out. “Yes. I understand.”
The door swung open abruptly, and there stood my mother. She must have heard my cry.
Horrified, she stared at Thayden, her eyes flicking from him to his hand around my throat.
He released me and smiled as if she didn’t just witness his brutality.
“What is going on in here?” Mother demanded, moving toward us.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Thayden replied.
“It doesn’t look that way to me.” I was so happy she challenged him.
But it was to no avail.
Thayden met her halfway and stopped right in front of her.
“It will look however I say it looks. If I say it was nothing, then it was nothing, mage.” The venom dripping from his tone was unmistakable.
Even my mother looked taken aback. “Elariya and I were having a heart-to-heart. A prep for tomorrow when she becomes my wife. She knows what’s at stake now. ”
The flash of fear in my mother’s eyes told me she understood, too.
He threw her one last cutting stare before he headed out of the door, slamming it shut.
As soon as we were alone, Mother rushed to my side.
I was shaking so hard I couldn’t talk.
She pulled me into her arms and held me close. “Did he hurt you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
She inched away and inspected me, her gaze dropping to my cheek where Thayden had struck me. “He did.”
She brought her hands up to her cheeks as a tears streamed down her face. “This isn’t what I wanted for you. He’s changed. I never believed he was capable of being such a monster. I’m so sorry.”
“There’s nothing we can do. Marrying him protects us.”
She cupped my face with gentle hands. “I fear not for myself my dear daughter. Your grandmother doesn’t fear for her life, either. But you. We fear for you. I can’t lose you to death. I already lost your father. I…” He voice broke. “Losing you would kill me.”
“It’s okay, Mother. It’ll all be okay.” I tried to sound positive. Gods, I tried, but the shiver in my voice betrayed me.
She pulled me back in for a hug. “I don’t think so, my dear. This feels like the beginning of the end.”
She wasn’t wrong.
It felt that way to me, too.