Chapter 4
Keldarion
Rosalina paces my room at Keep Wolfhelm, now clean of Caspian’s blood, wearing one of my tunics belted at her waist. She speaks rapidly, recounting everything that’s happened since we last connected through our bond.
Despite the sacrifices, Rosalina succeeded.
Though Hadria is underwater, the people are safe and the Baron’s skeletal soldiers washed away.
Now, Ezryn has taken control of the Queen’s Army, and Rosalina is the temporary caretaker of Spring’s blessing.
I’ve never thought such a thing possible, but she is the queen’s daughter.
May I never again hear pain in her voice the way I did after she spoke of Dayton being struck by an arrow from the Bow of Radiance.
“I don’t understand,” Rosalina says, tears still brimming in her eyes. “There was nothing left. But Day’s alive. I know it. I can feel it in here.” She clutches her hand over her chest.
Stepping closer, I wait for her to explain how she appeared naked, covered in Caspian’s scent and blood, clearly having just lain with the Prince of Thorns.
She offers nothing, and though I’m trying to let her speak in her own time, my patience wears thinner with each passing moment.
I can’t stop seeing the image that Philiris, the Fate, showed me: Rosalina, a thrall of Caspian, at his side as he rules on his dark throne.
A vision so clear it could only be of a future almost certain.
“Dayton is strong,” I say. “A high prince. Perhaps there was some way he survived the wound.”
“I’m not sure, Kel.” Rosalina falls to the chair by the fire. Flames cast over her face. She looks so alert, but weariness is evident on her features. “After Day was shot, I lost control of myself, my magic, of everything. Sira used the opportunity to capture me.”
Slowly, I walk over and sit down in the chair across from her. The thought of Sira touching my mate sets my body on edge. Where were the other princes? I should have been at her side.
Rosalina gives me a wary glance. “It was Caspian that got me out. Sira had me in a cell so deep in the Below no magic would penetrate it. But it was the magic of your bargain, your love, that saved me, Kel. It brought me here.”
Breath rattles in my throat, and I stand, turning away from her. “That wasn’t love, Rosalina. I’m sure it was another of Caspian’s twisted games.”
“His twisted games? Do you think it was part of his plan to be stabbed by the Nightingale? Because that’s the last thing I saw before the thorns took me away.”
The words conjure an image in my head: Caspian, mouth open, eyes shining with fear. Cold horror skitters across my spine, but I tamp it down. The Nightingale is no match for Caspian. “Perhaps a ploy to trust him,” I say.
Rosalina storms up, then stands just below my chin, glaring. “I thought you were starting to trust him again, Kel. You worked together to save me from Kairyn. He and Farron destroyed the crystals powering the Baron’s pool. That night the three of us spent…”
I clench my jaw, trying to banish that memory. “It’s how he works, Rosalina. Everything he does is to further his own goal. When I was in the Below, I saw a clear vision of his true intentions.”
“And what are they?”
“He wants you, Rosalina. Wants you under the thralldom that would ensue if we were to properly mate.” All because of the bargain I made with Caspian so many years ago, blinded by love.
Let me take no other but you. If one day, my vow shall prove false and I lie with another, let them serve you in repentance until you tire of them as I did your heart.
And if ever there is no love between us, let this bargain melt away like snow under rain.
“You’re letting your fear win, Kel. That vision you saw isn’t certain.
” Rosalina crosses the room to the large window where a few flakes of snow drift by, the dusky light playing over her features, casting her brown eyes a deep purple.
“Bargains are not evil, Kel. The one you made with me when I was just a human felt like magic.”
“You were never just a human,” I say. “I wouldn’t have been able to make a bargain with you if you were. Fae cannot make bargains with humans.”
“You’re avoiding the point.”
“Fine. We can’t be so lucky that Sira would hurt him beyond repair.” I wave a dismissive hand. “She’s too proud of her creation. He’s too important to her plan.”
Rosalina stomps past me, but I grip her around the waist and push her against the wall, needing to feel her beneath my hands.
“Do you want me to describe the lengths to which I will go for you, Rose?”
Her chest heaves, and I haven’t seen her glare this hard at me since she first arrived at Castletree. I need to make her understand, to see what I did not all those years ago.
She narrows her gaze, and then the wisp of a smile tugs at her features. “Perhaps this would all be simpler if you just admit you were jealous.”
I dig a knee between her thighs. “This isn’t something so base.”
“Really?” she purrs and draws herself closer to me. “So it didn’t bother you at all, me showing up before you, naked, dripping with his scent?”
A low growl sounds in my throat. Her soft chest presses against my own. “You even sound like him.”
Rosalina threads her fingers in my hair. “He didn’t force me to do anything. I wanted it, Kel. I wanted him.”
“He’ll make you desire him until it kills you.”
Her lips dip to my neck, and her voice lowers. “Shall I describe the way our bodies moved together, how it felt when he entered me?”
My cock strains against my pants. I lift her, carrying her to the bed, and place her down. My tunic is loose on her, falling to the side to reveal a hint of her milky breasts. This isn’t jealousy, not in the normal sense, yet still…there’s a primal part of me, that incessant lingering mate bond.
Another man’s scent is on her, his seed inside her.
Every instinct in me wants to claim her.
“I missed you, Kel.” Rosalina’s voice breaks. “There were times in Summer I thought I might burn under the heat of the sun I missed you so much.”
Resting my weight on my arms, I look down at her. Tears sparkle along her cheeks like stardust. “My Rose, when you are not near, it is as if the stars cease to shine.”
She brushes her hand over my jaw, then lifts her lips to mine. My mate’s kiss spreads through me like the break of dawn. My hands close around her waist as I pull her flush against me.
“I was so afraid in that dungeon, but as Cas made love to me, it lessened, because I knew soon, I’d be in your arms.”
“I’ll never let you go, Rose. Never.”
“We have to help him.” Rosalina drops her gaze to my lips. “If we mate now, that would bring me straight to Caspian. Then, with your full magic, you could come to the Below and assist our escape. I’m certain you’re familiar with the route to the Below from traveling with my father and—”
“Rosalina.” I push myself upright. “I have told you this before, and I will tell you again. I would see the Enchanted Vale in ashes and Castletree overtaken by briars before completing my bond with you.”
Her eyes darken. “Cas wouldn’t keep me as a thrall. As soon as I came to him, he’d let me go. Like you did.”
“That’s what he wants you to believe.” His plan becomes clear as crystal in my mind. “He made you care about him, made it seem like only you could save him. Trust me, I know, because he did the same to me. If you go to him now, he will entrap you.”
Rosalina throws her legs over the side of the bed. “No, he’s in pain.”
“You can’t possibly know that. He’s probably watching us, laughing at how he’s deceived us all again.”
“No, Kel, I know it—”
“He’s a liar. I will never let that future come to pass. I was as good as his thrall once. The same fate will not befall my mate. Whatever destiny ensues for the Prince of Thorns is his own doing.”
“You speak of Caspian as if he is a monster, but the only beast I see is you.” Briars crack through my floor, and a flash of gold shines in her eyes.
“You cannot leave Winter. I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?” Rosalina snarls and storms for the door. “If you want to keep me here, you’ll have to lock me in the dungeon. Which, if I recall, you love to do.”
“Where are you going?”
She pauses, her hand hovering over the doorknob. “I’m not so foolish as to think I can enter the Below on my own. Ezryn, Dayton, and Farron are close. I’ll wait for them. But then I will go to the Below and rescue Caspian.”
Ice spreads below my feet, shattering across the room. “If they assist you, they will be disobeying the Sworn Protector of the Realms.”
Rosalina gives me a vicious glare. “Have fun prowling the grounds as a wolf tonight. Pick out a good cell for me.”
With that, my mate, Princess of the Enchanted Vale, slams the door.