Chapter Thirty-Two
Alaya
A voice breaks into my sleep, soft and cautious.
“Hey, Princess. Look who’s back.”
My thoughts struggle to catch up with reality, to process where I am. I focus on one thing: his voice.
And everything falls back into place. A crushing heaviness slams into my chest, rushing in so fast I gasp and my eyes flash open. Tears flow down my face, hot with overwhelming joy and something painful I can’t quite place.
I turn, and he is there. The same messy black hair, the same piercing green eyes, the same cocky grin that fuelled my strength for survival when all hope seemed lost.
Kiernan’s emotions flood through our Bond, my hand pulsing with his happiness and desire. He frowns and reaches out to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
I flinch away from his touch. Pain lances through me at my own reaction.
“Hey.” I force a smile.
“You weren’t waiting for me when I got back.” He tilts his head, one eyebrow raised, the corner of his mouth quirking up.
“I got a bit tied up.” I mirror his expression, letting my own eyebrow arch.
I sit up and lean back against the fluffy pillow behind me. I close my eyes for just a moment, sinking into it.
“Gods, Alaya. I never thought I would see you again.” His voice cracks on the last word.
He reaches out, the golden band on his finger catching the light. The golden thread etched deep into his skin glows with a soft radiance, pulsing with his heartbeat. Tentatively, almost hesitantly, he takes my hand in his. I don’t pull away this time.
His finger caresses the golden band on mine, tracing its smooth surface as though it were the most precious thing in the world. The pad of his thumb brushes over the matching golden thread beneath my skin, and I feel the connection between us hum with recognition.
I try to shield my emotions, to bury any thoughts of where I’ve been and what has happened.
Try to keep them from bleeding through our Bond.
Even the smallest crack could let something slip through—a flash of pain, a whisper of desire, a shadow of what I endured.
I need to protect him from my truth for now, to spare him the hurt of knowing what pieces of myself I left behind. With them.
The unspoken question hangs in the air between us.
Did you ever stop loving me?
It demands an answer, and the reply comes as easy as breathing.
“I never stopped.”
“I never doubted.” He smiles.
He leans down slowly, his hand brushing my hair from my face, then stroking my cheek with the utmost care. His soft lips brush mine, a whisper of a kiss.
“Unless you want to laze about in bed for another two days, would you join me for a walk?” He chuckles, resting his forehead against mine, his warm breath dusting my face.
“Sure. I’ll just need to get dressed.”
I pause, waiting for him to leave.
“You’re my wife, Alaya. Remember, I’ve seen you in a lot less.” He smirks.
I blush. He puts out his hand, helping me rise from the bed, and I’m grateful for it—my legs give way when I stand. His arm comes up and encircles my waist, steadying me. My skin tingles under the flimsy nightdress, his touch warm and tender.
“I got you.”
“Thanks.” Once I get my balance, I walk to the bathroom, wash, then cross to my dressing room.
I sigh with pleasure.
Clothes. My clothes.
I pick out a pretty blue summer dress. In the floor-to-ceiling mirror, I see Kiernan walk in behind me, his eyes heavy with desire, gripping the hem of my nightdress.
This feels so intimate and natural. A wave of sadness washes over me—these are the little moments we should have shared after our marriage, the ones we never got.
His fingers drift lightly over my skin as he pulls the nightdress up and over my head.
He hisses through clenched teeth. The anger that radiates from him hits me so hard I stumble.
When I look at his reflection in the mirror, his face has gone pale. He’s trembling against my back. I see what his eyes have found. Fading bruises—some small, some bigger than my fist—paint a pattern over my entire body. Red fingermarks still circling my neck.
“Please don’t ask,” I whisper.
Both hands clench into fists, knuckles white. His jaw works. Then, after what feels like an eternity, he sighs—a long, shuddering exhale. He leans down slowly, carefully, and his nose nuzzles my neck with infinite gentleness.
“I won’t. But one day you will tell me, and I will listen,” he whispers back.
He helps me put on the dress, and once I find some shoes to wear, I’m ready to go.
Just as we’re about to leave, something on the bedside table catches my eye.
I freeze.
“Where did this come from?” I pick up the wooden object, my hand trembling.
“It was in the pocket of the trousers you were wearing when you arrived. Figured you might want to keep it.”
There, lying in the palm of my hand, is a wooden carved horse, shiny with age and handling.
I’ve seen this before. On a mantle above a stone fireplace.
Domanikk’s. How did I have it?
My throat tightens. The small carved figure feels impossibly heavy in my palm, a tangible piece of a life I thought I’d left behind. I close my fingers around it, the smooth wood warm against my skin.
Kiernan is watching me, waiting. He doesn’t ask, but I can feel his curiosity, mingled with something else. Concern, maybe. Or fear?
I cross to my dresser and place the wooden figure in a box next to the beautiful dagger Kiernan gave me for my twenty-first birthday. Two gifts. Two lives. I run my finger down the horse’s smooth side one last time before I shut the lid.
“Ready?” Kiernan asks, his voice careful.
“Ready. Let’s go,” I reply, spinning away from the dresser, joining him.
We wander around the castle grounds, just enjoying each other’s company.
The sun is high, making it particularly hot and humid as we round a corner of a stone building, and the light sheen of sweat that has started to coat my skin chills like ice.
The Western Pasture is as beautiful and serene as it ever was. The horses within are grazing in the early afternoon warmth, dust dancing in the air around them. Their coats gleam, and muscles bunch and relax as they amble.
Out of habit, my gaze turns to the stables, and I expect to see a relaxed, grinning Heller coming towards me, asking me where I’ve been, admonishing me for staying away too long.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. I gasp, trying to pull in a breath, but my chest won’t expand. Kiernan’s hand settles gently on my back as I bend over. A sob tears from my throat, and finally—finally—air floods back in.
“Alaya, what’s wrong?” Kiernan’s voice is full of concern, but I can’t reply. I’m breathing too hard, fresh tears running down my face and dropping to the dry soil below.
He’s patient, simply rubbing my back as I try to gain my composure. Finally, I stand up straight and lean on the top bar of the fence beside me, looking out into the pasture. Kiernan joins me but doesn’t speak, just lets me be.
“They killed him right in front of me,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
Kiernan leans his head down closer, his warm breath dusting my cheek.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. I know he was your friend.”
I don’t tell him the rest, not what Reth did to Heller after. Kiernan doesn’t need that depravity tainting his mind too.
“I never got to tell him I was sorry.”
“For what?”
For not being able to love him back like he deserved.
“We had an argument when we last met, something silly.” The lie slips a little too easily from my lips.
“He knew, Alaya. At least he had a friend there in the end.” He pauses, then adds with sudden heat, “Fucking Equitae.”
A strange stab of protectiveness prickles through me. My face flushes hot.
“Why are we never taught about the Equitae and their history?” I ask, standing up straighter.
Kiernan looks at me from under furrowed brows.
“What do you mean? We are taught about the Equitae—well, at least I was. Their brutality, their savage killings over land or for dominance.”
“That’s not the truth, though, is it?”
His jaw tightens. “Look, Alaya. I know you spent time with them, but from what little you’ve told me and those bruises on your body, it wasn’t exactly pleasant there.”
“They’re far from the brutal savages your father makes them out to be. They have a community, families, lives like our own.” I hold his gaze. “And I think you know that too.”
“That’s not—” Kiernan stops himself, his neck flushing red, jaw clenched. “You don’t understand the situation.”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Kiernan.”
He looks at me in shock, as if wondering who this Fae is, biting back at him.
And who am I really? I’m definitely not the same Alaya from our wedding night.
The silence stretches between us. Then he sighs and turns around to lean his back against the fence, arms crossed.
“I knew,” he says quietly. “My father moved most of the history books from the Main Library into his personal office. By that point, there weren’t many Earthbound left alive who remembered much before The Corruption came.”
“Why? What does that accomplish other than keeping us ignorant?”
“Why else does he do anything? Power, control. If no one asks questions, he has free rein to do as he pleases.”
“Including wiping out the Equitae?”
He pauses and looks down at me. Pain flickers across his face.
“Don’t ask me to betray him, Alaya. Please.”
My anger simmers down to something quieter. I know Kiernan has no real influence over the King and his actions. He’s as much a pawn in his father’s insatiable greed for control over Kaladia as anyone.
“We deserve to know the truth.”
His arm drapes over my shoulder, and I lean into him as we continue our walk.
“Perhaps we can put the library back together when we rule Kaladia,” he says, a hint of hope in his voice.
In all the rush of the wedding and my later kidnapping, the fact that I was now a Princess, married to the heir of Kaladia, had not been at the forefront of my mind. Now, it rushes back with a heaviness, a crown of lead that threatens to crush me.
What kind of King would Kiernan be? Could his rule bring about change for Kaladia?
“King Kiernan … sounds so regal.” I laugh as I wrap my arm around his waist, pulling him to me. I breathe in his familiar scent of musk and the metallic undertone of his Gift. Through our Bond, I feel his contentment, his hope for our future, warming me from the inside.
“Queen Alaya,” he replies softly, brushing a light kiss on the top of my head.
We walk in comfortable silence for a while, the weight of our conversation settling between us. The imposing outer wall of the fortress looms ahead, the air cooler in the shadows of its presence.
Then Kiernan slows his pace. When I glance up at him, there’s a different kind of heat in his eyes.
“Fancy finishing what we started?” His voice drops, husky and low.
In front of us stands the small stone cottage where we was supposed to spend our wedding night. My throat constricts. My pulse quickens, but not with desire—with something colder.
I pull away and stare at him, at his green eyes glinting and heavy with longing.
“I … don’t want to go in there, Kiernan.” My voice shakes.
I feel the moment he realises his mistake. Regret and sadness radiate from him in waves.
“It wasn’t all bad memories, was it?” he asks, his brows raised and a smirk playing on his lips.
Heat floods my cheeks. That familiar jolt of desire reminds me of that night in a whole different way. Of his touch, his heat, the feeling of him finally inside me. The yearning to feel that again, to finally give ourselves to each other without interruptions—just us—consumes me.
It also confuses me. But the need for him is overwhelming enough to push any doubts away.
He sees it in my eyes.
He leans down, one arm circling my waist, the other cupping my face. He kisses me, his lips soft and hot against mine.
The flare of heat in my belly is so intense I gasp and arch against him. Gentleness erupts into intensity as his tongue pushes between my lips, searching for my own. I gladly meet him, and we lose ourselves in the moment, our breaths mingling, the urgency as we taste and entwine.
His hand on my waist drops and grabs my rear, the skirt of my knee-length dress hitching, his leg pressing between mine. His thigh grinds against me, and I feel the hard length of him against my hip.
Then there was a deep cough.
We spring apart.
The General stands there, his cheeks pink below his red beard.
“You know, I’m really starting to hate you,” Kiernan growls.
“As I am starting to loathe our meetings. Your King requests you and your wife in his personal office whenever you are not otherwise occupied.”
Kiernan flicks a salute, and the General turns and leaves.
When he looks back at me, we both laugh. He laces his fingers in mine, our Marriage Bond shining golden beneath our skin, and we walk back towards the castle.