28. Violette
VIOLETTE
MERE HOURS LATER
As it turns out, this wretched human has ensorcelled my willpower, and I am now standing beside his bed as he sleeps, unpeacefully. I didn’t even bother with a glamour.
I don’t care if he sees me.
I want to sink my claws into his thickly muscled shoulders and shake him awake.
Wake up and tell me why!
Why—by some cruel twist of fate—is my soul being called to yours?
Angry tears spill down my cheeks.
I have no doubt that this godsforsaken human will be my undoing if I allow him into my life.
A prospect that, after merely standing in his presence, seems more and more like an inevitability.
Not even thirty seconds have passed, and already—despite my fury—warmth is blossoming in my core.
Unwilling to give in to this just yet, I march back through my portal, into my living room, and seal it shut before picking up the nearest fragile object and smashing it against the wall.
My fists clench with the need for violence.
Instead, my eyes wander to my scrying pedestal—the lacquered wood in front of where it sits worn away from my pacing.
Where I watch.
And wait.
My father has done nothing but torment our realm. After losing the war he waged when I was a child, plaguing nearly every continent, abandoning my mother and me, having Thessaly—my only friend—killed, and manipulating my life from afar so that I may one day be of use to him...
He will die by my hands.
And I will free Lucen’s former soulbound, Soriya, and the numerous others in his harem.
But, even after all these years, I am still not ready to face him.
Only a year or so ago, I achieved a breakthrough—thanks to my flueratheurgy skills, I managed to create a scrying pool through which I am able to observe my father—even in Sinsól, where no one outside can gain access without my father granting it.
Unfortunately, I cannot hear anything being said on the other side of it, but at least I can have this reassurance.
That he isn’t here, in Caerwynath.
The male has been so physically distant from me my entire life that the idea he would ever be here seems ludicrous.
And the fact that such a likelihood is so remote, it’s like an ever-present thorn in my heart. A bleeding wound.