Forty-Nine
SENAN
“Rhainn!”My shout echoes off the empty hall walls and windows. Dammit, where is my infernal brother? “Rhainn?”
“He went that way, sire.” Bell points down the hallway toward the study. Surely he wouldn’t go straight to the king. And yet, the solar and the dining room are in the opposite direction.
I run as fast as my legs will carry me, catching up to Rhainn right when his fist lifts to knock. “Stop!” I bellow. All the exertion ignites a fire in my lungs, and I begin to wheeze and cough. There is no hiding the blood that spills from my mouth as I drag my sleeve across my lips and try to catch my breath.
Rhainn whirls, his face a mask of fury, flushed all over, and eyes narrowed into slits. “How could you do this to her? Don’t you know how fucking lucky you are? She loves you, and yet you’re off rutting with our brother’s whore?—”
I lunge, catching him by the collar, stilling the insults on his tongue. “Speak ill of her again, and you will regret it. She is everything.” My beginning and my end. My one and only. My all. “I have loved her for years. Fate stole her from me, but now she has returned, and I will not let her go.” If anyone understands being hopelessly in love with someone, it’s Rhainn.
When I let him go, my brother’s eyes expand, his gaze dropping to the edge of the scripted letters peeking from beneath my unbuttoned shirt. “Allette?”
Nodding, I cover the most precious word inked across my heart. “All this time, she has been stuck in the human realm. And now that she has returned, I am in an impossible situation.”
I’m to marry the princess in thirteen days, and I’ve given Boris my word. I cannot so much as set foot outside this castle without at least one guard trailing behind. Yet I promised Allette I would leave with her. And the antidote…
Rhainn folds his arms across his chest, giving me a stern look. “I’ll keep your secret on one condition. I want to marry your princess.”
I snort. I can’t help it. Sure, he has made his affection for the princess clear on multiple occasions, but being attracted to someone isn’t the same as tying yourself to that person for all of eternity. “Boris will never allow it.” I’ve already tried that avenue and been shot down hard.
“He will if she wants to marry me too.”
If the princesschoseto wed Rhainn, then Boris couldn’t do a damn thing about it, could he? The king will still have his alliance, and I’ll be free.
IfI can find a way to escape the castle. Which brings me to yet another hurdle. Where will we go?
Allette has proven that we aren’t safe in the human realm. Clearly, we cannot stay in Kumulus, and I’m not familiar with any of the other kingdoms. Stratiss could work, but only if Aeron stops being an asshole and agrees to give us refuge.
I glance sidelong at Rhainn. “So you mean to seduce my betrothed?”
“That isn’t what I… Gods, Senan, I would never… What I meant was…”
I clap him on the shoulder. “It was a joke. Seduce away, little brother. You will hear no objection from me.”
He rubs his hands down his thighs, straightening his trousers, and says, “I won’t let you down.”
Rhainn occupyingthe princess leaves me free to plot our daring escape. Since Allette still has access to the servants’ wards, I’ll need her to return to the caverns to retrieve Jeston. Hopefully, he’ll have no qualms about sending the antidote to Aeron at the castle in Stratiss. Now to find my brother and speak to him about helping us get the hell out of here.
Or at least, thatwasthe plan before Leeri storms down the hall, rage blazing in her narrowed eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”
I take a step back, putting distance between me and the irate woman charging like a fucking bull. “I was speaking with Rhainn.”
“I bet you were,” she sneers as her gaze drags down my disheveled state.
“Did you need something, or…?”
“I love you,” she says like it’s a curse, no warmth or affection in her tone.
I almost laugh but don’t because she looks as if she wants to slap me. “You don’t love me.”
“I do,” she insists, bunching her skirts in white-knuckled fists. “And since we are to wed in less than a fortnight, I see no reason why we should wait to consummate our relationship.”
She did not just suggest consummating our relationship in the middle of the fucking hall. I glance over her shoulder to findthe guard stationed at the end of the corridor with eyes wide as saucers.
“We are not going to”—Gods, I cannot believe I’m about to say this out loud—“consummate our relationship, Leeri.”