“That isn’t love! You were holding me hostage!” I try to jerk free, but he refuses to let go. “You could’ve saved me, and yet you kept me as your prisoner. You lied to me, over and over again. You took away my world. My family, my friend, my life, and my love.”
“Enough! You cared for me once, and you will care for me again.”
“I won’t. I will never forgive you if you take me away. Never.”
“And yet you forgave him. If he truly wanted to find you, he should’ve looked harder. You forget that I was there.” He leans down so we’re eye to eye, but I no longer recognize the monster staring back. “He barely even looked. And the moment he returned to our realm, he drowned himself in dust and whores.Thatis the truth of the man youlove.” Eason drops my hand and catches the door handle. The hinges scream when he throws it aside. He withdraws the short sword strapped to his hip, aiming it at my heart. “Now, I suggest you get moving, or I will finish what I started all those years ago.”
I’m about to take a step when a deep voice snarls from the hallway, “Get the fuck away from my mate.”
Fifty-Five
SENAN
You were holding me hostage.
Those five words freeze the blood in my veins. I couldn’t hear everything Allette said to Bell, but I heard enough.Hehad been the reason my love hadn’t returned to me. My own personal guard had played us all for fools. All those times he’d claimed to have a wife and a child on the way, he’d been referring tomygirl.
And now he has his blade aimed at her heart, a sneer of derision twisting his lips into something dark and dangerous. In my panic, I gave away the only advantage I had and announced my presence like a fucking fool.
I slide my pack off my back, tossing it onto the worn floorboards so it doesn’t weight me down. “Your quarrel isn’t with her. It’s with me.”
Bell’s sword drops for a split second, long enough for him to fist Allette’s hair and drag her against him. The blade presses against her throat, stifling her cry. “I no longer take orders from you,sire.”
Even with a sword at her neck, Allette claws Bell’s forearm where he pins her to his chest.
I take a halting step into the room, holding my empty hands toward him so he can see I have no weapons of my own. “Do you really want to hurt the woman we love?”
Something flickers across his eyes, but it’s gone just as quickly. “I’d rather see her dead than withyou.”
“You mean you’d rather hide behind her because you’re afraid I’ll beat you.”
A feral growl rips from his throat. He throws Allette aside. Her head cracks off the wall, and she slumps to the floor. I shoot forward, calling fire to my palms and ducking beneath his swinging sword, but the chest on the floor trips me up, and the blade grazes my side. Pain rips through me as I catch the hem of his cloak and light the material ablaze. He lets out a yelp but draws on his wind element to extinguish the flames.
I use his distraction to throw two punches, one to his chin and one to his gut. Neither do a blessed thing because the man is made of fucking iron and his silver leathers are impenetrable. His fist slams into my face. The crunch of my bones forces me back and back. My boot catches on the corner of the bed, and I go down hard. I blink against the pain, but by the time I glance back up, Eason’s fist is flying toward me. Every time I try to stand, he hits me, over and over, until I can no longer rise.
I have to get up. To save Allette. But Eason Bell is one of the king’s most fearsome guards, and for as long as I’ve known him, he has never lost a fight. I have no hope of winning.
He is going to kill me.
His hand comes around my throat, lifting me as if I weigh no more than a child. I see my bloodied face reflected in his blown-out pupils. My blood splattered across his bearded jaw.
His face can’t be the last thing I see before I die.
I manage to turn my head toward Allette. Only she isn’t there.
“You have stolen her from me for the last time,” Bell snarls, his teeth bared.
Stolen her fromhim?
He stole her from me. For years, he has watched me search for her—mourn her—without saying a fucking word. All that time, he was living with my mate. Loving her. Watching me drown myself night after night. Watching me slowly waste away to nothing while he lived the life I’d planned for the two of us.
His fist draws back, and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for pain that never comes.
A gurgled curse breaks from Bell’s lips, and he looks down between us to where a sliver of blood-soaked blade peeks from under his arm. Allette stands at his side, the hilt of his sword clasped between her hands, blood trickling from a cut at her temple.
Bell’s hold on my throat loosens. I manage to get my feet beneath me before he crumples to the floor in a pool of his own blood. His sword clatters onto the wood.
Allette launches forward, throwing her arms around me. “You are a terrible fighter.”