“True or not, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop fighting you,” she warned. “I won’t submit.”
“I know.” Admiration for her rose once more, but so did concern. I didn’t need her to submit. I needed her to see the truth, and there was so much I hadn’t told her. There wasn’t time. I needed to get to Berkton.
Poppy stiffened against me. “And you’re still a monster.”
Another truth. “I am, but I wasn’t born that way. I was made this way. You asked about the scar on my thigh. Did you look at it closely, or were you too busy staring at my co—”
“Shut up!”
“You should’ve noticed that it was the Royal Crest branded on my skin.” I wasn’t going to shut up. “Do you want to know how I have such intimate knowledge of what happens during your fucking Ascension, Poppy? How I know what you don’t? Because I was held in one of those Temples for five decades,” I hissed. “And I was sliced and cut and fed upon. My blood was poured into golden chalices that the second sons and daughters drank after being drained by the Queen or the King or another Ascended. I was the godsdamn cattle.”
My lips peeled back over my teeth. “And I wasn’t just used for food. I provided all sorts of entertainment. I know exactly what it’s like to not have a choice.” I went there because she had to know. “It was your Queen who branded me, and if it hadn’t been for the foolish bravery of another, I would still be there. That is how I got that scar.”
I let go of her then, burning with anger and grief, shame and desperation. The walls were down. Backing away, I saw that she trembled. I knew that what I’d shared shook her. Good. It was terrible. Horrific. It was the truth of those she wanted so badly to believe were the heroes.
The thing was, there were no heroes here. Not really. But my people weren’t monsters.
I left the cell before she turned around, crossing her arms over her waist.
I gripped the bars as she stared at me. “Neither the Prince nor I want to see you harmed,” I said, speaking of my brother. “As I’ve said, we need you alive.”
“Why?” she whispered. “Why am I so important?”
“Because they have the true heir to the kingdom. They captured him when he freed me.”
Her brows knitted. “The Dark One has a brother?”
“You are the Queen’s favorite. You’re important to her and to the kingdom. I don’t know why. Maybe it has something to do with your gift. Perhaps it doesn’t.” I forced myself to say what I needed to, because now wasn’t the time to tell her I had no plans of letting her go back to or stay with them. That conversation would have to come once she accepted the truth. “But we will release you back to them if they release Prince Malik.”
“You plan to use me as ransom.”
“That’s better than sending you back in pieces, isn’t it?” I countered, grip tightening on the bars.
Disbelief filled her expression. “You just spent all this time telling me that the Queen, the Ascended, and my brother, are all evil vamprys who feed on mortals, and you’re just going to send me back to them once you free the Dark One’s brother?”
There was nothing I could say that she’d be willing to listen to.
A harsh, hurt laugh left her, and the bars dented under my hands as she lifted hers to her chest.
“A more comfortable sleeping arrangement will be made.” I pushed back from the bars. “You can choose not to believe anything I’ve said, but you should so that what I’m about to say doesn’t come as such a shock to you. I will be leaving shortly to meet up with King Da’Neer of Atlantia to tell him that I have you.”
Her head jerked upright.
“Yes. The King lives. So does Queen Eloana. The parents of the one you call the Dark One and Prince Malik.” I turned from her, stopping. My hands fisted at my sides. “Not everything was a lie, Poppy. Not everything.”
PRESENT XI
“I never wanted
you to find out the way you did,” I told Poppy. “And I know that’s no excuse—I knew that then. It doesn’t matter that I planned to tell you the truth. I should’ve told you everything before we spent that night together, and I know I should’ve also forced you to confront what you already had to know.” I took a shallow breath. “That I was who you believed to be the Dark One. That would’ve been the right thing to do. I knew that then, too, but I was selfish. I wanted you, and I didn’t have the decency to do the right thing.”
I lay beside Poppy, running my fingers over her arm. Her skin had warmed in the last few hours.
Hope was such a fragile creature, so I held it in check. “The thing is, Poppy? If I had to do it all over again, the first thing I would change is leaving you in that room. And I know that sounds fucked-up—that there is a whole slew of other things I should’ve done differently. But knowing what I should’ve done and what I would’ve done are two entirely different things. I was greedy then with you, even before I realized it, but that night…”
I traced the elegant lines of the bones and tendons in her hand. “I’d already fallen for you, despite what I said to Kieran. I didn’t know it wasn’t only lust and obsession. That I was already deeply and madly in love with you—your stubbornness and bravery, your kindness, and that delightful vicious streak that runs deep in you.” I grinned.
“I just didn’t know that was what I was feeling because love…it wasn’t something I thought I deserved. Not after all my mistakes, the lives I’d taken, and the pain I’d caused others—the pain I caused you. The agony my actions were still going to bring you. It wasn’t even that I thought you’d never forgive me.
It was that I couldn’t be forgiven and…” I trailed off, thinking about my brother and what he’d said about not telling Millicent they were heartmates.
My chest constricted.
That was likely what drove Malik’s choice. He believed she couldn’t understand or forgive the things he’d done. That he wasn’t worthy of her love—of anyone’s, really. And despite our issues, that made me hurt for him.
I blew out a breath, forcing the tightness in my chest to loosen. “I hated seeing you in that cell, and I loathed leaving you there. Delano and Naill were to move you as soon as they could. They had to wait till they believed Jericho had left.” My lips thinned. “And for others in the keep to be occupied. They didn’t want to run the risk of being seen while moving you because New Haven had become a powder keg—more so than we even realized.”
A warm breeze rolled in through the window, playing with the strands of her hair. “I rode to Berkton as fast as I could, pushing Setti to his limits in that weather. The snow had eased off, but I knew I didn’t have long before it picked up again. When I arrived at the old manor, I…”
I really had no idea what I would have done if it had been my father there.
“Alastir was there, not the King. He’d convinced my father to remain in Atlantia because it was too much of a risk for him to be that deep in Solis. You already know that, but the relief I felt? I could’ve fallen to my knees. Alastir…he was a traitorous bastard at the end, and fuck him, but to this day, I’m glad he came.” I lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the top.