Jessamine
The notes have returned. I found one tucked beside my pillow, the crippling stench of burnt amber accompanying it. I found yet another riddle written in it and I’m certain someone is trying to mess with me. It read; Tell me, Jessamine Hunter, did you feel relieved when you saw her lying in her blood?
Those words threw me off balance. Only I knew the way mother died. She killed herself and my hands were much too small to lift her. I pulled at her corpse for hours, and I remember what the blood looked like, drawing a trail along the rough floor. Her eyes were opened. I didn’t close them. I didn’t look at her face. Or her hands.
Maybe I should have. Maybe mother didn’t kill herself. I don’t know what to think. It’s the same way I felt when I returned home that day. While I hate to admit it, we were like each other in the fact that there was never a situation so dire that we would consider harming ourselves. She was ill, but she loved living. To tell me those stories, to train me, to whip me. There was always a reason to look forward to the next day.
There’s no way anyone else knows, unless they were in our cottage when it happened. That tells me nothing and it’s been hard to think of anything else for the rest of the day. My worry only increases when Bael interrupts my meeting with the Alphas, bringing news of an attack on our shipments from the secured routes. Everything was stolen, our men killed.
I’m currently sitting in the throne room, head hanging in my hands as I think of a way to report this to father. I’d been in charge of that. Assigning the troops to bring back the shipment. I’d chosen to send a group of seven. As little as possible, so as not to draw attention to us. Had I listened to Darrock and doubled them, they wouldn’t have died. I failed.
“It was your call to make. You must take responsibility for—”
“You think I do know that?” I snap, lifting my head. Exhaustion nips at my bones, pulling me down. Frustration grows, making it difficult to concentrate on anything other than my mistake. The last thing I need is for my father’s Beta, who seems unable to look at my face without sneering, to give me a damn lecture.
His dark eyes hold mine and the animosity in them glare at me. “Hunter must have lost his mind giving you everything to handle. You’re an outsider. Being here for weeks, or the rest of your life will not change the fact that you will never be one of us. You will never understand the inner workings of the kingdom. You will destroy us from within. You are a child playing with a double-edged sword.”
I snarl softly. “I didn’t ask for this. One mistake and you condemn me—”
A bitter laugh tickles the air and Beta Bael looks down at me, disdain turning his smirk into a sneer. “A mistake cost seven lives, princess. While your father might be too harsh to tell this to you, I am not. The seat you are to inherit requires that you DO NOT make mistakes. A wrong decision and the kingdom suffers for it. Those men trusted your father, who in turn trusted you. Your failure is not yours to bear alone. It is his. Knowing him, Hunt will shield you from most of it. He will take it, like he always has. Those men have families. Who do you think will pay the visit that takes the light from their eyes?” Beta Bael tsks. “You are such a disappointment. Not surprising, seeing as you are spawned from a demon from the deepest pits of hell.”
My throat hurts and my fingers tremble. I search deep within me for the strength to remain unbothered. Unfazed. I’m not a disappointment. He just hates me, like everyone else. Somehow, that thought doesn’t make it any better. I’m unraveling fast and my feelings are spiraling out of control. The box where I hide my feelings has tipped over and I can’t shut it fast enough.
I’m drowning in despair and fear. I can’t…breathe.
He turns his back on me and walks out. I have to grip the edge of the table hard to prevent myself from going after him and biting his throat. The door shuts and I fall, crawling under the table to hide a little. From the world. From father. From that damned note. I shut my ears and bring my knees to my chin, hiding my face in the tule of my dress.
“Let me kill him for you, Jessa.”
“Go away,” I breathe, pushing my ears closed tighter.
“You choose to be weak instead. How pathetic.”
“Choosing not to kill doesn’t make me weak. I can’t go about killing people just because of their criticisms.”
“Why not?”
I start to respond when the door creaks and Az’s voice floats in. “Your Highness?”
No response. Maybe if I stay quiet enough, he’ll go away. He calls out to me a couple of times and cusses something under his breath that sounds like, “Keeps disappearing like a fucking ghost, and I’m supposed to keep up with that. Infuriating woman.”
The door creaks again and I let out a breath, wiping the tears from my cheeks. I stare at the floor around me. This is unbecoming of me. I sniffle, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
“Hey.”
I yelp, shuffling back so fast, my head hits one of the immoveable chairs. Kier’s head peeks underneath the table, concern creasing his forehead. His gaze flicks over my face, making me annoyingly conscious of the tears streaking down my cheeks. “This is odd.”
My fingers rise to my cheeks, wiping harshly, then I run my fingers through my hair, ensuring I haven’t gotten a bump from hitting too hard. “What do you want?” My voice is a breathy squeak.
He holds a scroll in front of me. “I can’t seem to string my words together every time I’m in front of you. So, I wrote them down in my new petition. I believe our meeting begins in two minutes.” His eyes seem to shift back and forth from green to brown. “Does the idea of meeting me trouble you so much that you’d hide under the table? I can smell you everywhere, you know.”
I clear my throat. “Our meeting is scheduled in two minutes. You’re too early. You may wait outside until I call for you.”
His lips tug down in a frown. “Az said you didn’t condone tardiness.”
“Az talks too much. I should like to rid him of his job since he now works for you. You can take him back to Neredia with you.”
Kier stares at me. “You are hurt.”
I look up at the flat wood under the table. “Your observations are bothersome.”
His jaw tightens and he slips away, heeding my order to stand outside. Or not. Large hands suddenly grab my waist, yanking me out from under the table and I am screaming when he gently sets me down on my chair. “What did I say about putting your hands on me?!”
A long finger strokes his smooth chin in a somewhat thoughtful expression. “If I am to recall correctly, in the beginning of your pursuit, you assaulted me by the balcony and said, ‘Don’t let go. Your touch feels good.’”
Memories start to rise and I crush them, leaning forward to take the scroll from him. “I have no recollection of what you speak of,” I lie sternly, keeping my gaze fixed on the elegant scrawling of what happens to be a perfectly written request. There’s not a single fault I can find in this. If I presented this to my father, he’d send me off to Neredia immediately with Kier.
We can’t have that.
My fingers start to inch for the edge to tear it up, but as if reading my thoughts and intentions, Kier takes it from me. “You can’t keep ripping my proposals because you’re mad at me. It is beyond childish. This is important to me, and I know it is to you too, even if you pretend otherwise. The longer I stay here, the more vulnerable my pack and people are. Please, Jessamine. I beg of you.” He watches me with those pretty eyes of his without blinking.
“No.”
He growls, running his fingers through his hair in frustration as he paces right and left. Then he suddenly decides it is a good idea to lean into my space. My back is ramrod straight and I refuse to relinquish my control to him as he sputters, “I heard what the Beta said to you. I heard of the attack. After they are done with Neredia, they will come for Dawn. You might win the battle, but lives will be lost. Unless you wish to have more blood on your hands, you will help me. Give me the troops I need to stop this war from becoming bigger than it already is.”
I start looking around him, searching left and right until he frowns. “What are you looking for?”
“The enchantment you wish to use to coerce me into doing your bidding.”
He exhales heavily and it ruffles my hair a little. His breath smells like mint and something delicious. His lips seem fuller from this angle—I look down at my engagement ring instead. He retreats two steps back. “You are the heir to the Alpha King’s throne. You must understand to an extent the burdens that plague me. The weight of the decisions I make.” I look up and his gaze sears me. “You must understand why I did the things I did. I’m not asking you to forgive me. All I ask is that you don’t make innocent people suffer for what I did to you.”
His eyes glitter with intensity as I hold his gaze, and my voice is surprisingly curt when I respond. “I would have left it all, everything, everyone, if it meant being with you, and I would not have wasted a single minute regretting it.”
The way he stares at me is impossible to describe.
“So, no Kier. I cannot relate to, or understand you. And I do not wish to anymore.” I rise to my feet, strolling over to the door to my office that’s a tiny space attached to the room. I retrieve a knife and a seal from it and return to where he stands. “This is more for me than for you,” I whisper in his own words, holding his gaze as I slit my wrist, letting the thick droplets fall over the edge of the scroll, and very slowly, I lower the royal seal to it, approving his request for an alliance.
I grip the parchment with my steal bleeding hand and press it against his chest, ignoring the bite of his heat against my fingertips. “You have what you want. Never bother me again.”
I start to leave when he snatches my wrist and brings my hand to his lips. His eyes are very, very dark as his tongue darts out and flicks over my injury, tasting my blood. My gut tightens, my breaths seizing. His nostrils flare and his pupils widen. “No. I don’t have what I want. Not yet.” His voice is gruff and the heat rolling off him is heady and dangerous.
The cut heals faster than normal and the sensation is enough to startle me back to my senses. I snatch my hand from him and turn on my heel, all but fleeing out of the hall before I can decide to listen to her and bare my neck for him.