Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
There’s a finality in his words that makes my blood run cold. For a moment he loosens his grip and sighs deeply. “I know you don’t like being told what to do, but you could have had it all,” he says, almost wistfully. “You could have had my trust. Now you will become my wife and there won’t be an ounce of trust or love between us.”
My heart skips again. “Who said anything about love?”
“Hmmph.” He tilts his head, examining me. “I could have loved you, you know.”
Oh. That I didn’t know. And for reasons I can’t explain, it feels like he’s pulled a pin out from my heart and I’m slowly deflating.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he says, noting my fallen expression. “You had me all lined up. But that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t…Tuoni,” I say his name carefully, “please. I didn’t leave you on purpose. It wasn’t to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me!” he snaps, eyes flashing silver. “You wounded my pride. Sometimes that’s all a God has for himself.”
“Rasmus was taking me out of here, he was taking me to see my father,” I try to explain. “Can’t you understand that I did all of this for him? I agreed to marry you for him. So that he could live and be free. I love my father, how could you expect me not to run to him the first chance I get?”
Silence falls between us for a few beats, tension thickening. His metal fingers massage the back of my neck and somewhere in the distance a bird whistles from the trees.
“In time, I would have brought your father back here,” he says after a moment. “In time, I would have given you everything you asked for. But that privilege has been revoked. You betrayed me when you left with Rasmus, and I won’t ever forgive you for that. You will still marry me, because we made a deal and in the event that you can fulfill the prophecy, but there will be no love lost between us. You will spend your life at Shadows End until I one day touch you…and die.”
I swallow the brick in my throat. “And if I don’t die?”
“Then we will rule together, uniting the land. I will be a fair husband to you, little bird. A powerful king.” He brings his face close again, as if to kiss me, even though the mask is in the way. “But I will never love you. Not after this. Do you understand?”
My hands move on instinct. I reach up and place my fingers on the sides of his mask and slowly pull it off, revealing his face.
A gasp catches in my throat as I’m struck dumb by his otherworldly beauty. It wasn’t long ago that this face was gazing at me with something kinder than it is now, and yet it feels like I’m seeing him again for the first time. His smooth, perfect bronzed skin and high cheekbones, broad nose, the strong cut of his jaw, the shiny thickness of his ebony beard. His black low-set brows over intelligent gray eyes smudged with kohl, the kind of eyes that tease you with the secrets of the universe, eyes that used to make me feel like a goddess when I wasn’t.
Then there are his lips. Full, supple lips that my skin knows intimately, a mouth that has whispered secrets that only my body has understood.
He’s not just beautiful—he’s powerful. It radiates off of him, entangling you in its dominance until you’re caught in a web, too dazed and submissive to even plot your escape.
Somehow, though, I manage to stay on solid ground.
“I want you to say that to me without hiding behind a mask,” I tell him bravely.
His eyes flicker over my features, as if reading a map, and then his gaze steels, a cold wind that wraps around me. “I will never love you, Hanna.”
“And if I happen to fall in love with you?” I whisper, knowing that will never happen now.
His mouth curls into a contemptuous smile. “Then you have all my pity.”
Ouch. My stomach twists into a million knots as his cold words cut into me, the way he really seems to mean it. He finally lets go of my neck and turns away, sliding his mask back down on his face. I don’t protest. I’d rather not see his face now, see how little he cares for me.
A loveless marriage for eternity?
I never should have left with my brother.
Chapter 9
Hanna
“The Wedding”
With Death giving me the coldest of shoulders, I force myself to pay more attention to my surroundings than to him. We continue up the path toward his mountain castle, the stones slipping under the tread of my boots, and when I get a better look at them I notice they aren’t stones at all, but some type of crystal.