“Go to her, but you’ll not be going alone,” I grunt.
Following behind her, I walk into the siren’s space, yet again and once again I feel a lust fill me that is unnatural. Closing my eyes, I drop my head and wait for this intense moment to end. Godiva moves around, she sinks down in front of her sister and removes the blindfold.
I hear Godiva gasp at the same time I hear Ryia hiss. Lifting my gaze, my eyes widen when I see the sisters face off with one another. The witches are standing several feet away from one another and there is a green mist in the air swirling between them.
“What have you done, sister?” Godiva asks.
Ryia throws back her head and lets out a demonic sounding laugh. Then she drops her chin. “Are you that surprised, Diva? You left me to the wolf. The goddesses have freed me and in return, I am more than happy to do their bidding.”
“I am here for you. I came here to save you,” Godiva states.
Taking a step back, I try to open the door so that my men can come in and possibly guard these witches, these women who are obviously at odds with one another. Aleida is the first one to enter the room and judging by the gasp that she lets out, this must be bad.
My stomach twists, it aches and I shift my gaze back to the women. Godiva has her arms extended, her palms facing Ryia, but Ryia is facing me with a smile on her face, her fingers pointing directly at me.
“What are you doing?” I demand on a wheeze.
She smirks. “Taking your love away, Elias. It is only but a blossoming seed, this will be easy, and then the prophecy will be naught but destruction and doom for this entire world.”
Aleida starts chanting behind me, but I am frozen to my spot. The pain consumes me and I feel as though she is doing more than simply taking my love from my body, it feels as though she is extracting my soul, my marrow from my bones.
Before I realize what’s happening. I hear her. It is Sybilla’s sweet voice, except it sounds panicked. Wrenching my face away from the witch, I look behind me in horror to see my wife rounding the corner.
Merek tries to stop her, but she maneuvers past him and stops at the threshold of the door. My heart begins to beat faster at the sight of her. She lifts one hand to her belly, the other she extends to me as tears fill her eyes.
It’s as if she knows that Ryia is trying to steal the love that I have for her from my body. My stomach stops hurting and I turn my back to the witch, taking a single step toward my bride.
“Nooo,” Ryia screams, her voice piercing and bouncing off of the stone walls.
My knees give out, my hands lift to my ears, covering them as I fall to the floor. My back arches, my head flying back with a scream that I know emulates the pain that I’m feeling inside of me in this moment.
I’m not sure what happens. I hear women screaming, crying, men’s voices and the sound of steel hissing through the air, but I can’t open my eyes, I can’t stand from my kneeling position on the floor and then everything goes completely black.
MEREK
I watch my cousin fall to the floor, my blade trained on the witch they call Ryia’s throat. She smirks, her job seemingly done here, but I know that it is not. Elias is not weak. If he loves his sweet wife, then it is not something that can be stripped so easily from him.
“You finish her, or I will,” I growl, glancing to Godiva. “Blood or not, she must be put down.”
“You act as though I am a lame animal. That is not very kind, my gentle Merek,” she purrs.
She is beautiful, but she does not stir desire inside of me. I have bedded many beautiful maids, she is nothing special. Tilting my head to the side, I curl my lip.
“You are a lame animal, witch,” I sneer.
Her gaze narrows at me and she lifts her hands in a threat, but not before I hear low chanting behind me, then the witch flies backward. Her back is pressed to the copper-lined wall and I watch as her skin sizzles. It is as if she’s pressed against hot coals right before my eyes.
Glancing to Godiva and Aleida, I watch as they hold their hands out and begin chanting louder and louder. The witch jerks and the smell of burning flesh fills the room right before her head hangs low.
“Stand to the side, Merek,” Godiva instructs.
I hurry to the side and watch as the floor opens up and the witch disappears before the hole closes back up again. Turning my head to look at the witches, my mouth drops open. I try to speak, but naught comes out.
“She is with Hades now, whom she apparently had promised herself to. This could be good or it could be really bad, depending on what he intends to use her for,” Godiva mutters.
Sybilla hiccups and I look down to see she’s on the floor, her body draped over an unmoving Elias. “Our King?” I ask.
Aleida and Godiva share a look and they both shake their head once. “We do not know, we will not know until we assess him,” Aleida murmurs.
Jerking my chin toward them, I demand that they care for their Queen and take her up to her chambers. Scooping Elias in my arms, I pick up the heavy bastard and follow behind them, carrying him to the Queen’s chambers.
I pray to the gods not only for his life because I love my cousin as though he is part of my own flesh, but for the country, and most of all for his health so that he can witness his babe enter this world.
SYBILLA
Merek gently lays Elias down on the bed. I don’t bother pulling back the comforter, unsure of what we’ll find beneath it. This room is so musty and dusty, that I have no doubt if there are sheets, they are just as gross as everything else.
I watch as Merek leans over him, and I assume that he’s checking his breathing and listening for his heartbeat. I pace at the foot of the bed, Jasmine and Katrina staying silent by the window as they watch.
“Is he alive?” I ask after a long moment of silence.
Merek turns his head to me, his body still bent over Elias. Slowly, he straightens his spine and turns to face his body toward me. I hold my breath, waiting for an answer, unsure if I am going to like what he has to say.
“He lives, Sybilla,” he rasps. “I know not how her dark magic touched him. If she was able to strip his love for you, or if she wiped his memories from him. I just do not know what exactly she’s done to him,” he rasps.
I hear both Jasmine and Katrina gasp at his words. We may not have much magic in my world, but I understand the concept of dark magic, and just thinking about it sends a shiver throughout my entire body.
“I want everyone to leave,” I whisper.
I feel Jasmine and Katrina close in on my back, but my focus is nowhere but on my husband. If he doesn’t remember me, if he’s lost his love for me, then I don’t want any witnesses to it when he wakes up.
There has been enough fear, embarrassment, and unnerving information hurled at me the past few months. This humiliation I would rather have all to myself, instead of an entire room of people watching as bystanders.
“Sybilla,” Merek begins.
Shaking my head, I square my shoulders as I lift my chin. I refuse to entertain anything other than them leaving me alone. Merek clears his throat, then slowly his feet close the distance between us.
“I will give you this request without argument. However, if there is even an inkling of change in his condition, promise you will send for me?”
Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I dip my chin in a short nod. “Yes, I will,” I whisper.
He dips his chin, then without word, walks past me. I hear him and the girls clear out, the door closing behind them. Only then do I let my shoulders drop as I let out a heavy sigh.
My feet finally become unstuck from the stone floor and I run toward my husband’s side. Sinking down next to him, I fit my hips against his side and take his large warm hand in mine. I watch him, waiting for any sign of life other than the very slow rise and fall of his chest.
Elias looks so at peace, he looks relaxed as he lies in the bed. Holding his hand in mine, I refuse to let him go, afraid that i
f I do, I will lose a part of him, the part that I cherish most in this world and in mine—his love.
Love. It’s something that you can’t see but only feel. It may have taken me some time to admit not only to Elias, but also to myself that I truly do love him. I’ve never felt this way about another person in my life.
I suppose that it could be witchcraft, especially with the way Godiva bound my true heart’s love and I to one another, but I don’t think that what I feel is false. It’s not a smokescreen or anything else. It is pure. It is bigger than anything I’ve ever felt before. No other man has ever made me feel the way that Elias does.
Squeezing his hand, I silently will him to open his eyes and look at me. I want him to smirk, to act cocky and sexy. I want him to pull me into his arms and fulfill the need that I constantly carry for him, and only him.
The need that fills me with an aching pain that I keep trying to ignore, but as the minutes tick by, that pain grows more and more.
“Please, Elias. Please wake up,” I whisper. “We need you, me and this baby. Don’t make me raise our baby alone in a strange land without modern medicine and my family. Don’t do that to me.”
Tears fill my eyes, they fall instantly, sliding down my cheeks before they land against his hand that I have clutched in mine. I stay there, at his side, holding his hand, and crying for hours.
The sun sets in the sky, darkness consumes the room, but I refuse to move. I also ignore anyone’s attempt at gaining access and demand that they leave me alone.
When the sun rises, the room bathed in early gray morning light, I hear something behind me. The door didn’t open, I would have heard that, but when I turn around, I see two figures standing in the bedroom, their eyes focused nowhere but Elias.
“He is here because of you. Why are you here?” I grind out.
Godiva takes a step forward, but my eyes narrow and she wisely stops her approach. “I didn’t know. My love for my once-sweet sister was all that I could see. I did not realize the depths of her abuse and the darkness that she allowed to control her. She cloaked herself, she fooled me.”
I want to be angry with Godiva, but I can’t find it inside of me, not when I would die for my sisters, myself. Turning to her, I bite my bottom lip and inhale a deep breath.
“Can you fix him?” I ask, though it comes out like more of a demand than a question.
I am too far past niceties at this point. I want my husband back and I want him back the way that he left me. I don’t want him to not remember me, I don’t want him to have fallen out of love with me. I want him just the way I had him, every inch of his stubborn, asshole self.
Aleida shakes her head slowly, her sad eyes meeting mine. “If we bring him back, he may not be the same.”
“He’s not dead,” I snap.
Godiva nods her head once. “You are correct. The king lives. He has dark magic inside of him and all that we can do is try and rid his body of that. We won’t know the effects it will have on any part of him until he wakes.”
“You can reverse her spell?” I ask on a whisper.
Aleida presses her lips together, her eyes looking at me with nothing other than pure pity in her gaze. “It does not work that way, Your Majesty,” she murmurs. “I wish that it did, I truly wish that we could rid you of your emotional pain.”
“What happens to the prophecy if he does not love me when he wakes up?” I ask.
My eyes travel over to Elias, I watch him, willing him to naturally open his eyes, but he doesn’t. Shifting my gaze back over my shoulder, I lift my chin toward the witches. “Wake him. Take the dark magic from him if you can. He needs to be alive and healthy for his people.”
“The prophecy? You, Your Highness?” Aleida breathes.
Shaking my head, I bite back more tears, refusing to let them fall. “It will hurt if he doesn’t remember me. It would suck ass, but I won’t stop loving him and if it’s meant to be, he will find his way back to me.”
I’m not sure that I believe my own words, knowing that they are most likely a lie. But maybe they aren’t, maybe I can make him love me. He fell for me once, he can again. If the prophecy was put into motion by the gods, then maybe it’s time for those fucks to intervene anyway.
“Continue to hold him,” Aleida mutters before a gray haze starts to swirl around us.
“Will it help?” I ask.
“It couldn’t hurt.”
I keep my gaze focused on him, watching, waiting to see him open those steel-blue eyes and take me in. I pray to my God as they summon all of their magic around us and I hold my breath, waiting and waiting for it to happen.
Elias’ back arches off of the bed, his eyes open and he inhales a deep breath right before the gray mist vanishes. His eyes find mine, but I can’t read the expression on his face. I continue to hold my breath, waiting, praying, willing him to speak, to remember—to love.
Chapter Thirty-Six
SYBILLA
The witches are still behind me, but I cannot do anything but stare at the man in front of me. His eyes roam over my face, watching me, searching my gaze as he continues to stay silent. Then, as if something shakes him, his shoulder jerks and he sits straight up.
“What’s happened?” he demands, his eyes sliding past me, behind me, and to the witches.
My heart starts to slam against my chest, my stomach clenches and my entire body feels heavy and sensitive. His hand stays in mine, but he doesn’t grasp my fingers with his own, he doesn’t know who I am.
“My sister, Ryia, was full of dark magic straight from Hades himself,” Godiva whispers.
Elias jerks his chin, though he doesn’t speak right away. “Tell Merek I wish to see him, immediately. I will have a meeting in the chancery of this castle, you two will be there,” he growls.
I assume the witches leave, but I cannot take my eyes off of Elias. The door closes and the breath that I’d been holding comes out in a long whoosh. My bottom lip trembles, just as Elias’ gaze shifts to meet my own.
He takes his hand from mine and I think that he’s going to push me away, but instead, he cups my cheek in his palm, his thumb running across my bottom lip, as he’s always done. My eyes flutter closed and I wonder if he didn’t lose his love or his memory. I wonder if everything is just perfect.
“I feel as though I should know you, a fine creature at my bedside that weeps for me must be important.”
My torso jerks at the same time my eyes fly open. Lifting my hand, I wrap my fingers around his wrist and grip him tightly. “I’m your wife,” I whisper. “Queen Sybilla.”
His steel-blue eyes turn that indigo color that I love, one step closer to the glittering black eyes when he’s full of desire for me. They don’t take that extra step this time, they stay dark-colored as his gaze roams over my face.
“Wife,” he says as if testing the word out.
I watch as he licks his lips, wetting them as he continues to watch me, staring as if in search for something, what, I’m not sure My entire body feels cold, so cold that I can’t stop the tremors from shaking me down to my core.
Though my stomach clenches in pain, Elias reaches for me and draws me into his arms, pulling me against his chest. I rest my cheek against the center of his chest and inhale his manly scent. Gripping his biceps, I close my eyes, never wanting to leave his arms again.
“I do not remember, wife. I am sorry, are we a love match?” he asks softly, sounding so, so, sweet and I hate it.
Pressing my lips together, I hold the loud cry that threatens to escape me. Sitting up slightly, I release my hold on his arms as I find his gaze with my own.
“We are fated, Elias. A prophecy fulfilled, but yes, we fell in love.” Reaching for his hand, I place his palm against my belly. “And we have created something beautiful together with that love,” I whisper.
His eyes widen, dropping to my stomach, then lifting to meet my eyes. “By the gods,” he whispers. He opens his mouth to say something else when Merek bursts through t
he door.
Immediately Merek’s gaze travels the length of his cousin and his lips lift in a smirk to see that he is alive, breathing, and well.
Rolling my lips together, I try not to ramble and blurt out all that’s happened between us, the fact that he doesn’t even remember me.
“What do you last remember, cousin?” Merek asks.
The witches must have told him that Elias would likely not remember me, but they haven’t said how much time he would have lost. Merek is smarter than I am, more grounded, and looking beyond his selfish needs, unlike myself.
“I remember coming here, storming this castle and taking out the king. I remember a beautiful woman in a copper-lined room. I remember that you are engaged to a maid.”
Unable to hold my words in another second, I whisper. “You just don’t remember me.”
His eyes shift from Merek’s to mine and he gives me a single shake of his head. “I apologize, I do not remember you.” He lifts his head and looks to Merek. “She’s my wife? Carrying the heir?”
“Aye, Elias. Sybilla is your Queen,” he rasps.
Standing from the side of the bed, I brush my palms down the dress that was borrowed from the former princess here, a gown my girls procured, no doubt by just taking it for me. It’s a bit tight, but not nearly as tight as the ones that I wore when I first arrived here.
“Well, you must want to meet with your men,” I announce after clearing my throat.
“Sybilla,” Merek murmurs.
Shaking my head, I give Elias a watery smile. “Go be with your men,” I whisper.
He throws his legs over the side of the bed and stands. I expect him to breeze past me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes two steps toward me and cups my cheeks. His head lowers and I expect him to kiss my mouth, but he doesn’t.
Bride of the Traitor: A Prophecy of Sisters Novel Page 28