Page 14 of War of Her Heart

And then he disappeared, leaving a faint trail of black mist where he had been standing. I stood there, unable to move, as I watched the mist fade into nothing.

I was so confused. I knew the stories I’d read, and I could feel the danger as I was standing in front of him. But at the same time, I—

My train of thought stopped when I saw Calum standing in front of me.

5

Chapter 5

Calum

The last thing I expected when I walked through those doors was to see Violet standing there in a crowd of Night Realm fae.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be home, where she would be safe.

Did he somehow find out about her? Did he bring her here to dangle her in front of me before he killed her? All I wanted to do was run over to her, wrap her in my arms, and transfer us out of this hell.

But I froze. I feared that one wrong move from me, and they would kill her before I could get to her.

My heart shattered when I saw the look on her face after she saw me with Nathara. I couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind. The betrayal she felt.

I had to find her and explain, but I couldn’t leave right after she ran out without it raising any suspicion. There was always someone watching, and I couldn’t risk anyone learning what she was to me if they didn’t already know.

As soon as I got the chance, I told Nathara that I wanted to rest after our travels and that I didn’t want to stay at the party. Once she saw her mother, she didn’t seem to care what I did. The only thing she seemed to obsess more over than me was her mother, and you would’ve thought the week they were apart was actually a century.

I welcomed their relationship, though. Anything to keep her off of me.

I had gotten turned around in this bloody castle trying to find her room. Transferring to her would’ve been the best option, but I had no idea where they placed her. I followed her scent, the only thing that kept me calm lately, but it seemed that she had already been in enough places in the castle to make this task daunting.

I had to find her soon. Every moment I spent roaming these halls raised my chances of running into someone, which would raise unwanted questions.

She was the only good part of my life. The best and worst day of my life was the day I realized I was in love with her.

I lived in a castle full of fae, but I always felt alone. Since I took my first breath, my parents’ only focus was to prepare me to become Sovereign. My studies, my combat training, my sessions to perfect my gifts. Everything was to become the future Sovereign of the Mountain Realm. I never felt like I was given a chance to be a child or to enjoy life.

That was until Violet moved in.

A girl, only a few years younger than me, that I could play with. I watched how careful her father was with her, always worried that something would happen to her heart. He hadspent her entire life trying to protect her, which in turn took away her chance to be around others. She was lonely, like me.

I knew I had to protect her if I wanted to play with her. But where her father wouldn’t let her climb a tree, I would. I would just be standing under it to catch her if she fell.

We had become everything to each other in a short amount of time, because we were the only two that understood each other. Unless I was with my father touring the Realm and learning from him, I was with her. We studied together, she watched while I trained, and she read books while I practiced my gifts.

Even if my focus was on another task, she was always right next to me.

Years passed and our relationship was nothing more than a platonic friendship. What it always should have been. I never thought of her as any different than me. Meaning, I never thought of her as a female.

Until the day everything changed.

Violet and I were on the far end of the castle grounds, as far as we could possibly be from the castle, looking for some rare bird she had read about when an unexpected storm came. We started running towards the castle, but the rain was coming down so hard that we could barely see in front of us. Violet tripped on a root and twisted her ankle. Instead of trying to wait out the storm, I picked her up and continued the trek back to shelter.

About halfway back to the castle, the rain let up, and the sun shone down on us. I looked down at her in my arms. The rain glistened on her skin, and her loose-fitting dress was drenched and formed around her breasts. She looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and I realized she wasn’t like me at all. She was everything I’d wanted. Everything I always dreamed of, and she had been in front of me this entire time.

It was after that incident that my father finally taught me how to transfer. Violet’s father was so worried about her being in the storm that they needed a way to make sure I could get Violet back to the castle as quickly as possible if something similar ever happened again.

I knew my feelings for her would cause nothing but heartache, and I didn’t want her to know how I felt. I feared the damage it would cause our friendship, and I couldn’t lose her. The only way I could think of to solve this dilemma was to find her someone. She was coming to the age where she should marry, and I thought that finding her a husband that I knew would love her and take care of her the way she deserved would help my feelings go away.

Her station made it difficult to find an acceptable match. There was no one similar to her. No other Commander had had a child before, putting her in a position entirely of her own. I spent every waking moment for weeks trying to find someone worthy of her until I finally thought of the perfect person: my cousin in the Ice Realm.

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