Page 43 of War of Her Heart

“My parents were mates. They found each other when they were very young and completed the bond immediately. My grandfather was still alive, so the last thing on my father’s mindwas becoming Sovereign. My grandfather wouldn’t allow my mother to live in the castle because their bond was a betrayal. My father was betrothed to a daughter of another Sovereign, and with the mating bond completed, he couldn’t wed another.

“My father chose to stay with my mother, so my parents lived in a small village where my mother was from. She was an achluo. They had me pretty quickly, and we were happy.

“My father was an only child, meaning there was no one for the line of succession to go to and with him breaking Queen Mother’s rules, my grandfather knew he had to father another child to be the next Sovereign. My grandparents spent decades trying to conceive another heir but to no avail. A healer told my grandfather of a plant deep in the woods of the Night Realm that could help them conceive so my grandfather sent soldiers from his Guard to retrieve the plant. But each time he sent them, they never returned.

“My grandfather was desperate, so he and his Commander went to get it themselves. His Commander died, and my grandfather was bitten by a Naga, meaning his death was imminent. Since he had run out of options and knew the realm would be vulnerable without a Sovereign, he sent some of his soldiers to bring my father back to the castle.

“My father refused to leave me and my mother behind, so we came with him. What my father didn’t know was that my grandfather was waiting with a witch at the castle. Guards at the castle held my parents down, and the witch stripped the mating bond away so my father could wed and become Sovereign.

“I was only a faeling and watched as my parents lay on the ground, screaming from excruciating pain, as the bond between them was ripped away.

“He wed Lilian the next day.

“Even with the bond gone, my mother still loved my father, and you would think he would’ve loved her back after all ofthe years they had spent together. But that witch . . . she did something else when she broke the bond. She took away the love my father had for us.

“Even though it seemed as if a switch had flipped, my father wouldn’t let us leave. He wanted to keep us under his control. So my mother became his mistress.

“She had to watch my father be with Lilian, watch her be the lady of the house and have control of everyone in it, including us. She watched her mate fall in love with another. We even had to be at the party where he announced he and Lilian were pregnant with the heir to the throne. The next Sovereign of the Night Realm.”

“But he had you. His firstborn. The next Sovereign, right?” I asked as confusion came over me.

“I am a bastard, love. I was never meant to be Sovereign of the Night Realm.”

“So you killed your father to become Sovereign?”

Sebastian’s eyes darkened. “No. I killed my father because I had to spend two decades watching the light leave my mother until one day it was too much for her, and she took her own life.

“After finding my mother’s lifeless body in the garden, I found my father on the training field outside the castle walls. With me being so young, no one tried to stop me when I threw myself onto my father. But they should have. Because as I had him pinned to the ground, with my hands wrapped around his throat, I wished death on him, and he just . . . misted into nothing. That’s how I discovered my gift of death.

“But that’s not all that happened. I had known of my shadow gift, but they stayed within a few feet of me. When I killed my father, it’s like it released something inside of me that had been waiting to come out. My shadows exploded from me with such force that you could feel the earth shake in all of Alentara.

“My eyes turned as black as the sky that always covered the Night Realm. Killing my father awoke a part of me that had been lying dormant. A part of me that could control the entire realm without lifting a finger. A part of me that,” he paused for a moment, “enjoyed death.

“His entire Guard watched me come into my gifts. Due to the fear of what I had become, they knelt before me and swore to serve me. I became Sovereign because I have so much power that no one dares to object. It’s not my birthright. It’s Nathara’s. She was meant to become Sovereign of the Night Realm.

“Now, love, I’ll ask you. Did my father deserve to die?”

I paused for a moment while I thought about everything he had told me. I knew I couldn’t lie because somehow he always knew. I had to tell him the truth no matter how he might react.

“No. It wasn’t his fault that a witch changed his feelings,” I said. I looked at him, waiting to see if what I had said angered him.

“You’re right. He didn’t deserve to die, but I don’t regret it. I would do it a thousand times over to get my power and my throne. The feeling I felt when I came into my powers, nothing has ever felt so good. And now, because of a fucking object that I can’t find, I feel my powers slowly drifting away.”

He had just admitted to me everything I thought true. He was evil. So sick and twisted that he even enjoyed killing. And yet—I was completely unfazed by it.

Which made me just as bad as he was.

“Are you afraid of me again?” he asked with a look of concern. He must’ve taken my silence as fear.

“No. You won’t hurt me,” I said with complete confidence. He’d protected me twice, and now he had found something out that had the potential to ruin his plan to be rid of his sister. The easiest thing for him to do would be to kill me to ensure Natharaleft his realm. But instead, he chose to come to my room and explain to me the kind of life I was in for.

“You’re right, I won’t. And I’ve told you enough times that I won’t let anyone else hurt you either. Your secret is safe with me. I just . . .” Sebastain paused for a moment like he was searching for the right words. “You don’t deserve to be the mistress of a Sovereign. It’s a miserable life.”

He had more concern for me than I did for myself. But why? He barely knew me.

If only he knew that I never planned on being a mistress. And Calum didn’t plan to marry Nathara. His concern for my safety would probably disappear if he found out what I was keeping from him.

“Telling you all of that wasn’t the only reason I came to your room. Nathara is going to ask you to go dress shopping with her tomorrow.”

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