Page 47 of War of Her Heart

“A story for another time,” she said as she winked at me.

“Your bride asked me to go dress shopping with her tomorrow,” I said to Calum as we lay in my bed.

He came to my room not long after dinner, which was the first time I had been around him alone since the paramic incident.

I thought about telling him what happened, but I knew no good would come of it. His learning of that would lead to the questions of why Sebastian saves me which was something Icouldn’t even answer for myself. Not to mention the fact that Calum didn’t need to know about Sebastian learning our secret.

He had enough to deal with right now. I could handle Sebastian.

I think.

Calum sat up from the bed and looked at me as he said, “What?”

“It was your mother’s idea,” I said as I rolled my eyes. Her involvement in anything just angered me. More than it used to. I wasn’t sure why, though. Before we came here, I would just ignore her digs or attempts to make my life more difficult.

I remember one time, after she learned of Calum and me, she brought a nun from Our Lady’s Keep to try to convince my father that I would be safer, which everyone seemed to notice pretty quickly that was all he cared about, if I left the castle and went to become a nun.

Even after my father declined, she had the nun stay for months, following me around, toteachme, which just made it harder to see Calum.

I guess that was good practice for us having to sneak around now.

“And what did you say?” Calum asked. That seemed like such a stupid question.

“I told her to fuck off,” I bit out.

“Violet.”

I sat up from the bed to meet his gaze and glared at him. I don’t know why it had aggravated me so much. Maybe it was thinking about Celine and the things she’d done, adding dress shopping with my lover’s fiancée to the list, or maybe it was Calum asking me what I said to Nathara. Like I don’t know better than to submit to her.

I mean it really was a stupid question. He knew I couldn’t do anything but comply. “What do you think I said? I asked herwhat time I should be ready. You know, after she told me that she was expecting me to become one of her ladies in waiting.”

He rubbed his hands over his face at my response. “Well, you know that’s not going to happen. Just humor her until I get out of this.”

Humor her. Seriously?

“Since you aren’t going to marry Nathara, what do you think the council will do? I’m sure they won’t just allow you to officially be Sovereign when you come home without a wife.”

Until my conversation with Sebastian earlier today, I hadn’t really put much thought into what would happen once we returned home to the Mountain Realm. Specifically whether Calum would be given control of the realm after not doing what was expected of him.

I’d just been so worried about being with him that I hadn’t really thought of the logistics of it all.

“I think that when I come home with an alliance with the most powerful and feared Sovereign, they won’t have any trouble giving me control,” he said while positioning himself so he could rest his back on the headboard of my bed.

“And what’s your plan for us after we go back home?”

“What do you mean?” he asked as he raised an eyebrow.

“You will have to marry eventually so you can make the next heir to rule the Mountain Realm. When that time comes, will we just end things, and I will have to find somewhere else to go?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer.

“I don’t think I could let you go. My duty as Sovereign may be to another fae one day, but my heart will always be with you.”

“So you would expect me to stay and be your mistress? Watch you have a family with another and stay back waiting for any chance you get the time to see me?”

Calum scrunched his eyebrows. It may have been because of my choice of the word mistress, as we had never used that wordwhen talking about me. I had never really thought of myself that way until Sebastian said it. It wasn’t something that was normal. Once you marry, you are meant to forsake all others, even if your spouse wasn’t of your choosing.

Or his confusion could have been from the fact that this was the first time I had ever asked questions about our future.

“My duty to another would be nothing more than creating heirs,” Calum said.

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