Page 4 of Redeeming the Angel

“Thank you, Highness.”I sat with the others.“The histories and songs don’t do justice to your power and beauty.”

“So polite, too.”Lucretia smiled and patted my hand while Lucinda and Lucian looked on with approval.“Perhaps you will indeed be the perfect choice for the Jagwolfe-Leonine alliance I desire.Our clans combined could result in the most beautiful, powerful offspring.”

This time, I couldn’t conceal my gasp.These people I’d only just met spoke of me like a prized dragon they wanted to breed.Unable to help myself, my eyes darted toward Lucian.His face and ears were crimson as he coughed awkwardly and stared into his tea.

Part of me was relieved that he was just as uncomfortable with this discussion as I was, while the other part worried that meant he didn’t like me.

“I’m not certain that—” I’d began, but a rumble and flash of light cut of my words.

Queen Silvara and her consort, King Marcel, appeared in the chamber.

“How dare you!”Silvara pointed at Lucian, her green eyes shooting emerald sparks.“You had no right to abscond with my grandchild before I had the opportunity to meet her.”

“He didn’t abscond with me!”I argued and leaped in front of Lucian in case she decided to attack him.While killing a luminite who is already in Luminista is pointless, that didn’t prevent one from inflicting great pain.“I wanted to see the Jagwolfe’s kingdom as a distraction.My mother is having another Yearning, so—”

Silvara’s furious expression flitted to sublime joy.“Another Yearning?So soon!My line must be blessed by the fates!”

“Indeed, it has.Which bring me to why we wished to meet your lovely granddaughter.”Lucretia rose from her seat and whispered in Silvara’s ear.

It didn’t take a High Scholar to know that the Jagwolfe matriarch was telling the Leonine matriarch about her matchmaking plans.Grandfather Marcel gave me a pitying look and shook his head.

Lucian hunched lower in his seat.He still couldn’t look at me.

Silvara glanced at him and chuckled.“An intriguing idea indeed, and one we shall discuss later.Right now, I believe both are too young.And I still think it presumptuous that you brought her here instead of straight to me.”

“The fault is mine, Queen Silvara.”Lucretia spoke in a humble tone that didn’t match the unrepentance in her eyes.“I wanted an impression of the princess before deciding whether or not my idea had merit.”

Had Lucian lied to me?He’d said his mother wanted to meet me and hadn’t said a word about his aunt planning the whole thing.Even worse, he still wouldn’t look at me.

Queen Silvara gave an imperious huff.“Even so, you should have broached the subject with me first.Or, at the least waited a day or two instead of attempting to deprive me of the opportunity to get to know my granddaughter and show her our motherland before bringing her here to your frigid lands.Come, Kerainne.”She grabbed my hand and tugged before addressing Lucian.“However, you, young man, are permitted to pay court to my granddaughter at my palace, if you wish.”

“Thank you, Queen Silvara,” he mumbled.

As humiliation coursed over me in a thousand hot waves, I doubted Lucian would take the offer and visit me.Not after this awkwardness.And, if he’d been deceiving me about his kindness and only obeying his great aunt, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see him again.

In fact, I decided that if he did come to call on me, I’d refuse him until he did so on my own lands, in Medicia.

Chapter Two

Lucian

Present

For twenty-five years, all I could think about was seeing Kerainne again.This wasn’t anything new, it was how I’d felt any time we were apart in over two thousand years of knowing each other.This also wasn’t the first time facing each other after having hurt each other.

The difference was that this time, I had no hope of getting her back.I’d done something that no sane creature could ever forgive me for.Which was probably why I’d clung to such righteous rage for the past two and a half decades before gaining the nerve to approach her.

And then there was the question: Did I want her back?Because that would mean my life—stable, peaceful, safe—would change drastically.Because of her daughter, Xochitl Leonine, sired by Mephistopheles, Kerainne was at the epicenter of a multi-world war.A war that I’d become a permanent part of.The part I was already here for was horrible enough.

The battlefield I’d landed on when returning with Xochitl to Aisthanesthai has repulsed me on levels I’d never thought possible.The stench of blood and offal stung my nostrils.The sight of the dozens of dead, mortal bodies brought back memories of the dead luminites I’d seen in Medicia after Mephistopheles’s attack.The only dead I’d seen who didn’t ascend to Luminista.I couldn’t help looking back at the horizon in expectation to see the Evil One rip the land from its roots and steal it away through one of his unnatural portals, leaving only a barren crater behind.

And the anguish of thinking Kerainne was dead.The heart-rending pain and anxiety when neither she nor any of the Medicia luminites returned to Luminista after the massacre.

Only Nikkita, Delgarias, and King Zareth threatening to kill me and send me back to Luminista tore me from the memories.Even then, it was nearly impossible to pretend to be nonchalant and only wanting to be in Aisthanesthai to break my unfortunate betrothal with Nikkita and alleviate my fictitious boredom of the perfection of Luminista.

Pretending that same indifference to Kerainne was even harder.I was almost grateful that after that first encounter she hid for the rest of the night.It was awkward enough speaking with Xochitl, the Queen of Aisthanesthai and the inadvertent cause of my rift with her mother.

I barely had time to revel in the knowledge that my betrothal to Nikkita would definitely be called off and recover from the shock that the King of Aisthanesthai was now friends with several vampires when things became even more awkward.

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