Page 183 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“They could have informants on the inside. You’ve taken more spies to prison than I can count.”
Adara slashed a look his way as she retrieved her knife with her perfectly precise movements. “This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve charged me with her safety.” Adara pointed the dagger my way. “And they stole her from underneath my nose.”
“Adara, nobody blames you,” I said quickly. “This isn’t normal magic.”
“I don’t care. This shouldn’t have happened.” She grimaced at Zandyr. “Just like the wedding you have planned shouldn’t.”
“I am right here,” I said. “And I say we are getting married.”
“Adara, I respect your opinion,” Zandyr said. “But not in this. As Evie said, we are getting married tomorrow.”
Adara clenched her jaw. “Dragon, why are you in such a hurry to destroy–”
“You know why this cannot wait. One less danger to worry about. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Adara remained silent.
“Our borders are more guarded tomorrow than they have ever been. And I will not risk not feeling my wife again. Having her taken away again,” he said, voice slashing into a lethal edge that nobody, not even Adara, dared to argue against. The voice of a future king. “The ritual will bind us. Forever. She will be safer and that is all that matters. If Evie will have me.”
“Of course I do.” I laid my palm on his cheek. Zandyr closed his eyes, softening against my touch. “We have promised. I am yours and you are mine.”
Zandyr swallowed deeply. He took my hand in his and kissed the inside of it forcefully, closing his eyes, as if he wanted to imprint the touch into my very being.
“We will be,” he whispered against my skin.
“Adara, I appreciate your concern, I do. But whoever we’re facing willnotdecide my future.” I looked at the body behind us. “They have tried to steal me. Kill me. Frighten me. They have not succeeded. Now let them fear me as a queen.”
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
EVIE
Adara promised to deal with the imposter.
She seemed rather adamant to do it, as if she wanted to get rid of the reminder of what she perceived as a mistake on her part, no matter how many times I told her she didn’t have to worry.
Zandyr told her to hide the body–notin the ground. This Elysia, who Adara called The Viper, was a master at potions, and wanted to study the replica.
We all left for our rooms. Leesa had given me an excited smile that dripped with exhaustion. “Tomorrow’s the big day.”
It was. I was getting married. For real this time, to someone I wouldn’t mind walking down the aisle to.
“It’s funny,” I said as Zandyr shut the bedroom door behind us. He needed to retreat to his tower soon, so he could start his own rituals and traditions at sunrise. Leesa had mentioned something about a great big horde of his Brothers testing thefuture groom’s strength before he could show up at the altar. “We’re really getting married.”
“We are.” He stepped behind me, enveloping me with his heat as his arms coiled around my middle. He rested his chin on top of my head. “Despite all the odds. Why is it funny?”
“Because I’m not afraid of it.” I turned around in his arms and looked up at him. “I don’t even want to kill you.”
He was as gorgeous as always, but a heaviness had settled on top of his shoulders, twisting the corners of his mouth. He was worried. I didn’t need the bond between us, flimsy and muffled as it was right now, to tell me that.
“That is unusual for a Clan wedding, I’ll give you that.” He palmed my cheeks once more, eyes darting over every inch of my face, as if he wanted to remember each single line of it. The intensity stole my breath away. I reached for his chest, fingers twisting in the leather of his armor.
“Promise me, Evie,” he said, an urgency in his tone I’d never heard before. “Promise me you will remember this. Us. As we are now. I am yours and you are mine.”
