Esmira (Enora)
My body ached as awareness flickered through me.
I was pressed against something hard and warm, and my first instinct was to burrow deeper.
Every muscle in my body hurt — my knees, my ankle, my elbows — but the warmth was so complete that none of it mattered.
I hadn’t felt this safe since before the clearing.
I didn’t want to wake up.
I wanted to stay exactly here, tucked against this source of heat, and let the world disappear.
It was the growl that made my eyes fly open.
Low, quiet, rumbling from somewhere directly beneath my ear like distant thunder trapped inside a chest.
My chest.
No.
Not my chest.
His.
I was looking into a pair of mildly annoyed dark eyes, set in a face that the gods themselves could have chiselled.
Sharp jaw, high cheekbones, dark curls falling across his forehead in a dishevelled mess that made him look less like a king and more like something dangerous that had wandered out of the wild.
Roderic.
I was pressed against Roderic.
My head was on his chest.
My leg was draped over his thigh.
My hand was resting on his bare stomach.
A startled sound escaped my lips, and I scrambled backwards, getting tangled in the sheets.
My injured ankle caught on the fabric and I went over the edge of the bed, hitting the floor with a thud that knocked the air from my lungs.
I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, my body screaming in protest.
The bed creaked.
Footsteps rounded the foot of the bed, and then the owner of that impossibly sculpted face appeared above me, looking down with an expression that couldn’t decide between irritation and amusement.
“I’m sorry—” I started.
He bent down, hooked his arms under mine, and lifted me off the floor with an ease that made my weight feel like nothing and deposited me back on the bed without ceremony.
“You sleep like the dead,” he said flatly.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to — I must have moved in my sleep—”
A flash of irritation crossed his face.
“Didn’t we have this discussion? Stop apologising.”
I clamped my mouth shut, not knowing what to do with my hands or my eyes or any part of myself.
He was wearing nothing but loose sleeping trousers, slung low on his hips.
His torso was bare, proudly displaying his broad shoulders, defined chest, a trail of dark hair leading downward from his navel.
And below the waistband, there was a noticeable swell pressing against the fabric that I absolutely should not have been looking at.
I averted my gaze to the wall but not before he noticed.
Heat flooded my face, and I cleared my throat noisily.
I took in his appearance from safer angles, noting the dark curls again, falling across his forehead in an infuriatingly attractive way, the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the sleepy weight still clinging to his eyes.
Something flared inside me, pooling low in my abdomen, warm and insistent.
Memories of him moving inside of me flitted to my mind.
I tried not to let the horror I felt show on my face. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
How could I be thinking about that right now?
After everything — the clearing, Lord Aven, Lysara’s attack, almost being discovered, the tea at the library — my body was responding to this man who clearly had no affection for me.
Was I morphing into a loose woman?
His eyes studied me for a long moment before he crossed to the corner of the room, dragged one of the chairs over, and settled into it facing me, his elbows resting on his knees.
“How do you feel this morning?” he asked.
His eyes dropped to my knees, my elbows, the ankle he’d bandaged last night.
“Most of the scratches have healed completely.”
“I feel fine,” I said.
He nodded slowly, his gaze returning to my face with an intensity that made me want to look away.
“I’ll play along with this charade Aven has created for us,” he said.
“I understand that you’re a victim in all of this and none of it was your doing. But if you want to ensure your safety, you must do exactly as I tell you.” His expression hardened.
“Lord Aven is more dangerous than you know. One misstep and neither of us will survive what comes next.”
“I’m aware of how dangerous Lord Aven is,” I said quietly.
“I’m willing to cooperate with you.”
“Good.” He paused.
“And you must treat Lady Lysara with the utmost love and respect. If an incident like yesterday’s repeats itself, I’ll be forced to take an action that we’ll both regret.”
The words stung.
I considered telling him that Lysara had come for me first, that she’d burst through the hidden door screaming and shaking me before cutting herself with a letter opener and performing for the crowd.
But I would never win that argument against a man blinded by love.
“Is Lady Lysara alright?” I asked instead.
“She’s fine.”
I nodded.
“Has Lord Aven said anything about Princess Esmira?” Roderic asked.
“About where she is or what happened to her?”
“No. There’s been no mention of Esmira since the beginning.” I hesitated, then continued.
“Lord Aven’s focus right now is on making sure I get pregnant. He told me that only through pregnancy could I secure my life.”
He scoffed.
“Is that why he’ll be sending you to my chambers every night?”
I nodded.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaning back on the chair.
“I can put up with the arrangement, but there won’t be any intimacy between us. The first time was because I was deceived. I have no interest in you in that way.”
I remembered the tent in his trousers moments ago — the unmistakable evidence that at least part of him disagreed with that statement — but I nodded and said,
“That’s fine.”
Something flickered in his expression, too brief to read before he continued.
“The night before the wedding,” he said, shifting in his chair, “Esmira and I were together. We had a terrible fight. I said things I regret now because I realise she was being engineered by Lord Aven, who was pulling the strings for both her and her father.” He paused.
“I hope she’s alright, wherever she is.”
I could only listen.
The guilt of knowing what I knew, about the library, about the blood, about the princess who had died crying for her mother, pressed against my chest like a stone.
I couldn’t reveal what I knew now.
Until I was sure I’d be protected, these secrets would stay with me.
“I need you to try to find out what happened from Lord Aven’s side,” Roderic continued.
“Any detail at all. Where Esmira was taken, why she was replaced, what Aven’s end goal is. Bring whatever you learn back to me.” The source of this chapter is g.com.
I was quiet for a moment.
Then I said, “Lord Aven also expects me to bring reports about you to him.”
Roderic’s lips curved into a slight smile, the first I’d seen from him that carried anything resembling warmth.
“That won’t be an issue. I’ll tell you exactly what to feed him.”
He rose to his feet and returned the chair to its corner.
The morning light from the window caught his back, the muscles shifting beneath his skin, the scars I hadn’t noticed before, thin white lines scattered across his shoulder blades like old writing.
“Do you trust me?” I asked in a small voice.
“To be Lord Aven’s feedback machine to you? I know he’s more powerful than you are.”
Roderic turned to face me, and something hardened in his jaw, but it wasn’t anger.
It was resolve.
“To dismantle the hold the Sorvanes have over Valdren,” he said, “I’m willing to trust even a servant of Fenris (Werewolf Devil) himself.” He held my gaze.
“In the end, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Before I could respond, a knock came at the door.
It opened without waiting for permission, and Lord Aven stepped inside.
His pale eyes moved from Roderic — shirtless, standing by the window — to me, sitting on the king’s bed in a wrinkled nightgown with my hair tangled around my shoulders.
A look of quiet satisfaction settled across his face.
“Good morning, your highnesses,” he said.
“I trust you both slept well.”
Neither of us answered.
“Esmira,” he continued, turning his gaze to me.
“Return to your chambers and prepare yourself. Today will be a busy day. The High Priestess will be performing the Bloodright blessing to complete the mate bond.”
My blood went cold.
“Following that, you will be formally introduced to the full court and the people of Valdren.”
The blessing.
The mate bond.
The full court.
Each announcement landed like a hammer blow, one after another, each one carrying the power to expose me.
The Bloodright blessing required the High Priestess to confirm our wolves through a sacred rite I knew nothing about.
The mate bond completion demanded a spiritual connection between our wolves — a bond I had no way of predicting or controlling.
And the full court introduction meant standing before every lord, every lady, every sharp-eyed noble in two kingdoms and convincing them all that I was Princess Esmira of House Eldarion.
One negative reaction during the rite, one flicker of something the High Priestess didn’t expect, and everything I’d endured to get here would collapse.
Lord Aven must have seen something in my expression because his gaze sharpened.
“Well?” He arched a brow.
“Leave. I want to speak with your husband.”
I scrambled off the bed, ignoring the ache in my ankle, and crossed the room as steadily as I could manage.
At the doorway, I paused for the briefest moment, long enough to feel Roderic’s gaze on my back, and then I stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind me.
Lord Aven had told me he would find a solution before I had to face Eldric.
He’d said he’d handle it.
But as I walked back to the queen’s chambers on unsteady legs, my hand pressed against the earring hidden in my pocket, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the solution Lord Aven had in mind was not the one I would survive.