To heal a Rogue

LYSANDER

He took a measured breath before continuing.

"Being King doesn’t make you invisible, Your Majesty. The late King was deeply beloved by a great many people in this Kingdom. Tarnishing his memory by breaking a promise he personally sealed would be a cruel thing for his own successor to do."

His eyes remained fixed on mine.

"Everyone knew how fond of you he was toward the end. That fondness is a great deal of why your reign, or rather, the prospect of your reign, has been palatable to so many despite the shakiness of how you came to it."

He tilted his head, studying my reaction.

"But there are only so many accidents, assassination attempts, and convenient escapes by rogues that can happen before the devout and the fearful start wondering whether the goddess has quietly changed her mind about you."

A faint smile touched his lips.

"The only reason most of them have remained tight-lipped so far is the return of the healer of legends. Your healer."

My fingers tightened around my phone.

"Without her..."

"You’re one bold man," I cut in.

Amaranthine had gone pale. Her hands twisted together in front of her.

"Father, please. I’m so sorry, Your Majesty. He doesn’t—"

"It’s too late for apologies."

I raised my voice toward the corridor behind me.

"Sentinels!"

Two of them rounded the corner within seconds.

I didn’t take my eyes off Yannis as I nodded toward him.

"Jail him."

He fought them for exactly two steps before it became clear the effort was pointless. His arms were wrenched behind his back, his composed authority collapsing into something far uglier as they hauled him away, but he was still shouting about contracts and the consequences that would happen if he was denied.

I stopped listening and I turned to Amaranthine.

"I assure you, you deserve better than a union with me. You’d be unhappy. You’d be without love. That’s something I’m simply unable to give you, no matter what your father’s contract claims I owe."

I made a mental note there and then to talk to Bradley about it and if there was a way I could wriggle out of it. Before it became a whole issue and unavoidable.

Her lips parted, but I continued before she could answer.

"Don’t let his political ambitions cost you real happiness," I added, my voice quieter now. "You deserve more than being handed off to whichever royal happens to be sitting on the throne when your father decides it’s convenient."

"I want this too," she insisted, desperation beginning to creep into her voice. "It doesn’t matter if you think you can’t love me right now. Given time, you’ll come around. Everyone always does, eventually."

I stared at her for a moment.

Then I gave her the one truth she couldn’t argue with. "I have a mate."

Her face moved through several expressions at once, disbelief first, then hurt, and finally something close to grief settling over everything else. I didn’t stay to watch it finish playing out.

I turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the corridor with whatever remained of her father’s carefully constructed plan crumbling around her.

Outside, the morning had fully broken. Gold light spilled across the estate grounds, and I spotted Fia’s car coming to a stop just beyond the main gate.

I lifted a hand and waved.

She waved back.

Something in my chest loosened at the sight of her, the tension I’d been carrying since Yannis cornered me finally beginning to ease.

I waited until she stepped out of the car before turning to meet her.

"Thank you for coming so soon," I said as we walked. "I know I gave you almost no warning."

"I don’t mind it at all," Fia said, matching my pace easily despite the early hour. "I’m happy to help. That’s rather the point of the promise I made you, isn’t it."

I filled her in as we walked, the whole tangled mess of it. The dreams bleeding into reality. The bite marks appearing on Bonnie’s throat while she slept. The blood, the wounds that shouldn’t have existed outside a nightmare but had. Fia listened without interrupting, her expression growing more focused with every detail.

"Have you ever had something like that," I asked. "A dream that transcended into the waking world?"

Fia shook her head slowly. "Never. Not like what you’re describing."

She was quiet a moment, choosing her words carefully. "But it should not be an issue, I hope. My grandmother had abilities my mother never inherited. My mother has abilities my grandmother never had. That has lead me to believe that gifts like ours don’t pass down cleanly, generation to generation. They shift. Some stay and some skip entirely, sometimes they warp into something new. Who knows." Her voice dropped lower. "Now my grandmother and mother might not have been born blessed and were actually victims of fleshcraft. So my theory might be wrong."

"But I think it holds," she added. "As a concept, it holds. There might be abilities Bonnie has that I don’t. And likely some I have that she doesn’t."

"But I imagine two heads are better than one, regardless," she said, a small, reassuring smile crossing her face. "We’ll figure out what we’re actually dealing with."

We reached my mother’s old room, and I typed the passkey into the small panel beside the door. The lock released with a soft click.

I pushed the door open.

And stopped entirely.

Bonnie stood near the window, dressed in the pale dress I recognized instantly as one of my mother’s. Her hair had been styled in soft, careful waves that framed her face in a way I’d never seen before. Morning light streamed through the window behind her, catching the edges of her platinum hair and making it seem almost luminous.

For one suspended moment, I simply forgot how to move.

How to speak.

How to do anything except stand there in the doorway and look at her.

She turned at the sound of the door, and her eyes found mine.

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