Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Rapture
The Immortal Chronicles #4
Copyright © 2017 by Sloane Murphy
Published by Dedicated Ink Publishing
www.authorsloanemurphy.com
Cover Design by Steam Power Studios | Edited by Katie John | Formatted by Sloane Murphy
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referred to in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Rapture/Sloane Murphy – 1st Edition
ISBN – 13 - 978-0-9957402-5-9
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
More by the Author
About the Author
To the other parts of me. The ones I’d be lost without.
The ones who make up our ‘Fearsome Foursome’.
This one is for you.
Chapter One
Addie
There are moments in each of our lives that define us. Those moments where we had an option, and for better or worse, they alter the path we're walking. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, and foretelling isn't a gift I have been granted. This is why I now stand in my step-father's chambers, trying to work out what the hell I'm going to do about finding myself newly married to a man when my true love has returned from the dead just as the final vows were being spoken.
Our story has been complicated. Full of love, death, betrayal, lies, and laughter, but at no point did I ever think it would end this way. But then, how could I?
I look around the room Kellan has ushered us into as Dante, my new husband, hovers close by making sure I’m okay. Ha! As if anybody would be okay when they’ve just seen their true love come back from the dead!
Kellan and Xander talk in hurried whispers at the other end of the room. My heart is hammering in my chest and my head is a mess. It’s as if my thoughts have scattered to the four winds. Dante flicks me looks of concern and the expression on his face is breaking my heart. He doesn’t deserve any of this. He doesn’t deserve me – not when my heart belongs to somebody else. To Xander. It will always belong to Xander.
“Everything is going to work out, Addie. You know I would never hold you to the bond now that we know Xander is alive,” Dante soothes, gathering me up in a hug.
I close my eyes both to take comfort from him and to shut out the look Xander is casting across the room. His jealousy is palpable. His hurt even more so. I know it is selfish of me to need Dante right now, but his quiet, constant strength is pretty much the only thing holding me up right now.
“Thank you, Dante,” I say quietly, still fighting back the tears, “but it’s not our choice anymore. You heard my mother and Kellan. The bond we have pledged is unbreakable. We committed to each other in front of everyone. We made vows. They’re not to be broken.”
Dante shakes his head against the top of my head and I know he wants to believe differently – I also know that there is a part of him that hopes the bond is unbreakable. He loves me. I can’t imagine what he’s feeling in this moment. If the heartbreak wasn’t enough, the humiliation must cut deeply. I want to tell him that it will all be alright, that I’m not going to hurt him, but I can’t. I hate myself in this moment, and I hate Xander. No, that’s not true, I don’t hate him, I’m just… Shit, I don’t know what I am.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” I whisper. “I just wanted some happiness. Just a small piece after everything that happened. And Dante, you were the sun after the storm.”
I note him flinch at the use of the past tense.
“I guess our happiness was too much to ask for,” I say sadly.
“Never,” he says gently. “We will work something out. We’ll make it right. The bond has not been sealed, the marriage not consummated. I’m sure we’ll be able to do this for you. It is unprecedented, but then pretty much everything is when it comes to you, Addie” he smiles fondly and I feel another stab of pain in my heart.
Dante is selfless. He would give the world to me if I asked him for it. In this way, he is different to Xander. I glance back to Xander’s brooding eyes and feel my stomach slide. Desire unfurling in the pit of my stomach. I can’t explain the effect he has on me, but it’s like there’s a rope between us and all he has to do is pull, and I’m there, folded up in his arms and melting.
“The Fae are stuck in their ways,” Dante continues, “but they’ve been coming around to you. Hell, some of them even love you,” he ribs me. “Maybe, just maybe, you’re the change we needed. Perhaps this is the push we need to send us from the old ways; to help us embrace something new and exciting.” He strokes my face, tucking a stray of hair from my face.
My eyes flit back to Xander. It’s as if they can’t help themselves. Despite being in the middle of a highly charged conversation, he can’t take his own jealous eyes from us. They’re practically smouldering and it’s making me weak at the knees.
A knock announces Rose’s arrival, and behind her, her parents, Talia and Charles, Kaden, Dimitri, and Benny. The small room becomes crowded and unbearably hot.
“Well, hasn’t this been quite the evening,” Rose says with mock, nervous laughter, interrupting the conversations in the room. “Xander!” she scorns, turning on her heel to eyeball him. “As happy as I am to see you alive, what the bloody hell are you playing at? Talk about timing!”
<
br /> Her accusatory stare gives way to a wide, warm smile and she walks towards him, hugging before rearing back and slapping him hard across his face.
“How dare you do that to us?” She says, voice full of steel. “How dare you do that to her!” She says, throwing her arm out in my direction. “She was broken, we all were. Your poor brother crumbled, whilst you gallivanted off wherever it was you were, doing god knows what. What is it you were doing, exactly?”
Xander’s alpha male status trembles for a moment under Rose’s wrath and he begins to open his mouth to explain, but before he can, Rose is back at him, tearing into him like a terrier.
“Just what the hell did you think was going to happen? You’re a bloody idiot Xander Bane. A stupid, bloody idiot! And it’s too late now – she’s married him,” she shouts, throwing her arm out in Dante’s direction.
I feel Dante tense with humiliation. I had thought Rose liked Dante?
“Rose,” Charles, her father, steps forward and places his hand on her arm in an attempt to quell her rage. “Maybe we should give him a chance to explain, love?”
I can tell Rose is as shaken as I am. All I want is to reach out and touch Xander, but I fear if I do, I won’t be able to let go, and if this mess is unfixable, I need to be able to let him go. Again.
“Has anyone seen Queen Eolande?” Kellan asks, searching the faces in the room.
“She was walking the room as you left trying to minimise the chaos that erupted with your arrival,” Talia, Rose’s mother says, casting Xander a disapproving look. “I would imagine she’s still trying to get everybody away. She’ll be worried sick about the gossip and what this will do the reputation of the royal family. This kind of emotional mess can bring down a kingdom if it’s not dealt with properly.”
“I think she should be here,” Kellan announces. “There have been some serious allegations in relation to all that has taken place these last few weeks, and I need to speak to her about them before I can even begin to think about what the next steps will be.”
Each of them glance to the other searching for some kind of explanation.
“What do you mean, allegations?” Kaden asks from behind me. I can feel his latent anger coming from off him in waves. I guess he has been kept just as in the dark as I have, I was with him through our shared grief and sadness. I know it wasn’t fake, that he didn’t betray me in this, and I take a small comfort in that. I look to Dimitri who sends me a small, sad smile. The guilt is evident on his face – he knew all along. I shake my head in disbelief. The lying bastard. I’m fighting back the tears and the rage. Dimitri, who I trusted with my life – who I trusted even more than Xander. I sigh heavily trying to swallow down the sob threatening to emerge from my chest. I guess anyone can betray anyone, given enough reason. And there must have been reason enough if Dimitri was involved in this crazy plan, but then Xander is and always has been his general. I don’t want to think he would just follow orders, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to have it out with him at some point. I’m sick of not knowing who I can trust. I’m sick of being treated like a child kept in the dark. They need to start acknowledging the fact that I am a princess, and one day, I will be their queen.
Xander clears his throat to talk, unable to look at either Kaden or I fully, but Kellan interrupts him. It doesn’t seem Xander is going to get the chance to explain himself, even though we’re all desperate for some kind of explanation for this entire shit storm.
“Xander came to see your Mother after his, err, brush with death,” he says. He pauses, looking around the room nervously. He is right to be nervous. It would seem that Kellan, just like almost everybody else crammed into the room, bloody knew about Xander being alive. I can barely breathe through my swelling rage. They all knew, except for me and Dante – the very people who had the most right to know. How Dante is keeping control, goodness only knows.
“A blood oath was made between them,” Kellan continues to explain. “She pledged she would keep you safe, Addie, and delay the marriage between you and Dante until Xander’s return. At which point he would put himself forward as a legitimate suitor.”
“You knew he was coming back for me?” I ask Kellan, barely able to meet his eyes. His betrayal is another blade in my back.
Kellan nods his head sadly, his head hanging with shame – and so it should.
“Xander was going to denounce his house, leaving Kaden in his stead. As Head of House, he cannot be linked to the Fae Royals. And even though it is unheard of for a Fallen to ask for the hand of a Fae Princess, Eolande agreed to it all. She made the oath, and they sealed it in blood. It was a sacred pledge. With your marriage to Dante, Queen Eolande severed the pledge and she has betrayed the sacred Fates. In doing so, she has sealed her fate.”
“And you let us marry anyway – knowing all that?” I ask incredulously. “Even though you knew it would damn us all? Why the hell didn’t you do something to stop the wedding?”
Kellan’s eyes shut tight for a moment, and I realise that he doesn’t have an adequate answer to my question.
Queen Frostheart gasps, “This is terrible!”
I look at her with a raised eyebrow. Whatever that fate is, it can’t be good.
“What do you mean, sealed her fate?” I ask, more naïve to Fae ways than the others in the room.
“If a blood oath is broken, it results in the death of the one who broke it, Addie,” Kellan says.
“Surely not,” I say. “She’s a Queen. There must be different rules for royalty? She can’t be governed by the same laws, can she?”
Even though my mother is far from being in my good books at this moment, and even though I would like to give her a good piece of my mind, the thought of her being killed is extreme.
“Even Queens must answer to the Fates.” Kellan says, looking to Kaden and Dimitri. “Can you please bring my wife to me. We need toget to the bottom of this mess, please?”
They nod before leaving the room. As Kaden passes, he squeezes my shoulder reassuringly. This small moment of intimacy and tenderness is the most contact I’ve had from him in what feels like forever, but I try not to dwell on it, even as a distraction from this mess. I have much to worry about and it’s tempting to allow myself to take comfort from his touch just so I can try and calm the raging storm in my head.
I shake the thoughts away. There’s so much at stake. It’s as if everything is dangling by a thread.
“Surely Eolandewill just lie about everything if what you’ve said is true?” I ask Kellan bluntly. “She’s not going to just come out with the truth now – not now she’s been exposed.”
Kellan pinches the space between his eyes and sighs heavily. He is in a terrible place – almost as bad as the one I find myself in. I would like to feel sorry for him, but looking at the ashen face of Dante, my sympathy is pretty thin. I still can’t get my head around why he didn’t do something to stop the wedding. However, I know what it is to have the love of your life not turn out to be who you thought they were – who you hoped they would be. His wife, the woman he loves and made vows to, is fast becoming his enemy.
“That’s the thing about a blood oath,” he says. “The magic that binds the oath makes it impossible to lie about it. Nice little trick the creators of our kind built into the spell. Truth is magic.”
All this information is almost painful and I can feel the edges of a headache creeping towards my brain. I curse myself for not learning more about the Fae world, about the magic that weaves its way through our lives.
“Huh, well okay, so she can’t lie – but surely if all that’s true, then we can take Xander’s word as truth?” I challenge.
“If only it were so simple,” Xander says, sulkily from the corner of the room.
His arms are folded across his chest and he is so angry that I’m worried he is going to implode at any moment. “The magic that binds the Fae is stronger than that which binds the Fallen. We have more resistan
ce to Fae magic. It is hard, but not impossible for a Fallen to lie about the oath, which is enough to give the council reasonable doubt.”
Kellan nods in agreement. “We need to prove without doubt that she made the oath – then we can break the bond between you and Dante, and make good on the oath Xander was given. Although marriage is a sacred bond and its own kind of unbreakable oath, being as you and Dante have not slept together as man and wife – Xander and Eolande’s blood bond remains the stronger of the two. However, there will be a price to pay. The oath breaker must die.”
Before I can respond, the door reopens, and I see a stricken looking Dimitri following a steely faced Kaden.
“The Queen has left the Palace, Your Majesty,” Kaden informs Kellan. “As have all of your guests, except for the council, who wish to see you in the hall, along with Addie and Dante.” His voice rings out coldly around the room. It is clear there are many more voices outside of this room that have an opinion on the matter.
It doesn’t matter who loves who, this is going to be very much a case of laws and protocol. I glance at Xander. I’m still kind of waiting for him to do something dramatic and heroic – but maybe he’s all out of surprises for one evening. I can see the slump in his shoulders and I fear that he’s going to give up on us – that somehow, seeing me married to Dante has broken him. Part of me thinks it’s no less than he deserves. I can’t shake the thought that he blames me for all of this – as if I should have died rather than accept the fate of marrying another. My guilt is quickly turning to anger. He was the one who left. He was the one that went ahead and left me behind, not caring that it would hurt so much that I thought I would die, too.
“Well, then I guess we must go and see what we can do about all of this.” Kellan says, turning to Talia and Charles. “Thank you for being here this evening, but I think for now, it may be best if you return to the Isles with Rose and your guard. Try to keep up appearances and give the illusion that things are not quite as chaotic as they are. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Addie and Dante are married and we are all delighted.”
Rapture (The Immortal Chronicles Book 4) Page 1
