Chapter 222

Theodore’s POV

“This isn’t ideal,” I grumbled from the edge of our brand-new bed in the royal chambers. The bed was much smaller than the last one, though still unnecessarily large in my opinion. But Owen’s, the one we donated to Mel Rimanea, had been large enough that we could have tossed and turned all night and never run into each other.

Likely due to Owen and Marissa’s complete lack of interest in ever touching each other.

Violet and I wanted to be a little snugger.

Violet threw her hands above her head with a flourish, smiling and twirling as the wildflowers she manifested came floating down around her. I rolled my eyes, even as a smile snuck onto my face. With a whoosh of her hand, the wildflowers vanished before they ever hit the ground.

“You need more space—”

I stopped speaking to catch the frying pan my wife had just manifested and chucked at me with no warning. “A frying pan?” I teased. “Really?”

She gestured to her stomach. “I have to be creative. And a blunt object is a blunt object.”

“A blunt object,” I pointed at her with the frying pan as she strutted toward me mischievously, “that almost struck your gorgeous husband in the head.”

“Well,” she purred, causing the frying pan to disappear with the flick of her wrist before straddling me on the bed, “at least if you’d been struck in the head, you’d have an excuse for…”

Her unfinished joke at my expense descended into a fit of giggles as I pulled her onto the bed and rolled on top of her. “Someone has gotten much sassier since being crowned,” I teased while slipping a hand under her blouse.

“Have I?” she smiled naughtily.

I kissed her jawline, her cheekbone, her nose, taunting her while avoiding her mouth. “No, you’ve always been this big of a pain in the ass.”

I let up as she laughed loudly, the sound healing the parts of me wounded by our separation.

As her laughter died down, I raked her over with a wanting gaze and sighed heavily. “As much as I’d love to do more of this,” I hauled myself upright, “you need to practice.”

I motioned toward the open space in the middle of our new room. “Off you go.”

She made a dramatic pouting face but stood and started cycling through several uses of magic she’d been developing: not just manifesting objects but also casting her face in shadow to conceal her identity, muting her smell or the sounds she made, increasing her speed in human form to beyond human ability, and so on.

I watched in awe… and concern.

Her last hallucination at the Vainthott Estate was just over a week ago… and they were already getting closer together. We didn’t know how long we had. All we knew for sure was that practicing her magic was a release that stabilized it as much as we had control over for the moment.

So, yes, I would leash my undying desire for her, no matter how many nights we had to make up for, to make sure she had time for this.

Ideally, she’d have more space to practice, but with magic still being illegal, we had to keep this secret, away from the prying eyes of the palace stewards. Reinstating magic across our lands was on our list, but we had to do it right, with the country on our side. If we forced it before the people were ready, it would just give more ammunition to our opponents.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised by your brilliance at this point,” I wondered aloud, splintering from one side of the room to the next to get some practice in myself.

“Your High Queen agrees,” she bantered, “but what specifically are you referring to in this moment?”

“Olivia Bronson,” I specified. Only a couple hours ago, the woman I never trusted accepted to be the interim Alpha of Darkmoon under every single one of Violet’s terms. She didn’t negotiate any of them.

I splintered out of the way as my wife hurlled a trowel at me. She made the tool-turned-weapon vanish before it hit the wall. “You’re getting faster,” she complimented me.

“At splintering or figuring out you’re always right?” I asked from right behind her.

She spun around in a delighted surprise and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Both.” She tilted her head up to kiss me, and I kissed her back, but I backed up a step before she could deepen it and distract us both like I could tell she wanted to.

She understood what I was doing and didn’t complain. “Have you heard from Lieutenant General Rufio?”

I smiled, then splintered onto the bed in a lounging position. “You mean General Rufio?” I corrected.

She grinned. “He accepted the promotion. Good.”

It was a natural step that if the general was promoted to king, as I had been, that his lieutenant general would take his place as head of the military. Technically, he still reported to me as I had technically reported to Owen. But I wouldn’t have time to oversee the military and Midnight and support the High Queen as her king.

General Rufio had humbly accepted the promotion within the military – and the responsibility as the newly appointed Alpha of the entire Midnight territory.

I did however keep control of the settlement and Mel Rimanea. We were planning to help reintegrate them into the territories somehow. One of many things on our long list of priorities.

I scooted off the bed and the beautiful duvet I had helped Violet pick out. I slid my hands into my pockets as I leaned against the wall. My wife straightened her shoulders, sensing that the next topic would be serious.

“We need to discuss Eva’s fate,” I stated.

We stared at each other, knowing that killing Eva was the last possible way we knew to undo the fake mate bond that still plagued us, that continued to destabilize Violet’s magic and put her life at risk along with our baby’s.

“If we kill her without reason,” she said, “we are no better than the ruler we dethroned. And we give our opponents further ammunition against us.”

“I’d say colluding against the Queen and King is reason enough.”

“To kill her?” Violet challenged. “Besides, we weren’t king and queen when she colluded against us. We only have enough reason to imprison her and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

I searched my mate’s eyes, surprised that she seemed to be letting this go so easily. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Violet’s eyes flashed before she avoided my gaze. “Eva is Nora’s sister.”

I pushed off the wall. “You’re using her as bait?”

I sighed, wiping a hand down my face. “When you said you wanted to hunt those who wronged us, I wasn’t exactly imagining setting a trap and then twiddling our thumbs in wait.”

“First of all,” she retorted, “setting traps is part of hunting. Second,” she motioned to herself, sweaty after all the magic she had been practicing, “do I look like I’m twiddling my thumbs to you?”

I sighed again. “If we’re not going to kill Eva sooner rather than later, then I want to keep looking for other possible ways to undo the mate bond.”

Violet’s eyes softened as she witnessed the concern for her all over my face. “Fine.” She wasn’t upset, but she sounded a bit defeated all the same.

“If…” She locked eyes with me, stepping closer until we were wrapped in each other’s arms. “If I die, you have to claim the throne, Theodore. There’s no one else we trust who it can go to.”

It was a thought that plagued me in my cruelest of nightmares.

“Well,” I joked, “now I really can’t let you die.”

But her responding smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and neither did mine.