Chapter 189

Caleb is talking about the swelling red on my cheek. The bruise that has been forming since Kira slapped me. But so much has happened since then. It’s hard for me to focus, to keep track. Deciding whether or not to reveal Kira as the culprit of this particular injury requires more critical thinking than I’m capable of in the moment.

Likely realizing that, Caleb softens his gaze and tells me, “You’re safe now.”

In Caleb’s presence, I know I’m safe. He will always protect me. Slowly, that helps me further recover from my shock. It helps when the bodies are gone and the servants begin cleaning up the bloodstains.

Caleb’s outfit is still in tatters, however. For a man about to be married, he looks like he just walked out of a warzone.

One of Caleb’s advisors steps forward. “King Caleb, forgive my impertinence, but I’m sure you want to change before heading back inside of the Hall.”

Caleb continues to look at me, though his gaze hardens now and his voice turns cold. “Why would I need to do that?”

The advisor straightens a little. “Forgive me, sir, but your state of dress… you are covered in the blood of those rebels. Do you not at least wish to wash the blood off?”

“What does it matter?” Caleb asks.

He’s still going through with the wedding then. Of course. Why wouldn’t he? Caleb deals with troubles and potential assassinations all the time. Why should that hold up his wedding?

And why does it hurt me that he’s continuing on? I rushed over here, not to stop the wedding, but to protect Caleb from those that wanted to hurt him. Now that he’s safe, why shouldn’t things return to as they were?

Caleb must really want to get married. Perhaps his insistence to continue means that he truly can’t wait to have Annabelle as his wife.

I don’t know. My thoughts are foggy, it’s difficult to think clearly. I only know how much my chest hurts.

I have to get away. I can’t be here anymore.

I want to run.

Caleb doesn’t care that he’s covered in blood, he just wants to get this wedding over with. Why delay the inevitable? He doesn’t want to put this off for even another day.

The dread, the pain he’s caused Harper, all of it. He wants it to be over and done with.

Yet, even as he stands here watching Harper, he can see fresh pain fill her face.

He worries at first. Perhaps she was hurt worse than she admitted, more than is obvious with the bruise on her face. But then he starts to realize…

This isn’t the kind of expression she makes when she feels physical discomfort. He’s seen her near-death, fighting for her life. She faces that kind of pain with an unmatched courage.

This pain is somehow rawer, visceral. Something she can’t combat like its physical counterpart.

This is her heart breaking all over again.

“Harper…”

“I have to go,” she says, rushing to stand. Caleb is still unsure if she hit her head when she was thrown to the ground, so he helps her up as best he can. She seems sturdy enough on her own two legs, but he’s still hesitant to let her go.

“You need to get to a doctor, Harper.”

“I’m fine,” she says. She starts to back away from me, tugging lightly against my grip on her arms. “Let me go.”

“No,” Caleb says, a flash of something shocking through him. He doesn’t know how to give name to this new feeling. It almost feels like fear.

He’s stricken with a harrowing thought.

For whatever the reason, he’s certain that if he watches her walk away in this moment, he will lose her forever.

She looks up at him with tears in her eyes. “I want to leave, Caleb. Please.”

What is he doing? Why is he denying her? He doesn’t care if she’s at this farce of a wedding or not. If she wants to leave, he should let her.

Yet that fear stays with him, urging him not to let Harper out of his sight.

It frustrates and unnerves him. Is this another symptom of his mate sickness?

He doesn’t need Harper here. He doesn’t need anyone.

“Fine,” he says and at last releases her. She stumbles back a step or two, righting herself. The pain remains in her eyes, even as she looks at him one last time.

Then, in a flurry, she turns and she runs, disappearing into the gardens.

Caleb’s heart aches as he watches her flee. Nothing about this sits right with him. Regret fills him up to the brim.

Belatedly, Caleb realizes that many of the wedding guests have come out with curious, morbid curiosity about the events that transpired here.

“An assassination attempt,” he hears someone whisper.

Three corrupt guards were surely planning on killing me during the wedding service. One of them, the weakest one, who shook and trembled even before he registered Caleb’s massive form, is in custody.

Caleb didn’t give the order himself, but the guards he trusts, those who know him, likely have taken the nervous rebel to one of the interrogation rooms for Caleb to interview.

First, though, he has to finish his other duty of the day. Getting married.

Kira, his mother, walks toward him. Unlike the other guests who took refuge inside of the palace when the fighting began, Kira seemed to already be too far out in the Courtyard. What was she doing out here? Did she need fresh air to calm her nerves?

Or…

The red mark on Harper’s cheek flashes through my mind. That mark seemed suspiciously like a slap.

Caleb narrows his eyes at his mother, letting his suspicion show.

She does not cower under his stare. Having lived with his father for so long, perhaps she is entirely immune to intimidation.

“If you do not wish to change, then you might consider at least cleaning the blood off of your face.” She holds out a handkerchief. “I’d hate for Annabelle to have to taste rebel blood when she kisses you.”

Caleb could not care less what Annabelle tasted, but for the sake of decorum, if nothing else, he accepted the handkerchief and wiped the blood from around his mouth.

“Better?” he asks and hands back the now blood-stained handkerchief.

Kira looks at it with disgust. “You should not wish to disrespect your future wife.”

“She should be honored to marry me at all,” Caleb grumbles. He’s tired of this line of thinking from both Annabelle and his mother. “Do not forget that this wedding is a necessity, nothing more. I have no affection for Annabelle, nor do I expect her to hold any for me.”

“That’s a terrible way to live,” Kira says. “You need to at least try with her.”

“Why?” For matters of the heart, he already has Harper, and Annabelle is a pale comparison of the woman he actually admires. Why would he pretend to care about someone else? Why would he need to?

It would serve no purpose.

Kira gives him a disappointed kind of look, but just as Kira is immune to Caleb’s intimidation tactics after years of living with his father, Caleb is immune from disappointed looks from his parents.

After a moment, she sighs. “It’s time to take your place for the wedding, son. Whatever that means for you.”