The King of Hearts - Jovee Winters Page 0,51

love. But right now, the demon of doubt was beginning to tear me up inside. What if I was wrong?

Why had he never shown himself to me?

Why had he never given me his true name?

I was in love with him. So deeply, so powerfully that even if he did look like a lizard beast, I did not think I would care. Not any longer. There should be no more secrets. And yet he’d kept a huge one from me.

“We’re not married? Are you sure?”

Rose laughed. Adelia thinned her lips.

And I knew. I bloody well knew they were telling the truth. That entire ceremony had been a sham. A farce meant to make sport of me. But why? I’d never done anything to the gods. I’d never spoken a cross word against Aphrodite. Why would she have done this to me?

A heart that’d felt so full, so overflowing with love just this morning was now beginning to feel shrouded in ice. In doubt. I rubbed at my breast.

Adelia reached into a slit in her tunic and then she looked about. “Is he here? Can you tell?”

In the beginning Phineas had often surprised me, but now I recognized the smell of him. It was wild and it was intoxicating freedom. He was not here. He had promised to give me a day of fun to myself and he’d left.

I shook my head. “He is gone for the day.”

Adelia suddenly pulled out what she’d had hidden beneath the table. A long handled silver bladed dagger. I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands and instantly shaking my head.

“Look, KeeKee, he is a monster. Michaelle had no reason to lie. This male of yours is a very powerful sorcerer, and you are his next victim. Don’t be one. When he sleeps, slit his throat, and then run. And never come back. And you will be free of all this madness.”

Heat settled in the back of my throat and gathered in the corners of my eyes. “He is not a bad man. He…he loves me.”

“No, my dear. I fear he has lied to you from the very beginning. You’re not even married. He’s ruined your reputation forever. If he lied to you about that, isn’t it possible he’s lied about all the rest?”

I silently shook my head even as fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe that. I just couldn’t. But was I a fool not to?

Phineas was my first relationship. Ever. What did I know of truth and honesty between mates?

Nothing. What if I was just a young, naïve stupid girl who’d fallen into a trap she’d never seen coming? It could happen. I wasn’t so proud I couldn’t admit that I may have been duped.

And it was true that he wouldn’t let me leave the palace grounds. Ever. And that he’d gotten upset about my calling him Aris. That there were times when I pressed him for his history, who he’d been before meeting me, that he would instantly clam up and refuse to speak of it.

I felt like he knew everything about me, but I knew nothing of the real man or beast I’d been wed to.

My heart sank.

But we weren’t even that, were we?

The scrap of the knife sliding across the table made me look up.

Adelia’s eyes were sorrowful and it was in her eyes that I began to keenly feel my vulnerability. While I’d been falling in love with the imagined male I’d propped up in my head and heart, could it be truly possible that it had been nothing but a scheme to him? That I was merely a pawn, even in this?

I’d been a pawn my whole life. Was it really outside the realm of possibility?

Sadly, no.

Men always used women. At least the men in my life. It was all I’d known. All I’d seen. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have dropped my guard so easily?

Rose stood. “Well, we’ve done what we came to do and now we really must go. You are still anathema, sister. T’would hurt our future prospects to linger much longer. Adelia.” She said, sniffing and tipping up her nose.

The plate of food was gone. The tea all gone. Rose had come and she’d taken. If it’d been just Rose who’d said all this, I would never even suffer a moment’s doubt. But when I glanced at Adelia and I spotted the lone tear winding down her right cheek unchecked, I knew she was not lying to