Ruins of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms #3) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,190

use anything they could get their hands on against him.

I knew that because I was here to find his weaknesses, yet had I discovered any, I wouldn’t have told a soul. I felt myself growing attached, and I knew I had no future with him. However, he’d bitten me, and I had felt that mating mark on my throat to the very center of my being. He felt it too, and that meant that if the rumors and shit going around were true about Liliana, I was his true mate.

I paused, causing Brander to stumble and turn to look at me. I slowly started forward, peeking back at Knox, who walked behind me. If Knox hadn’t been true mates with Liliana, that meant we could create life. However, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do during a time of war. He kept telling me to open my womb, but my womb didn’t have some magic door. Ember had said we could only allow it to happen if we chose him as our mate. I wasn’t even certain she knew what the hell she was talking about since we were the blind leading the even blinder. Unless Lennox had told Ember something she didn’t want me to hear, in which case, I probably should figure out what it meant so I didn’t do something stupid on accident.

Entering the castle, Brander walked me to where the wounded were treated. He sat me down, tending to my hands as Knox appeared, leaning against the castle wall, observing until they were wrapped, leaving my fingers exposed.

“I need to know what you know about Kamara, wife.”

“Nothing,” I admitted. “There’s nothing significant about Kamara in any books or anything the Hecate line has documented. She was said to be sweet and timid, and then she lost a set of twin boys, and no one has heard from her since. They assumed she went mad and found someone to end her suffering. I do know that out of all the sisters, Kamara was the most powerful.”

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t say that. Guess you’re not the high queen, after all.”

“No. It would seem I’m not on either throne,” I snorted. “If you’re finished, I’d like to rest. I’m sure you intend to move the army at first light, and I am rather exhausted from fighting in a weak human form to save your life.”

I stared at Knox as he narrowed his eyes on me, dropping them to my wrists, which still held the nulling cuffs. He creased his brow, turning to look at Brander.

“Place the new cuff on her when you’re finished tending to her wounds. See that Aria isn’t disturbed and has what she needs to nest.”

“I don’t need a nest anymore,” I whispered, moving past Knox. He turned, burning my spine with his gaze as I left him, wondering why I was upset.

Lennox was right to worry about me eating Knox. Even if the things he did were for show, they hurt me. His actions proved to his people I was disposable, and they’d tried to make me as such today as I fought to protect their king and my husband from their enemy.

They could all get bent. I wasn’t the evil in their midst, and I’d never given them a reason to hate me. This entire place needed a huge wake-up call if they thought the sins of the ancestors damned the line.

My sisters and I had killed no one out of spite. We hadn’t harmed anyone inside the Nine Realms that wasn’t dark. We hadn’t even been born when the shit had happened, yet we were found guilty. It wasn’t right. Not when we were fighting with Knox and his people, standing beside them—even if it was to the far right of them, or maybe the left.

Wherever we stood, I’d be fine as long as it was away from Knox Karnavious, at least until the war ended.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Knox gave me a necklace that did the same thing his magic nullifying bracelets had done. It was a simple chain holding a raven charm with a red jewel for the eye. We hadn’t spent the night at the stronghold, forcing me to sit with him on his warhorse for grueling hours as we traveled through the perilous passes between one realm and another. As far as I’d been told, we were finally heading toward Dorcha.

Knox hadn’t included me in his plans, and we’d been moving nonstop until some horses showed signs of exhaustion.