Ruins of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms #3) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,25

too perfect. I’d gone to find the strongest Hecate witch, needing her magic to feed my land power. Instead, I’d found a woman that suited me to the fucking letter. I’d discovered the other half of my soul, with the wrong blood rushing through her veins. That felt more like design than a twist of fate. The gods would have to be some fucked up assholes to hand me a mate with the Hecate symbol embedded in her skull.

I’d been in Haven Falls to push the final plan into action, and Aria came back to town hours before I’d started the dominos falling in motion and couldn’t be stopped. She’d been a hurricane of attitude and beauty that sucked the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping for fucking breath. Aria had changed my plans, and that shit never happened. I’d never altered my plans or stopped what I’d already begun, yet she’d given me pause from the first moment I’d clapped eyes on her.

My heart had fucking beat for the first time since being ripped out so long ago, and raven wings had taken flight within me. I’d been struck stupid by Aria’s beauty, and her gorgeous eyes that glowed with defiance had hit me in the gut, hard. Aria made me feel again, and it wasn’t easily shut down. The pain I could handle. She made me feel overwhelming pain and need, and a wealth of emotions that tiny slip of a woman forced me to experience. I’d never wanted anyone as much as I wanted and craved her. That felt like a betrayal to my wife and mate. Wanting Aria created a deep-seated pain that I didn’t know how to feel or acknowledge.

Finding Aria on her knees, wailing in fear, had fucking damn near killed me. I’d been unable to ignore her call, and she’d continued it after the threat had passed. Her eyes had been sightless, panic tearing her apart from the inside. Worse, I’d smelled that traitor’s scent on her, and I’d wanted to mark her everywhere, again. I’d wanted to sink my teeth into the soft column of her throat and mark her so fucking deep that she’d always be mine.

I’d hesitated at marking the mangled flesh on her shoulder, needing not to cause her any more pain, but her hands went right for it, and I knew. I knew what was wrong. Her screaming wail was because my mark was fighting for dominance. She’d had a battle waging within her, one she hadn’t even known was happening amongst the trauma she’d endured.

Two alphas marking the same female made them spiral out of control, sending their creatures into chaos they couldn’t contain. Andres was the weaker alpha, and my mark was proving its dominance. If Andres’s mark had remained, Aria would have gone insane. Aria was too young to understand, but she’d still held my mouth to her mutilated shoulder for me to remove his claim. She was choosing me, even though she wasn’t even aware of what was happening to her. Aria’s eyes hadn’t regained focus for several moments afterward, and then she’d flung herself into my arms as if she’d given up on me coming to her rescue.

Tears had burned my eyes, and they’d felt strange there. I hadn’t felt shit since I’d exited the tomb that held my family’s corpses, not until coming face-to-face with Aria. But her words had held barb. Her whispered truth of what she had overheard had ripped holes deep into my soul, releasing the poison I’d held there. She’d turned everything inside out, and the only emotion I’d felt was rage. A red, hot rage that the woman I wanted and craved would throw the one I’d loved to the wolves, making me second guess my wife and son.

My fucking son!

If I admitted that Liliana had been all wrong and that she hadn’t been mine, how had we created Sven? It couldn’t be true, because I’d felt him. I’d held him in my arms and watched him open his eyes for the first time. I could remember peering at the perfect little pink form, and I’d felt my chest cracking open as he cried angrily at being displaced from his mother’s womb.

“I healed Aria,” Brander stated, standing beside me where I watched her from the shadows. “It wasn’t as bad as we’d first thought, but I’m not so certain it is her physical injuries holding her tongue. Lord Andres assaulted her, and you just added salt