Their Wife: Book 2

Sixteen (Part 1)

A chilling silence seemed to fall over the world after His words. Cassius didn't appear to react to his brother's words, but the environment seemed to be reacting to the dark-haired man, choosing to still in fear.

Although He wanted to appear unfazed and confident while facing the terrifying man, I could feel the faint tremor that shook his hand in a moment of weakness before he caught himself.

I could hear the faint sound of him swallowing hard before he continued. "Don't make this harder than you already have Cassius. Give me the Royal Flame peacefully and I'll let you and your wife walk out of this alive. You can have a full life together as long as you never return home."

Lie.

I didn't believe for a moment that He would let us go, especially not to live a full life. He wasn't the kind of man who could live comfortably knowing that someone won against him. Letting me leave and live a life free of the pain he promised I'd never escape would be letting me win.

He would never let that happen.

"If I don't," Cassius started, his deep voice resounding off the trees surrounding us. "Are you going to do what you did to Sophie? Are you going to give us a painful death?"

His jaw clenched. I could feel it against my temple as I pressed into him in my bid to escape his tightening hand. "She was next in line to inherit. It had to be done. It would have been painless if she didn't put up a fight."

Cassius nodded faintly. It wasn't in understanding to His words, but to the thoughts running through his own head as pieces of a puzzle I couldn't see clicked into place for him.

"Haminah." Cassius's eyes narrowed as he spat out the name. "My unborn child. They were both your doing too, weren't they? You told her to kill me. When she failed and was caught in the act, you were the one that killed her and my child in the cell before she had a chance to speak your name."

He gritted his teeth. "I did the realm a favour, brother. Your wife was a cheating whore, be happy I exposed her truth before you shared the Royal Flame with her. Her blood wasn't fit to rule, your child would have soiled the line."

Royal Flame? Rule?

Of course. It wasn't surprising that Cassius was a king. It helped to explain where the unnaturally heavy and stifling presence that surrounded him originated from.

He wasn't able to stop his fingers from twitching in reaction before clenching his fists shut. His words had hit their mark. I couldn't blame him for reacting. Hearing what He had done to his own brother would have anyone feeling for Cassius, but I couldn't say it was a surprise a monster like him would hurt his own blood.

He continued, the joy in getting a reaction audible in his voice. "I thought you would have learned your lesson the first time, but then you went and made the same mistake," he said with a tsk, cutting my air supply off for a moment. "That just goes to prove that you are not fit to rule. I am doing the realm a favour, putting it first as a true ruler should."

He was just as taken aback as me when Cassius chuckled darkly in response. He looked at the ground in disappointment and shook his head. Axel glanced towards him with concern, his face hard from what he had just learned about his friend.

"See, this is why you will never be king, Stephen," Cassius said, locking his hands behind his back as he stepped forward. "You fail to see what lies beneath the surface, always quick to act before discovering the truth that hides beneath the lie."

"What?" He took a step back to counter his, knicking my neck with the blade as he dragged me with him. I barely noticed the cut with my still smoking flesh pushing my pain tolerance to the limit. The confidence his voice had held when he had first spoken had dwindled in the uncertain word that left his lips, doubt entering his mind as Cassius laughed in his face.