A Thorn in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies, #1)

by Kate King

“If you’re really expecting Alix to marry the king, what are you going to do on the wedding night?” Without warning, a spike of adrenaline rushes through me. My pulse beats faster and black dots appear on the edge of my vision. I feel as if I’ve caught fire and I’m burning from the inside out, the urge to smash something, to tear the room apart is so strong, I could kill… “It would be fine,” I grind out. “She’s perfectly welcome to do whatever with whomever she wants.” Jett just rolls his eyes and goes to find a shirt. I glance up, catching Kastian’s eye. He looks at me apologetically. “Sorry, mate. Believe me, I know. An incomplete bond makes you feel fucking crazy.”

“But why my estate?” Daemon growls. Thorne sneers. “Why not the estate of my Commander and most loyal brother? Unless there’s something you wish to confess…” Daemon shakes his head stiffly while anxiety churns in my stomach. I don’t dare catch his eyes. Instead, I focus on the king. “Wait, when you say all of us⁠—” Thorne looks back at me. “I’ll be going, obviously. You and I have hardly had the chance to see each other since your return. It might even be…fun.” I highly fucking doubt that, but all I can do is smile.

“Are you scared?” Odessa asks. I bite my lip. “I’m not sure honestly. I guess I am in an abstract way, but I try not to think about it. If I think about any of this too hard I’m pretty sure my brain will melt, so…” I trail off, then shake my head roughly. “Anyway, I don’t think Daemon will let anything happen.” Odessa looks sideways at me again, this time with more of a question in her gaze. “What?” I demand. “Just noticing that you two have gotten closer lately.” I flush, remembering how she walked in on our kiss the last time we visited the Ashwater estate. “Something like that.” “Are you sure that's a good idea? What with you leaving soon.”

To my surprise, Claudette shoots me a wounded look and turns her nose up before flouncing into her carriage. I turn to Odessa. “Um, what was that?” “I think it’s my fault,” a low familiar voice sounds from behind the second carriage, and Daemon walks out to greet us. He rubs the back of his neck and looks down, slightly embarrassed. “Don’t worry about it.” I scoff. “Oh, please. I’ve never not worried about anything in my life. What happened?”

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse into dust, trying to make anyone else worry about how the king doesn’t seem to care about Isabelle. Or maybe they all know, but they just don’t know what to do? Initially I wasn’t worried about this at all, but now that I’ve grown closer to everyone, I wish I’d tried harder in the beginning to help. But would that have mattered?

“Tu es tellement belle que je ne peux pas me contrôler en ta présence.”

“Je pense que tu es mon soul-bond,” he says, breaking our kiss. My entire body is loose and lazy, but at those words, my eyes widen and I pull back from him again.

“I would have felt guiltier except that I always wanted children, and clearly my husband wasn’t going to be providing me with any. In some ways, I feel lucky.” I nod again. That much, I do understand. I wanted children for years, but it just didn’t happen. Now I wonder if I dodged a bullet. It would be so much harder to leave my marriage if we had kids. But still…there’s always the what if.

Thorne leans closer and suddenly a sharp pain stabs through my head. Like a migraine, but concentrated all at once right behind my right eye. I let out a yelp and I quickly jerk my head to the side, narrowly avoiding his lips.

“You certainly seem to know your way around the guest rooms,” I mutter, for lack of anything else to say. Daemon puts me down and bends to turn on the faucets. “This isn’t a guest room. This is my room—or, it was, when I lived here.” I blink in surprise. I’m not sure what to make of the fact that he wanted me to sleep in his room, even expecting that he wouldn’t be in here with me. I don’t know what to make of it. Actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly what to make of it. I know exactly what all of these tiny gestures added together mean, but I’m afraid to voice it out loud because the second I do is the second it becomes real.

“How do soul-bonds work?” I blurt out. He stiffens behind me and his hand stills in my hair. “That’s a fucking abrupt change of subject. Why?” Actually, it doesn’t feel that abrupt to me. It feels like exactly what I should be asking—what I should have asked days ago. “Just answer the question. You brought it up before but you didn’t really explain it. How does it work?” He shifts once more, running his fingers down the length of my hair several times, like he’s using the movement to cover his thought process. I could swear it feels like the air hums between us. “No one really knows,” he says finally. “The general consensus is that bonds aren’t fated or pre-chosen, they’re formed over time—usually from emotionally intense connections or shared experience. Not everyone who is married in Ellender is bonded, but most are, either from the start or after a while. We can date or have casual partners, but if a bond doesn’t form, most Fae will move on and keep searching.”

She said that the curse would only break when the King of Vernallis admits he is powerless and sacrifices whomever he loves most.” I blink at her. “Wait, that’s exactly what it says?” She looks equally confused. “Yes…” “I thought he had to find true love?” “He does…and then he has to sacrifice her.”

Alix relaxes into the kiss, and I walk her back away from the roses, never breaking our kiss. At the edge of the pond, I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and pull back. “I’m sorry.” And then I shove her back into the glittering pond.

Nana is sitting on the couch in the living room, but jumps up just like everyone else when I walk in. She’s dressed simply in a blue sweater and slacks with her long hair pulled back in a low ponytail. My light eyes lock on her dark ones. Her gaze darts pointedly down at my dress and the corner of her mouth ticks up in a half smile and in a split second I know that she knows exactly where I’ve been.

Now, I don’t feel like that. There’s an acute sense of loss, of emptiness in my chest. Like something—or, someone—is missing. My eyes and nose burn, and there’s a ringing in my ears. And suddenly it all hits me. Everything is over and worst of all I’ll never see Daemon again. I look at Nana, silently begging for help—with what, I’m not even sure. She pushes past my mom to reach me. Without a word, she throws her arms around me and doesn’t let go. And finally, for the first time in twenty years, I sob.

Nana is sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, an enormous mug of tea in one hand. She looks up when I enter and smiles. “Good morning.” I glance at the dark windows. “It’s not morning.” She shrugs. “I’ve never cared much for timekeeping anyway. Morning can be whenever you wake up. Do you want some coffee?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” “Wasn’t it the same for you? When you discover that this magical place exists, how could you not want to stay?” “Um, not exactly. I took a little longer to warm up to it, but finish the story, we’ll get to mine later.”

I close my eyes. She keeps saying that—the L word—as if it’s set in stone. But it isn’t. We never said that to each other. Except, maybe we kind of did. Not in so many words, but… I’ll die before I let anyone hurt you. I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re mine.

your mother, but I think she’s older than I am now by a few years, at least.” My jaw drops and I have to force myself to close it again. I take a sip of my nearly cold coffee. “Yeah, you’re right. We can absolutely never tell her that.”

“You failed to protect her until the wedding,” he carries on, completely unaware of the irony in his rage. “I should send you back to Dyaspora for this!” “Do it.” He looks at me, startled enough to shake the rage off his face. “What did you say?” “I said fucking do it. I don’t care anymore.” Thorne evidently has no idea what to say to that because he just looks at me. Any other time, I’d enjoy striking him speechless, but not now. I won’t ever enjoy anything again. I sigh and step back, turning around to leave. “If you decide to send me back, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be in the barracks until the rose moon.”

Ironic. I can’t even force myself to care about the curse. I know I should be using the information that Alix got from Aurelia to find the answer. I should care that there are only hours left before I’ll lose all my free will, but I can’t bring myself to care about anything. I underestimated how painful it would be to break a soul-bond. Or maybe I just didn’t want to think about it, because if I’d known I’d end up in agony I might not have gone through with it. The only consolation is that males almost always form the bond first, and Alix is human, so it’s likely she won’t be in as much pain–if any at all. I have to hold onto that thought because otherwise the drive to protect her from that pain wars with the instinct to protect her by staying away, and I feel as if I’m finally losing my mind for real.

I narrow my eyes at Kastian. “You want someone to play king? You do it. You have more right than me to wear a crown and you won’t be effectively dead in thirty-six hours.” Fox and Jett look sideways at Kastian, obviously distracted by my near revelation. “Why do you have a right to the crown of Vernallis?” Jett asks. “I don’t,” Kastian snaps. “I’m from Hydratta, you know that.” “Why don’t you tell them who you were in Hydratta?” Kas glares at me. “If you weren’t so pathetic right now, I’d hit you.” “Do it,” I sigh, lying down. “I don’t care anyway.”

I close my eyes and tip my head back against the wall with a thump. “I agree with Aurelia that the sorceress had someone in mind when she cast the curse, but I have no way of knowing who that is. We’re no better off than we ever were, so if you all don’t mind, I’d like to spend my last hours in peace.” Or at least as much in peace as is possible when it feels like a thousand knives are piercing my chest over and over. “No,” Kastian grumbles. I glare at him. “No?” “No. You’re in charge, mate. We follow you, not just because we owe you our lives but because you're a good leader. Usually. But I’m not signing on for this. You’re fucking up, and we’re not going to just watch it happen. You need to pull your shit together and get up, or I’ll drag you out of here.” “I’ll help,” Jett says, raising a hand behind Kastian’s back. “I don’t need help,” Fox grumbles. “I could drag all of you across this fucking continent with one hand.” I glare at my friends, torn between anger that they’re fighting with me and feeling emotional that they care.

I feel frustration and depression washing back over me, and once again the agony in my head and chest throbs to life. The pain was dampened, though never gone completely, while I was focused on other things, but now it seems to flare even hotter than before. I press my hand to my chest, wincing slightly as I climb the winding stairs alone to the very top of the tower. I’m hardly paying attention as I reach the top, but then I look up and my eyes go wide. “Fuck.”

I shake my head. Suddenly the pain that has been plaguing me for days eases, which only reinforces my certainty that I’m on the right track at last. There’s only a few hours left until it’s too late, but that’ll have to be enough.

Aurelia smiles. “I had a feeling you’d be back.” “But you were the one to tell me to leave.” “And I was right, you should absolutely have left!” Her eyes widen. “But soul-bonds are impossible to ignore.” I cough, the air in the back of my throat getting caught on the inhale. God, did everyone know but me? Do I even know for sure that that’s what this is…a soul-bond? If somehow everything works out in the next day or so, I’ll have to come back and ask her exactly how that intuition thing works.

The man smiles. “There’s this interesting thing about monarchies. The king can never really be dead because the very second one ruler dies, the reign of his heir begins. There is always a king of Vernallis.” And then, I get it.

Daemon’s expression goes blank. It’s like he’s looking at me, but seeing nothing. I’m sure the realization is hitting him just as it’s hit me, but still I voice it. “From our first conversation you told me you didn’t care about yourself. You knew you’d be cursed forever, it was about saving your friends…and me, sacrificing your final moments with us.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would have gotten over it. I bet there are thousands of Fae women who would love to throw themselves at a king.” He stiffens and pulls back, looking me dead in the eye. “No. That would never fucking happen.” “I know. Sorry, bad joke, I⁠—” “No, I need you to understand this.” His fingers tangle in my hair and he holds me still, forcing me to keep meeting his eyes. “There will never be anyone else for me. Ever. That’s how bonds work. I can’t ever leave you and I won’t want to anyway, but if it hasn’t kicked in for you yet you could still go. You don’t have to⁠—”

“You’re relentless.” I give her shoulder a playful nudge. “We’re waiting for my divorce to be finalized, which is taking longer than it should because I’m living ‘in Europe’ with bad cell reception.” She furrows her brow. “Why bother? I can’t imagine that matters here.” “Because I want it finalized.” Daemon’s voice echos through the house and I turn in a circle before I finally spot him. Daemon is striding down the stairs toward us. He’s smiling and dressed casually in a loose white shirt and black trousers. “Or really?” Nana asks. Daemon’s tone remains flat, but his eyes dance with humor. “I don’t want anyone claiming rights to what’s mine, in this world or any other.”