AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t be ridiculous, woman. Of course, I know what you look like. Why do you think I got so angry when I found yousnooping in the tower? You were about to tear the covers off the portraits of you. Therealyou.”
“What? How? Why!”
“Come on.” He helped me to my feet. “There’s a lot to say, and not much time to say it. Follow me. Don’t waste time with questions.”
“But I—”
Alisdair grasped my hand and took off. I hoisted up my skirts, fighting to keep up.
“I’ve known you weren’t the princess since you plunged a sword in my chest,” he announced, dropping my jaw. “I told you so in the carriage ride that first day. Every report on Emiana said she was a meek, wilting flower whenever her father’s disappointed gaze turned her way. But then suddenly, a tough, crass, violent, warrior of a woman was standing before me, promising to be the nightmare you became.”
“Hey!”
He chuckled. “I know of few things that can cause such a drastic personality change. A body-switching spell was top of the list.”
We bolted through the castle, going where I had no idea. I had to get to my mother, my sister, my family!
“But if you knew the whole time,” I huffed. “Why did you marry me? Why didn’t you let me go?”
“It’s not that simple. That fool girl didn’t have a fucking clue what she was doing when she decided a curse would solve all of her problems,” he growled. “If that’s what they did, they’d have another name.” We raced around a corner. “I’m amazed she even completed the curse without outright killing you both.”
“She practiced,” I recalled. “She tested it out on servants first, and killed them all.”
He cursed. “That doesn’t surprise me. It only sickens me that she kept going, and didn’t take it for the warning it was.” Alisdairshook his head. “But it was what it was. When I realized what curse took hold of you, I confess, my first thought was to toast my good fortune. You were the heir to Lyrica in anyone’s eyes. You were the key to my victory over Lyrica, and Salman’s head on a pike.”
That truth didn’t sting. Alisdair had told me as much when he made me his mate.
“That being the case, I had to protect you,” he said. “By making sure you couldn’t leave.”
“How did that protect me? I could’ve ended this horror so much sooner.” My heart twisted. “We could’ve been together in a true and honest way much sooner. Why did you do this?”
“We’re here.” Alisdair skidded to a stop before a door I didn’t recognize. Kicking it in, he tugged me over the threshold into a weapon room.
Weapons of all types, sizes, and lethality covered every inch of wall—from manmade to magic. An entire case to my right was filled with coudarian crystals.
“You’ll need this,” he said, taking down a bow and arrow.
“Alisdair?”
“I wish I had more time to teach you close combat. The bow seemed the right choice at the time, but now you need a weapon you can both handle and hide.” Alisdair crossed to a display loaded with daggers. “Oh well, we’ll have to make do.”
“Alisdair!” I shot to his side. “Why didn’t you free me sooner!”
He spun on me. “How was I to do that before we were in love with each other? I told you, it’s a curse, Calli. It leaves no one with any good choices.”
The hot ball of rage and betrayal burning in my chest shrunk, allowing me to breathe again. Of course, he couldn’t free me before he loved me. The imposter they shoved at him was astranger in every way, and love took its own time. He was bound by the limits of the curse as much as I.
“All right, but why wouldn’t you let me leave?” I asked his back.
Alisdair was a whirlwind sweeping through the room, gathering every weapon I might need. “Because I knew what you would do. You’d go looking for Emiana to force her to break the curse, and that couldn’t happen.” A fist-size coudarian crystal thudded on the small table between us. “Crossing paths with yourself would’ve snapped your mind in half. No one could reconcile the contradiction of your mind being in your body, but your body isn’t your body, because your body is looking back at you.”
My mind spun simply trying to follow that sentence.
“I’ve lived a long life, my queen. Of the few I’ve witnessed who survived the spell, they spent the rest of their days in an asylum, because one or the other tracked the body thief down—and it was the last thing they ever did.”
Alisdair went to the door and stuck his head out. “Foalan! With me, now!”
“But that still doesn’t explain why you didn’t simply tell me all of this? Or how you knew I was Calli?”
