The King’s Tainted Mate
Chapter 80

I'd been drifting. Like a lost soul in the deep dark void, oblivious to the time of day or even their own name. That however, was not the worst part of my newfound reality. It was not the thing that threatened to consume my mind, but the silence. That stillness. The coldness and the loneliness that extended deep into my soul. I'd been stripped of my very essence and left to wallow in the unknown as my mind fought to get back to the light...to her.

"Rise and shine your majesty!" A voice rang out in my ears, pulling me out of the darkness and into the light. As unpleasant as it was, I was still grateful to be reunited with reality once again. Although that only lasted until I beheld the annoying traitor's face. Evarius! He was no longer just an annoying thorn in my side, but an enemy. It did not even matter that he was Shyla's uncle. After this, it would be just a matter of time before I severed his head from his body. As memories of my recent past flooded my mind, it took me a mere moment to scan my surroundings and I quickly noted that I was in no dungeon. "How thoughtful." I glared at the bastard.

"I know it's nowhere near fit for a king, but definitely so much better than a cold and filthy dungeon. Don't you agree?" Evarius grinned, looking every bit pleased with himself and I couldn't help the desire to get a taste of his blood.

"What did you do to me?!" I growled when my attempt to leap and tear his throat apart ended with me realizing that I'd been shackled to a seat. Except, there were no chains. No shackles.

"Just a little tether. Stronger than before, embedded right there."

A tether? Stronger than before? I wondered what the traitor was on about. My answer came as a jolt of pain. Something stung in my neck, right were I'd been stabbed by the spy from Carene as realization hit. I was tethered. The attack in the palace...the spy... "It was you!" Still forgetting my predicarment, I lunged at the traitor and this time I was treated to a searing pain that shot through my entire body and left me panting.

"I needed something to tame the mighty king of Xatis." A pleased look still graced the face of the former heir of the third noble house and I hated the fact that I could do nothing about it. While I could speak freely, willing my body to do anything else proved to be an impossible task. Whatever Evarius had done was working perfectly. And I hated that I had listened to Rakon all those times and let the bastard go, unharmed.

"Rakon!" The thought of my best friend had me digging deep into my mind, searching for a link to him. Wherever Evarius held me, if I was able to link Rakon, it would be what he'd need to replace me. My wolf struggled, but I kept at it. If only I could reach h- "I'm afraid your wolf is useless around here. Which makes your mind link equally useless." I did not wish to believe the bastard, but the unnatural silence in my head was no mistake. What was it? Another spell?

"Let me go!" I growled, but Evarius only chuckled.

"You should probably know that your alpha voice means nothing too." I was defenceless and all on my own. That is what those words meant, but I refused to bow to that. I needed to get back to my mate and I would, even if I died trying.

"I must say magic in the right hands does yield the most glorious results."

"Magic?" I spat. "Is that where you've been hiding your cowardly self? Behind your wall of spells, while your victims do your dirty work?" My current position aside, the real story behind the fall of Carene still had my head reeling and as far as plotting went, I had to hand it to Evarius for the best or rather, the worst plot of any usurper in the history of the realms.

I thought of the riots that had been springing up all over Xatis and I knew that it would have only been a matter of time before my own kingdom had suffered the same fate. So what had changed? Why had Evarius been forced to alter a perfectly laid out plan that won him Carene and instead opted to capture me and reveal himself in the process. I needed to know more. Gol had been right. War had already been waged and if I was going to see the bastard coming henceforth, I needed to get in his head. "Why Xatis?" | suddenly asked when a dismissive look had been the only answer to my previous questions. "You have Carene-"

"Oh, but Carene is but a city compared to Xatis." He offered a dismissive wave to stress his point and I should have been flattered by the comment, if only the lunatic had not decided to exercise his lunacy over my own kingdom. "I was never one to aim so low. Carene was only good for the loyalty of the Aldeans."

"A loyalty you do not have, apparently." I happily pointed out, thinking of Zastan's words, but the man merely smiled.

"I am a very patient man, your highness." The smile grew wider, unsettling me. But then again, a thought to his words gave me hope. If Evarius still had to be patient, then Gol, as lord of the Aldeans, must have ensured that that loyalty still remained with the dead royals of Carene. One battle won in the incoming war! I did not know how the outlaw had accomplished that, knowing he'd suffered a similar fate as mine. Wherever he was being held, I and Xatis owed him a great debt. "I'm so glad I do not have to fake my smile with you any longer." Evarius suddenly exclaimed, the split of his lips rousing my anger.

"For what it's worth, I never found it pretty." I spat while Evarius broke out in a hearty laugh. The sound was as annoying as always.

"Just so you know, I never held my breath thinking you would. I already knew your taste long before you became king. You found her pretty even when she was nothing but an ugly baby still."

I froze, knowing exactly whom he meant. Could it be...? "What are you talking about?" I asked as my mind travelled back in time. To that night many years ago. I could not place his face in the room that night, however. No matter how much I sought to recall, Evarius' face was simply not among the faces present.

"Oh, I think we both know what I speak of." Evarius bragged. "She'd only been born. All wrinkly, like she'd just escaped hell, of which, yes, thanks to me, the comfort of her mother's womb came pretty close. But to you, she was the fairest and most beautiful creature your little princely eyes had ever beheld. And right there, I knew that she would be someone important to you. Perhaps even your mate."

"You knew that from a child's gaze? How perverse are you?" It had to be him. I thought. Even when I could not place his face anywhere in the room that night, something told me he was. The bastard had been the one to take her! My current position left no room for doubts. Evarius had been the one to take Shyla. Her own uncle!

"I assume the word you are looking for is observant." I couldn't argue that he wasn't. I had hated that quality about the bastard for too long. "And besides, you did make it easy when you insisted on seeing and watching over her each waking day. But I couldn't have it. My wretched niece, heir to my noble house's fortune and the prince of Xatis, heir to the throne I coveted the most."

And there it was...his confession to the age old crime and more, apparently. There had to be more. It couldn't just be about the family fortune or Xatis' throne. He already had both in Carene. "It was you." I stated.

"I'd be ashamed that you were my king once, if you couldn't figure out this much."

"It seems you failed." I taunted, knowing we'd both found our way back to each other and because, I wished for the bastard to keep talking and give me more. He had the upper hand at the moment and playing his games was the only way I was going to get anything or anywhere.

"A regrettable endeavor I'm about to rectify, your highness." "What are you going to do? Kill me, break her heart and take the throne?"

"That would be the most logical..." The bastard seemed to consider it. "But where would the fun in that be? You should probably know by now that I have a flair for the dramatic." I did not know what could be more dramatic than what I'd suggested. "Of course if only you had kept her away as I had asked. There would be no need for all of this. At least not you and I having this conversation in such a regrettable manner." Somehow I doubted he regretted my position, but that was not what had suddenly put me on edge. "Asked? What in hell is that supposed to mean?" His sinister smile shaved years off of my wolf years. "What do you mean?!" I growled, but the prick was going to take his damn time.

Finally he said, "You were so much fun to watch when you actually believed you were in charge. Elian, The almighty king of Xatis." He cooed. "I must admit, however, that I liked Derian better. Your father was a more perfect candidate for my plans too, but the presence of Sarabeth made him unsuitable. I would wait for their heir. Besides, I had not found my secret ingredient either. It's a shame she turned out to be my niece." He looked almost remorseful, almost. I on the other hand could only stare, realizing how far his plotting had come. A day would simply not be enough to know it all. And as eye opening as his confessions were, it was not what I had asked of him.

"What do you mean when you say you asked?"

"Oh, there is simply so much to tell your highness." The bastard seemed to sigh at what he perceived to be a mammoth task. "I do not think we have the time-"

"Evarius!" I growled, but the bastard merely stared, reminding me that I was at his mercy. A fact I would endure for now.

"Well, if you must know, for my plans to come to fruition, you and my niece could simply not be together. So I had to take her away from you. The plan was perfect. Keep her away from you until it was time."

Keep her away from me? Is that why it took me so long to replace her? He'd hidden her? "I know what you are thinking." Evarius pulled me out of my thoughts. "But I can't really take all the credit for you not replaceing your mate sooner. Well, I would have, if only that wretched crazy wolf had not crossed my path that night."

"Crazy wolf? What crazy wolf?"

"Oh, we both know there is only one crazy wolf that we both know of. At least one of importance."

"Zillah?" I blinked. "What does she have to do with any of this?" Of all the persons that could have been of importance in Evarius' narration, Zillah was the least expected.

At my question, Evarius lost his pleased look and stepped away from my view. "I do not know how she did it, because storms never broke out so suddenly in Xatis." I knew that about Xatis' weather, and that was not the thing to get my head spinning as everything began falling into place. I finally found the significance to Shyla's father's story. "That night..." Evarius kept narrating while I listened to his every word, not wishing to miss out on a single detail. "As I beheld a sickly young child that was not my niece, while it stormed, I became a father and my barren wife who'd been faking a pregnancy according to my plans, became a happy mother. It would not be Shyla, but Kerina turned out to be quite the player in what I had set out to do too." His pleased look was back, gracing his face by the time he stepped back into my view. While I, merely stared at him, eyes wide. "The crazy wolf thought she'd won when she switched my niece for Kerina, but she'd merely set my plans back a few years. I knew it would be just a matter of time before I found her again. Thanks to you, that time was shorter than I would have ever anticipated."

"Me?" I blinked at him.

"Your meetings at the capital-" Of course. If Evarius was truly watching, he'd have known where I'd snuck off to as he had been the one to accompany father on some of those trips to the capital. Although, I wouldn't put it past the bastard to have hired spies too. "They were too much of a coincidence and so I watched her, hoping she'd lead you to where she'd hidden my niece, but when she did none of that, I settled with following her. I was handsomely rewarded as you know and I could have taken Shyla then, but there was no need to fix what was not broken. I simply let her stay hidden in the forgotten village while I waited for the right time. But then fate interferred and you insisted on searching each district for your mate." Evarius held my gaze. "I couldn't let you ruin my plans. Not when I was so close. I needed you to reject her, so I asked."

I should have been more concerned about what those 'plans' were, but for the love of God I couldn't shake what he'd said. "You asked me to reject her?" The entire idea was preposterous. I had been the one to reject my mate. It was my choice. Mine. A regrettable one, but mine regardless.

"Well, not as implicitly as that." He pointed a finger in my direction, a sinister smile forming on his lips. "I simply had to steer you in the right direction.