Noah bursts into the study and reaches out for Aria, but before we can warn him, a bright light erupts in the room blowing the two of them apart. Her father catches her in his arms, but Noah goes flying backwards into the wall.
“Noah!” Mal cries out to him.
Noah’s eyes flutter but he makes it to his feet and he’s the most pissed off that I’ve ever seen him. His eyes wash over Aria and then he focuses on me. “What did you do?” He shouts, moving quicker than I’ve ever seen him move before. His hand is around my throat and he slams me backwards into the wall.
“I did it.” Aria’s father tells him. “If you want to blame someone, blame me.”
Noah quickly releases me and focuses on Marcum. His fingers ball up into a fist, but he’d be stupid to challenge a member of the Republic. They’re stronger than ten of us combined. By the look on his face, he realizes it would be suicide to go up against Marcum.
“I am never going to be good enough for you people, am I?” A pained expression washes over Noah’s face.
He approaches Aria and although she can’t move, her eyes meet his gaze. “How could you do this to me? How could you betray me like this?” He asks.
“Are you listening? I did this.” Marcum takes full responsibility.
It doesn’t matter what anyone says. Noah has tunnel vision and at the end of the tunnel is Aria and Aria alone. “I brought you to my home and I introduced you to my family.” Noah stares at her in disbelief.
“Marcum, release her.” I order.
He releases Aria and she gasps as tears fall from her eyes. “I didn’t want this. I swear to you.” She cries.
“I wish I could believe you.” He replies, shaking his head.
They want to touch each other but know they can’t. She belongs to me now, which means I’m the only person who can come near her.
“I’m so sorry.” Aria apologizes.
Noah reaches his hand inside his pocket and pulls out a bag of skittles. He tosses them at her feet and then he walks out of the room. Aria bursts into tears as she picks up the bag of candy like it contains her life force and cradles it in her arms.
“I know you can’t see it now, but I did this for your own good.” Marcum tells her.
“He’s never going to forgive me.” She falls to her knees and sobs uncontrollably.
Hearing Aria’s cries, Aziza hurries into the study and cradles Aria in her arms. Marcum motions for Aziza to take Aria away. He waits for them to leave then turns to address me.
“I’ll have the senate prepare to make your union to our daughter official. In the meantime, you should mend. You’re going to need all the energy you can get.” Marcum shows me the palm of his hand. He has black veins from his fingertips all the way up to his wrists. “I only touched her for a few seconds and she did this to me. The bastard was filling her with dark energy and she’s still under his spell. I have the medics looking into how to reverse the affects.”
“This is my fault.” I sulk. “I drove her into his arms.”
“Don’t blame yourself Thien. Before my sister married she dated Mal. The same thing happened with her. The Archer’s are lethally charming bastards and I hope you know you have one hell of a fight on your hands. Once you’re infected with dark energy you began to crave it. Aria will crave him at times and your union will be tested tremendously, but you mustn’t lose faith. She needs you.”
“I just don’t know when he could have done it. I’ve been watching him.”
“All it takes is one touch from him. Being on Kaalen as long as he has…its probably latched itself onto his soul and embedded itself in his DNA. Cut yourself some slack.”
I nod and her father motions for me to leave. I head back into the throne room where the team is looking for an update on Aria and Noah. I fill them all in and they look shocked.
“Where is she? Is she okay?” Willow’s worried eyes beg me for answers.
“That son-of-a-bitch infected her with dark energy.” I confide. “In order to protect her from Noah, he forced her to give me her Yin.”
“WHOA…you and Aria are…”
“Yes, she’s my consort.” I nod. “Marcum is preparing a ceremony while the medics work on breaking the hold the dark energy has on her.”
“Congrats man.” Wake hugs me.
Everyone on the team takes turns congratulating me, but its bittersweet. I’m worried about Aria. Her reaction to her father forcing her to pledge her life to me sears my soul. Never in a million years would I expect her to have such an adverse reaction, but she did and it’s eating at me.
A week passes with the medics tending to Aria. It’s another couple of days before she agrees to see me and now I’m nervous. I don’t know what I’m walking into. Will she blame me? Does she hate me?
I swallow hard and push open the door to her room. Aziza, Willow, Harmony and Syria are inside and I hear laughter. I step further into the room and they all go quiet as Aria stands to greet me. Her long dark hair falls in ringlets almost to her waist, shaping her face and making her green eyes standout.
Damn she’s beautiful...please don’t let her hate me…
She’s wearing a flowing white gown that stops where her thighs begin, and all I can think about is how soft her skin looks right now. She’s barefoot, but she’s wearing the anklet I made for her when we were younger. It’s made out of silver with a string of rare gems interlinked together. I’d forgotten all about it until now.
Aziza gathers the others to give us our privacy and they leave. Once they’re gone the smile on Aria’s face quickly fades. “They tried to have Wake wipe my memory. Was that you or my father?” She asks.
“I had no idea.”
“Then it was my father.” She discerns. “I’ve been pretending all day to be who they want me to be and I’m exhausted. I don’t want to have to pretend with you.”
“Then don’t.” I reply. “How are you?”
“Well, I feel like a fool.” She admitted. “He used dark energy on me and I didn’t see it coming.”
“You can’t beat yourself up about that. Noah fooled a lot of people.” I point out.
“Yes, but I’m the only one whose still in love with him.” She sighs.
I step closer to her and she holds her hand up for me to stop. I stop moving. “You think it makes you weak.” I realize.
“Doesn’t it? If you knew the things I did…the things he persuaded me to do…” Her voice trails off. “The thing that kills me is I knew something was off, I just…I knew it. I told him I didn’t trust myself with him, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Now I can. He was manipulating me…ME!”
How could she blame herself for the actions of a maniac?
“If anyone should be blamed, it should be me.” I move closer to her. She backs away from me but I don’t let that deter me. “Aria, it was my job to protect you and I failed. I should have been there for you, but I got sidetracked with Katnis and with the missions and…”
Aria reached up to touch my face and I swear she set my skin on fire. I kissed the palm of her hand, but that wasn’t enough for me. I needed more. I crushed my lips to hers and began to ache all over for her. I cupped my hands over her breasts and she quickly backed away.
Tears formed in her eyes and she turned her back to me. “What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?” I ask.
“Noah and I…we…”
“Don’t even finish that fucking sentence.” I tell her. “It doesn’t matter what he did to you. If I have to spend eternity wiping his fucking touch from ever having existed in your mind, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Aria turns to face me and averts her eyes to the floor. “Its not that,” She sighs. “I know what he did was wrong and I should hate him, but I don’t. I love with him Thien, and its not the dark energy talking, this is me. I’m in love with Noah Archer and if you love me at all, you’ll convince my father to stop this.”
“No.” I stood my ground.
“Do you really want a loveless union?”
“Are you saying you no longer love me?”
“I’m saying don’t be like my father. Don’t trap me in a union I don’t want.”
“Wow.” I reel back, hurt. “He got his hooks in you deep, didn’t he?”
“We can do this. We can go to my father and tell him neither of us wants this. If we both reject the union he has no choice but to listen.” I plead with him.
“Don’t you do that…don’t you plead with me for him.” I scoff, shaking my head. “I fucking love you, and you know what, you may hate me for it but in time you’ll grow to love me back.”
“Ugh!” Aria growled at me. She pounds on me with her fists in a fit of rage. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”
Grabbing her hands I pin them behind her back. The dark energy may be gone but its influence is still present in her eyes. “Then hate me.” I reply sternly. “But you WILL give yourself to me, you WILL birth my children and you WILL bear my mark.”
Aria shoved me away from her and I turned to leave. She hurled everything she could lift at me as I walked out. I closed the door to her room behind me and leaned against it for support. She broke down in tears and I wanted nothing more than to get my bare hands on Noah. The girl in tears on the other side of this door was a far cry from the strong girl I fell in love with. She’s broken.
ns 18.68.41.141da2
