Chapter 124: A Normal Life - Callista's POV

Ronan led us to a sitting room, which wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would look like his office or somewhere we had been before. But this wasn’t any of those.

This room seemed so out of place with the light cream-colored curtains. The windows were open, allowing the breeze into the room. It was silent, almost too quiet. The furniture was well worn and not the dark fabric like in the other rooms. These matched the curtains, though they weren’t quite the same color. There was a chair near the window that looked like it had been sat in so many times that the armrests had softened. The bookshelves weren’t organized and so many books were stacked haphazardly on the shelves.

The fireplace had ashes in it.

All of it unsettled me in a way I hadn’t thought possible. It would have been better if it was like all the other rooms. But no, this one had to make him more…like everyone else.

Ronan gestured toward the couch without looking at us and moved to stand near the fireplace instead of sitting, which told me he needed the option to move. I filed that away and sat beside Riven, close enough that our arms touched, and folded my hands in my lap and waited.

The clock on the mantel dinged.

“You’ve probably heard of his son,” he began. “Alric Voss.”

“Voss? What does he have to do with this?” Riven asked.

“I told you that…we are all born with a sister, right? Typically, we also have at least one brother. Alpha Kings have multiple children to ensure their rule,” he admitted with a huff. “I was one of many and they are all alive.”

Riven went very still beside me.

I kept my expression neutral and my eyes on Ronan, because I didn’t want to miss one single detail.

“Like all Alpha King’s children, we grew up together. There were no issues until it became apparent that I would be the one who took over for our father,” he stated plainly. “Once I was named heir, they had to change their last names and…eventually left.”

Riven’s eyes widened. “This is why the Alpha King’s last name sometimes changes.”

His father nodded. “Yes, because something happened to the heir. I know we discussed some of this before, but this is the…full truth.”

“So, Alric Voss is actually my cousin?” Riven asked, his voice hesitant as he processed it. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Your cousin. His father is still sore about everything.”

“That doesn’t explain why you needed to curse your children,” Riven added.

“It does when you know I need to protect our line. My line is the rightful heir,” he claimed. “Ours and only ours.”

“So you did this to protect your rule and line?” I asked, my gaze never leaving his face. “You cursed your children with something that would end their lives over… the Alpha King’s line? Do you realize how selfish you sound?”

“Selfish, no. Proactive, yes,” he whispered.

“But your heirs will die.”

“No, no,” he said, his eyes widening. “They won’t. I have finally found a way to harness it, so that you won’t have to die. It’s something the Alpha Kings have been working on for years, since the first summoning.”

Riven flinched. “I don’t like where this is going. You cursed us to die and now you claim we won’t end up like all the others.”

“I did curse you,” Ronan said simply. “Or rather, the decisions I made led to you being cursed. Now, as for why my brother wants the throne so badly that I had to do this, was an entirely different matter.”

“And what happened? What possibly made you think you had to do this?”

“There was a woman,” he muttered. “There is always a woman in these stories. She was to be his wife, not mine. But fate had other plans.”

Riven froze. There was turmoil in our bond and I knew just by the look on his face, that desperate, hurt expression, he was about to lose his mind.

“You stole his wife.”

“No,” Ronan corrected. “Fate decided she was my fated mate and there was no other choice.”

“You could have—”

“Rejected the bond?” He finished. “No, I couldn’t, and she didn’t want me to. So, I marked her as mine. That was your mother.”

The word landed hard to both fo us.

I felt Riven go completely rigid beside me. It wasn’t the same kind of stillness I was used to feeling. This was the king where the body simply stopped because the mind needed a moment to catch up.

I didn’t move or speak. The only thing I could do was stay beside him and let the bond carry whatever he needed it to carry right now.

“My mother,” Riven said, his voice hoarse and quiet. “You’re telling me that my mother was your brother’s intended mate.”

“Yes,” he replied simply.

“And you took her.”

"Fate chose her for me," Ronan said, and there was something in his voice that wasn't exactly defensive, but was adjacent to it. He felt justified in his actions. "I understand how it sounds. But you know better than most what a bond feels like and what it means to try to walk away from one."

Riven said nothing to that. I felt the truth of it move through the bond quietly. He understood it better than most and couldn’t imagine anyone else having me.

"She chose to stay with you," I said, keeping my voice even. "Your brother's intended mate felt the bond and chose you."

"Yes."

"And he never forgave it."

"He was never going to forgive it," Ronan said firmly. "I knew that from the moment she stood beside me. He was the kind of man who organized his entire life around what he believed he deserved, and she was at the center of it. When fate made her mine instead—" He exhaled. "It didn't matter to him that neither of us chose it. What mattered was that he had been denied something he had decided was his. And he had already been denied the other thing he wanted.”

“The throne,” I finished.

"So he cursed your children," Riven said, his voice cracking with each word. "As punishment."

“As leverage,” Ronan corrected. “I had no other choice but to defend what was ours. He already challenged me once when your mother was pregnant with Raze. I had no choice, but to act. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have the life we have.” His jaw tightened. "He wanted the Alpha King's seat. He wanted me to step down and name him as successor."

"And you said no," I said.

"I said no." Something moved through his expression that was unreadable. “He lost the fight, but that didn’t stop his rage. I had to do something.”

Riven's hands were pressed flat against his thighs and I could see the effort it was taking him to stay where he was, to keep his voice level, and to not let the thing building in him through the bond find its way out in this room before he had all of it.

"Why didn't you tell me this when I came here?"

"Because I needed you to trust me first," Ronan said firmly. "And I knew that handing you this the moment you arrived would have sent you straight toward death.”

"So instead you handed me nothing."

“I handed you training, time, and a foundation. With me by your side, I can help you control it and you won’t die as the others have,” he said, looking directly at his son. “Though I knew this conversation was coming, I didn’t know it would come like this. I have spent months trying to make sure that when it did, I would be standing on what you needed so you would survive.”

Riven turned his head and looked at me.

I held his gaze and felt through the bond the full shape of what he was carrying—the grief of it, the anger, the complicated thing that happened when someone you had been slowly, reluctantly beginning to trust revealed that the trust was warranted and the betrayal was real at the same time. Both things occupied the same space.

He looked back at his father.

"Where is he?" He asked. "Your brother. Where is he now?"

Ronan's expression shifted in a way that told me the answer before he gave it. He didn’t want Riven knowing.

“He’s close…closer than I’d like,” he muttered. “He has been positioning himself for years and now he’s going to use his son to go after your mate.”

Riven gritted his teeth. “That was the wrong choice.”

When he stood, I stood with him. He gripped my hand and looked at his father with the straightest expression I had ever seen on his face.

“Thank you for the ten minutes and explaining yourself, but I think we both need time to think things through,” he replied, then turned, taking me with him.

When we were out in the hallway, Riven’s pace quickened. He was practically dragging me with him and I skidded.

“Riven, slow down.”

“I have to take you away from here,” he said, shaking his head. “There is no other choice. You have to be far, far away.”

“No,” I groaned. “You’re not pushing me away again.”

“I’ll come with you and we’ll spend whatever years we can get together. Then, I want you to kill me.”

“No, I’m not doing it,” I said, gritting my teeth as I tried to stop him. “We’re going to talk about this and not make rash decisions.”

He whirled on his heels to face me. The pain in his expression was so clear that I nearly melted. “You heard him.”

“Yes, and I know there is a way out of this. He said that he knew how to keep it from killing you,” I said, keeping my voice low. “He found a way, so you have to take it.”

“I thought—” He trailed off. “I thought I was cursed by my family line. That this was just what happened because of what they did all those years ago. Now I learn my own father cursed me just to keep his seat. I could have had a normal life.”

His eyes filled with tears. I reached up, wiping them away with my thumbs.

“Riven, I—”

“No, listen to me. I could have given you a normal life,” he whispered. “It’s all I have ever wanted since I found you.”