Chapter 95 Ninety-Five.

Chapter 95 Ninety-Five.

OLIVIA’S POV.

I never thought I would see King Sven cry, especially in front of me. And I do not even know how to comfort him because I am hurting too, over everything. At his admission.

“How am I meant to believe that?” I ask, chest tightening because it makes no sense for this man to feel something towards me. The more I try to comprehend it, the more I feel like I am going insane. “It makes no senses for you to feel something for me. How can I even begin to comprehend it?”

“You don’t need to,” he says gently, his fingers caressing my ankles.

I wipe my tears with the back of my hands and sniff, eyes still set on him. “Maggi said that,” I begin with a stutter. “that our bond is useless because our feelings are not mutual. How am I supposed to know you are even telling me the truth? If truly you felt anything for me the moment I stepped foot in your Kingdom, then Carter would not have died. A bounty would never have been placed on my brother.”

“Easier said than done, Olivia,” he replies calmly as he stands up. His tears have dried up now and he looks away from me, heading towards the window. “Carter and his family had to die for you to stay alive. If Carter stayed alive, the council would question it. I would never claim I was a saint, still.”

I stand up too, and I wobble a little due to the lack of chains around my ankles. It still feels a bit foreign to have it removed.

I stare at Sven’s back, searching for words to say to him but my tongue fails me.

It feels like the end of a book, a tragedy where the protagonist doesn’t end up with her true love because let’s face it, there is no universe where Sven and I can be together.

Even if by some luck I survive tomorrow’s match, we still can’t be together. Because he is a hybrid, a king, and despite being half Fae his responsibility to his people who despise my kind comes first. His people would never accept me. It’s hopeless.

“It’s too late now to feel sorry about anything, Sven,” I say, tears spilling from my eyes, again. It has come to this, where I bare my soul and wish out to him. “Tomorrow, I will die, and you can forget about me. You can adopt a child, and no one would ever know it’s not actually yours, and with that your secret can stay safe. Maggi said if I die tomorrow, you would burn down the world with you, but I want to believe that’s not true because I want you to-”

“Do you want to know what happened to me in Eris as a kid?” He asks suddenly, cutting me off.

The question is sudden. I freeze, my breath catching in my throat as I stare at his broad back.

My mind instantly trips backward in time, stumbling over a memory. I remember asking Aunt Maggi about his childhood once, when the weight of the palace was suffocating me. She had told me it wasn’t her story to tell, and it made me curious to ask Sven.

And I had tried to ask. Once. Before the walls between us grew too high to scale, I had gathered the courage to ask him what had happened to him in Eris. Sven hadn’t broken down then. He had simply stared ahead with his green eyes turned gold and gave me nothing. That was also the day I kissed him for the first time.

Now, standing in the middle of my room, he is finally offering me the pieces of that broken boy.

“Sven…” I breathe out.

“I spent my first twelve years in Eris. In King Yangtze Palace,” he begins, inhaling loudly. He keeps his gaze fixed on the window. “Twelve years, Olivia.”

I say nothing but listen.

“A palace to the rest of the world sounds like a fairy tale, but to me, it was a beautifully gilded slaughterhouse for a child’s soul,” he adds bitterly. He grips the stone ledge of the window until his knuckles turn white. “My mother, Guinevere... she never really cared about me.”

I flinch at the raw honesty. “Never? But she’s your mother.”

“It is a pathetic thing to admit, isn’t it? A grown man, a king, still bleeding from the lack of a mother’s touch,” he says, letting out a sharp, self-deprecating laugh. “I spent every waking moment of my childhood trying to impress her. I learned court etiquette perfectly. I trained until my hands bled and my muscles tore. I kept hoping that if I became the perfect soldier, the perfect son, she would finally look at me with something other than cold disgust.”

“And she didn’t?”

“She never did,” Sven says, turning around slowly to face me. The raw anguish in his green eyes is staggering. “To her, I wasn’t a son. I was a mistake. A physical, walking reminder of a relationship she wished to forget. And she wasn’t alone in that hatred. I was seen as an absolute outcast amongst the Eris council. My own grandfather, the King Yangtze of Eris, looked at me as if I were a stain on his immaculate throne room floor.”

“Why would they treat a child like that?” I ask, my voice cracking. “What could a child possibly do to deserve that?”

“Because of my blood, Olivia,” he says, taking a step toward me. “While I am half Fae from my mother’s side, inheriting their grace and magic, I still carry hybrid blood from my father. To the pure-blooded Fae of Eris, to the council, and to my grandfather, I was an abomination.”

“But you are still a Fae.”

“They didn’t care. Their hatred for shifters of any kind was greater than the bond I should have had with my mother,” he corrects harshly. “They didn’t see a child, they just saw a werewolf and a Lycan. They treated me less than a slave, and I was forced to massage the council members. Even my mother had me massage her.”

I remember him telling me this once. Back when he had helped massage my back but I never thought it carried so much pain.

“I was to be married off,” he continues, taking a deep breath. “To Lord Argenton.”

“What? Lord Argenton? You were just a child.”

“They didn’t care. And it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of me, according to my mother.”

“Your mother?” I ask, tears blurring my vision. “Did she just let them?”

“Guinevere would watch Lord Argenton put his hands on me, and she would say nothing,” he whispers, his voice trembling. “She would turn her back and walk away, leaving me to drown in my own shame. The day Argenton tried to take things further with me, I killed him and killed my mother who was watching. I fled Eris. I knew who my father was so I came searching for him and decided to wage war against them.”

“Sven…” I choke out, taking a step toward him.

“They forced me to become a monster just to survive their cruelty,” he continues, his words pouring out like an unsealed dam. “By the time I left Eris, I had learned that the only way to protect myself was to build walls so thick, so impenetrable, that no one could ever reach inside to hurt me again. When I became King, I swore I would never let anyone see any weakness… until you.”