Chapter 96 Ninety-Six.

Chapter 96 Ninety-Six.


OLIVIA’S POV.

Sven’s story brings tears to my eyes and makes me cry miserably. I knew he has a deep-rooted hatred for my kind, but I never knew his own mother and grandfather were the architects behind it.

“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice cracking. “Sven, I’m so incredibly sorry.”

He doesn’t answer immediately. He stands perfectly still in the center of the room, looking at me with dark green eyes that seem to hold the weight of centuries. The fierce, terrifying king who controls entire armies suddenly looks like nothing more than a ghost of that broken, twelve years old boy who fled down to Māui. The silence between us stretches, heavy and agonizing, filled only by the sound of my ragged breaths and the quiet dripping of my tears onto the cold stone floor.

“I wish there was something I can do. I know I can’t erase a childhood trauma, but- i’m so sorry-”

“Please, you do not need to apologize, Olivia,” he finally speaks, his voice a low, gravelly whisper that vibrates through the quiet space. “You have carried enough chains in this palace. You do not need to carry my ghosts too.”

“But it hurts,” I sob, taking a reckless step toward him. My bare feet click against the stone, completely unbound, yet my chest feels tighter than it ever did when the irons were biting into my flesh. “To know that you were just a child... to know that the people who were supposed to protect you were the ones who broke you. How did you survive that? How did you carry that type of darkness inside you for so long without letting it consume you entirely?”

“Who says it didn’t consume me?” he asks, a self-deprecating smile gracing his beautiful lips. He takes a slow step forward, narrowing the distance between us until I can feel the overwhelming, suffocating heat radiating from his skin. “I took down the wall of Eris, turned your people into slaves and left them at the hands of vampires. I turned killing into a circus even with my own people, Olivia.”

“And me?” I ask, looking up into his sullen eyes, my vision blurred by a fresh wave of warmth. “What was I to you when you felt my presence in your Kingdom?”

Sven stops right in front of me. He breathes out a long, shuddering sigh, his broad chest rising and falling heavily. “You were the shattering of my walls,” he confesses softly, his hand rising with agonizing slowness. “I never wanted anyone so bad.”

His fingers hover near my cheek, trembling slightly, before he finally finds the courage to let them press against my skin.

His thumb gently brushes away a stray tear. “From the very second it was confirmed you were my mate at the shadow moon pack, the mate bond didn’t just pull at me, it was screaming. It demanded that I look at you. It demanded that I feel. And for a man who spent his entire life forcing himself to feel absolutely nothing, you were the most terrifying thing I had ever encountered.”

“Is that why you were so cruel?” I whisper, leaning my face into his warm palm despite the hundreds of reasons screaming at me to pull away.

“I thought that if I broke the bond, I could protect my crown,” he murmurs, his green eyes swirling with an absolute, raw panic that breaks my heart into a million pieces. “I thought that if I kept you at a distance, the council wouldn’t see you as my weakness. I lied to myself, Olivia. Every single day, I looked at you dragging those chains through my hallways, and it was slowly killing me. I wanted to tear this entire palace down just to free you, I am still the King of Māui, and I feared what would happen if the world knows I love a the very kind I should hate, one with the same blood inside of me.”

“You love me?” The words slip from my lips before I can stop them, sounding incredibly small, incredibly fragile in the vast, dark room.

Sven lets out a broken, ragged sound from the back of his throat. “I have loved you since the moment your eyes met mine in that throne room. I loved you when I hated myself for it. I loved you when I watched you hold your head high against my council, showing a type of bravery I never possessed as a child.”

There is a pause.

“And tonight... sitting on that throne, even with the borders weeping, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, realizing that tomorrow the Ripper Ghost might tear you away from me forever...” He continues, voice cracking. “It made me realize that a crown is entirely worthless if I can’t even protect the one I love.”

“Sven, it’s too late,” I whisper, fresh tears choking my throat as I look up at him.

The tragedy of it all crashes down on me like an avalanche. We are standing here, baring our souls to one another, confessing a love that was written by the moon goddess, yet the sand in the hourglass is running out.

“The match is tomorrow at dawn. The Ripper Ghost has never spared a single soul. I have no Fae energy. Even with my staff, I am going to die,” I add.

“No,” he growls softly, his grip on my face tightening, his other hand coming up to cup my opposite cheek. He forces me to look directly into his eyes. “I will not allow it. Do you hear me, Olivia? I will burn this entire kingdom to the ground before I let them take you from me.”

“You can’t stop the match without starting a war with your own people,” I argue, my hands reaching up to grasp his wrists, feeling the rapid, terrified pulse pounding beneath his skin. “If you intervene, they will execute you for treason. They will call you a traitor king. Your secrets, your Fae blood, everything will be exposed. I don’t want you to ruin your life for me. But you can save my brother, Kyle, and Katniss. Please.”

“No, Olivia. I am already ruined without you!” he fiercely insists, the desperation in his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Let them call me a traitor. Let them march on my palace. I survived Eris, Olivia, and I will gladly fight the entire world if it means keeping you breathing. Do not ask me to be a king tomorrow. Tomorrow, I am just a man who refuses to watch his mate die.”

I stare at him, my chest heaving as months of resentment, fear, and unspoken longing melt away into nothingness.

The walls he built are completely gone, leaving behind only the bleeding truth of our bond.

“Then don’t let me go tonight,” I whisper, my voice thick with emotion. I tighten my grip on his wrists, pulling his hands tighter against my face. “If tomorrow is my end, Sven... if these are the last few hours I have left in this world, I don’t want to spend them fighting you. I don’t want to spend them wondering what could have been.”

Sven doesn’t say another word. Instead, he simply closes the remaining distance between us.

His lips crash against mine with ferocity. A low, guttural groan escapes his chest as he pulls me flush against his body, his large arms wrapping around my waist so tightly it feels as though he is trying to fuse our souls together as he tugs on my lower lips, taking it in-between his.

I gasp against his mouth, entirely overwhelmed by the sheer power of it, and he uses the opportunity to deepen the kiss, claiming me with a possessive hunger that takes my breath away entirely.

My hands leave his wrists and slide up his chest, clutching the fabric of his top as if he is the only steady thing left in a crumbling universe. I pull myself closer, lifting my heels off the stone floor, completely forgetting about the Ripper Ghost, forgetting about the thousands of citizens who will be cheering for my death tomorrow.

In this tiny, dimly lit room, there is no King Sven, and there is no Olivia the Fae. There is only us. Two people trying to hold onto each other before the world tears us apart.

Sven’s tongue attacks mine as his hands slide down from my cheeks to grip the back of my neck, his fingers tangling into my hair, pulling me to him. Every stroke of his tongue, every desperate press of his lips against mine, feels like an apology for every cold look, every harsh word, and everything he had put me through. Like a plea for forgiveness.

We break apart for a fraction of a second, both of us panting, our foreheads resting against one another.

“Olivia,” he breathes, his hot breath fanning across my swollen lips. His dark green eyes are wide and completely consumed by a terrifying possessiveness. “Tell me you feel it. Tell me you know I belong to you and that I would do anything to protect you.”

“I feel it,” I sob, pressing my lips against his jaw, his cheek, anywhere I can reach, completely drunk on the intoxicating scent of sandalwood that belongs solely to him. “I’ve always felt it, Sven. Even when I hated you, I belonged to you. My body did. My soul did.”

A sigh escapes him, and he claims my mouth once more, softer this time. He lifts me slightly, walking me backward until the back of my knees hit the edge of the bed. He lowers me onto the mattress, his heavy body following me down without ever breaking the kiss, his warmth enveloping me completely, shielding me from the cold reality of the palace.

Tonight, I want him. “I want you,” I say in-between the kiss, gasping. I eventually break the kiss, and hold his face as I stare at him. He looks so beautiful. “Please, Sven. I want you inside of me.”

“You will have me, Olivia,” He says, softly, placing a peck on my lips. “I will make sure you feel every part of me inside you tonight.”