Chapter 44
“You’ve said what!” breathed Elena incredulously. “Are you even for real? What even possessed you to say that? Do you really think I would ever want to get married to you, after what you have done to my friends!?”
“I know! I know! I’m sorry!” I apologized quickly, glancing at an angry-looking Elena. “I wasn’t thinking! I had to say something to get rid of my bastard brother and his new whore! You know I still love you, right?”
“Right now, Kieran, I don’t care how you feel!” Elena seethed angrily between clenched teeth. “The wedding and your kingdom are the last things on my mind to be worrying about! I’ve got my own shit to be dealing with!”
“Do you really want Carlton to become king?” I breathed sharply, feeling a pang of worry rip through me like a sharp knife. “He will never leave us alone if he is king. He will always be after us and our child. The kingdom will be in ruins. It will be as if my father has come back from the dead!”
“What do you mean?” Elena scoffed, sounding a little uneasy as her hands flew to her bump protectively. “Kieran, why would Carlton come after us. If he is made king, he would have won. He would have got what he has always wanted! There is nothing that me or my child could give him!”
“There would be killings every day. Rapes too, in broad daylight,” I sighed closing my eyes as painful memories flashed across my mind. “If he is anything like our father, he would allow his men to come down to the city and have easy pickings on the women. Children would be ripped away from their mothers as their mothers were raped by two or three men at once. Whoever dared stand up to them would be slaughtered on the spot. People would be bought up to the Palace to be slaughtered for entertainment while women would be rounded up like cattle.”
“That’s appalling!” Elena gasped in disgust as her eyes widened in shock. “But how does this affect me and my child. Why would he come after you?”
“Don’t you get it?” I growled tensely. “Even if he became king, I would still be the one true heir. People could rebel and make his reign so much harder for him. The only simple solution for Carlton would be to slaughter us like dogs. Then his people would have no choice but to fall in line.”
“I see. I get it. It makes perfect sense actually,” Elena nodded slowly while biting her lip thoughtfully. “Here is what we shall do. Even if we do marry, Carlton will still never stop. He will always be there in the background trying to steal the kingdom back, so he needs to go! For good!”
“Agreed!” I nodded, feeling my anger rise at the thought of my brother killing Elena and my child. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, as I said, I have other things that I need to spend my time on,” Elena shrugged casually as she glanced up at Hollie and Brooke, who had entered the room. “I still need to find out who killed my grandmother and protect my unborn child. You can plan this wedding for all I like. But be warned, it’s not a marriage of love!”
“Not a marriage of love?” I growled slowly while looking at Elena hurtfully. “Then what is it?”
“A marriage of convenience!”
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“Are you really only going to marry Kieran just so that he can keep his kingdom?” Brooke questioned softly as she walked beside me. “I know what he did to us was bad, but the man does love you! He looked so hurt!”
“I don’t know what I want at the moment!” I sighed as I closed my eyes and pictured Kierans’s pained face staring back at me. “I love him, I really do! But his childish actions need to stop! He could have killed my two best friends!”
“Yeah, well he didn’t!” retorted Brooke defiantly. “Admittedly, it was a close call. Not one that I’d ever want to take again but I still have my neck in one piece. Just don’t let me ever put my neck on the line like that again!”
I looked at Brooke and giggled at her joke as she giggled back before pulling me into a tight hug. “You and Kieran are made for each other. Don’t ruin something good because you are stubborn.”
“Brooke’s right, El,” blurted out suddenly. “Don’t forget that man rescued you, showed you what love was, somewhat. He completes you. You can see that he is hopelessly devoted to you. He never stops looking at you.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I’ve just got so much on my mind right now,” I sighed loudly. “The world just doesn’t seem as sweet and innocent and as easy as how I remember it growing up. Left has somehow turned into right, up means down. Dead means alive in a castle by the beach. Everything is just so messed up!”
“Well, hopefully, we should get some answers today or be one step closer to finding out who killed your grandmother!” Brooke murmured thoughtfully as we stopped outside a small red and white building in the middle of the town square. “Do you really think Brenda can help? The shop looks shut, just as Hattie said?”
“I know but I had to double-check to make sure her shop really is shut down!” I mumbled as I peered in through the dusty window panes at an evidently empty shop. “Hattie is right. Brenda is long gone. There are cobwebs everywhere and a thick layer of dust over everything. Not even the Moon Goddess herself could order Deadly Nightshade from here if she wanted to!”
“So where too first?” Hollie nodded while glancing down at her notebook. “Um, you have Greta’s Grasses or Walters Weedery?”
“Greta’s is only over there. Look!” I breathed as I pointed towards a small shop on the corner of the street. “We may as well check Greta out first before we travel down to the river. Come on. Let’s go!”
Quickly, we made our way across the square, weaving in and out between people shopping the local market stools or selling their wares. Music played cheerily over everyone’s heads while brazened traders shouted out about their wares. Stopping in front of the front door of Greta’s, I extended a hand to open the door, only for it to be swung open in front of me, by a tall slender woman. She wore a bright blue floor-length silk gown, while her white-blonde hair cascaded down over her shoulders down towards her navel. Heavily made-up eyes stared back at me while her ruby red lips pursed together accusingly. Before I could speak, the woman’s voice shrilled out loudly.
“Ahh, I was expecting you! I know who you are. Please, come inside my dears!”