At first, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t respond. I’d spent the last few weeks, obsessing over this woman, driving myself mad with thoughts of her, wanting to please her, and honor her, and learn more about her, and just live my life for nothing but her. But now… Now I stared down at the stranger she still was, numb with shock. There was nothing. All that hopeless longing, the blind devotion, the unbreakable bond I’d felt for her… It was gone.

Maybe I should’ve felt free.

Except I didn’t.

I wanted it back. I wanted to feel as if I belonged to my mate—my one true love—once again. I wanted her in my blood, in my soul, in the very air I breathed.

Besides… I glanced toward the crib where the newborn was squalling again, filling its lungs with fear as it demanded to be returned to its mother.

Had I cried like that when I’d been born and my mother lay dead a few feet away? I’d never gotten to know the woman who’d borne me; Vienne would not want the same fate for her child.

Soren shoved past me, bumping roughly against my arm so he could stumble to a halt next to Yasmin and peer down at his lifeless wife.

“What..?” He shook his head, staring at Vienne’s body in confusion, before he glanced up, scowling. “What the hell have you mad bitches done to her?”

The healers tending to the babe whirled and gaped at Soren, clearly fearing for their lives. “We…we tried to save her, sir. We swear. But the babe was so big—”

“And it was turned wrong,” the other one chimed in.

“We had to cut it out.”

I gulped, feeling sick to my stomach. The blanket covering Vienne’s midsection was so soaked with blood I could tell they hadn’t bothered to stitch her back together again.

“Oh God,” I croaked, finally stumbling toward her, one wobbling stiff-jointed step at a time.

I needed to feel her presence inside me again, needed to feel bound to the other half of myself.

“Hey!” Soren growled as I fell to my knees at her side. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

“No!” Allera jumped in front of him, blocking his path. She clutched his arms and tried to reassure him. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. Urban may be able to save her. Just let him try. Please.”

“What?” Soren transferred his scowl to Allera, only to blink and shake his head. “What the hell do you mean? Is he some kind of healer? She’s already gone. Does he possess some kind of magic, then?”

“Magic?” the king boomed as he entered the room.

I could practically hear Allera gulp as she looked my way, not ready to tell them the truth.

“Do it now, Urban,” she urged. “There can’t be much time left.”

“Wait! What the hell is he going to do to my sister?” Now, Yasmin was hurrying around to my side of the bed, ready to interfere.

Allera let go of Soren so she could stop Yasmin.

“No, just let him…”

There was a scuffle after that, more people in the room, all of them arguing, yelling, shoving. None of them wanting me near my one true love.

But I couldn’t focus on any of that. I was too busy staring into her pale, lifeless features. This was the first time I’d ever seen her without the effect of my mark telling me how stunning she was. She was so colorless with deep purple bruises under her eyes. Her face was slightly swollen from the birthing process, and beads of sweat had caused her honey blonde hair to mat itself to her cheek.

Underneath all that, though, she really was an exquisite woman. She had a beauty from within that just seemed to shimmer out onto her features. Except the within-part of her was quickly fading.

Panicked that I might not be able to recapture it, I trembled, my fingers shaking uncontrollably as I lifted them slowly to cup her face in my hands.

Her flesh was already cold. I sucked in a worried breath.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please come back to me.”

I lowered my face and gently pressed my mouth to hers.

At first, all I was doing was kissing a corpse, cold and lifeless. I shuddered and squeezed my eyes closed, pressing my mouth harder to hers. A tear slipping from the corner of my lashes.

Why I wanted to recapture the torture of always craving her and never having her, I had no clue. But I did. I wanted it desperately. It had made me feel…complete. Fulfilled. Loving someone was better than feeling nothing and having no one. I could handle the miserable parts of it, I promised myself. I’d deal with all the downfalls if only she would return.

Please, my soul begged hers from the pit of my being. Come back to me. I need you. Your baby needs you. We all need you.

And just like that, I felt it. The tug, and then the warmth and glow of the bond. It sparked through me with a joy that had me sucking in a breath and pulling back.

I saw her lips part as if breath was returning to her body. Color filled her cheeks and her lashes began to flutter before a hand roughly grasped my shoulder, jerking me away.

“What the fuck?” Soren growled, tugging me in reverse until my back hit a wall. “How dare you touch my wife? You sick, perverted—”

“Oh my God. OH MY GOD!” Yasmin chanted, cutting him off. “Soren! She’s alive. Oh my God, she’s alive!”

“What?” He stopped pinning my throat to the wall with his forearm so he could spin around and face the bed.

I was finally able to see past him where the healers had laid the babe down and were gathering around Vienne, tutting among themselves and pressing fingers against her cheeks as she shook her head loosely, her eyes fluttering open.

“My God,” Soren uttered, hurrying to her side. “Vienne? Vienne!”

Seeing her try to speak and focus on the people hovering over her made a deep seizure of trembles overtake my limbs.

She was alive. She was back.

My legs gave out under me, and I sank to the floor, sitting there and watching everyone attend to my one true love.

“Urban?” Allera appeared in front of me, kneeling before me and cupping my face in her hands.

“You did it,” she whispered, tears shedding down her cheeks and a wide smile overtaking her lips. “That was fantastic. Oh my God, you actually did it!”

For some reason, looking at her made me break. My trembling turned worse and my own tears thickened. When a deep sob took control of my chest, I shook my head.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

Why couldn’t I stop trembling? And why the hell was I crying? I’d brought her back. She was going to live. Everything was going to be okay.

But we’d been so close to losing her forever. Too damn close.

“No, it’s okay,” Allera reassured me. “It’s okay now. Don’t break, Brother. You did it. You brought her back.”

I knew that. I knew I’d accomplished my goal. But I couldn’t seem to stop the attack I was having.

I’d almost lost her. Holy shit, she’d been dead.

“What the hell was that?” the king asked, suddenly looming above me so close he blocked the room’s light with his body.

I looked up at him, still too dazed to answer. Vienne was going to live.

“I need answers, Bjorn!” he boomed, the anger in his tone vibrating out his silhouette. “Do you possess some kind of magic? Are you another one of those goddamn wizards or soothsayers or whatnot?”

“Caulder.” Brentley grasped his arm, tugging him back. “What the hell are you doing?”

The king jerked his shoulder free of Brentley’s grip. “I’m getting answers.”

“My God, Brother. He just brought Vienne back to life. Stop treating him like a villain.”

Caulder’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe he is a villain. I won’t have anyone from that magical faction running freely inside my castle.”

“Well, rest assured,” Allera said, rising to her feet so she could stand directly between me and the king. “Urban comes from no such faction. He’s as non-magical as they get.”

“Then how the hell did he bring her back to life?”

Allera merely sputtered out a laugh and shook her head. “You make it sound as if he just committed an unspeakable crime, when all he did was save her. You should be thanking him instead of accusing him of some transgression. I mean, how dare you stand there and glare at my brother as if—”

“Allera,” Brentley said softly, taking her arm and trying to draw her away from me. “Let the king do what he needs to do to ease his worries.”

“No!” She scowled at him and pulled herself from his grip. “Not if he thinks to harm Urban for doing absolutely nothing wrong!”

“If he did nothing wrong,” Caulder seethed, “then why didn’t you answer my question and tell me how the fuck he was able to bring Vienne back from the dead?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Nicolette said, causing both her brothers, and even Allera, to whirl toward her with shock. “He brought her back with true love’s kiss.”

Brentley and Caulder simultaneously gasped and clutched their chests, while Soren spun from the bed and stalked toward us. “What the hell is going on over here? Why is that bastard still in my wife’s bedchamber?”

Everyone ignored him, as they were all too busy gaping incredulously at Nicolette.

“Why would you say such a thing?” Caulder demanded.

The young princess sighed and rolled her eyes. “Because it all makes sense. He felt her pain and must’ve woken Allera and dragged her here to check on Vienne, otherwise how would they have known Vienne was even having any distress. They live in an entirely different wing of the castle. There’s no way they could’ve actually heard her. And then… When Vienne was dying, he felt her pain out in the hall until his love mark started to disappear. You all saw him, sharing her agony. And the moment he kissed her, not only did she come back to life, but his mark returned, too. Look, it’s red now. The tattoo was black before.”

Everyone looked at my mark. I had no idea it had changed colors, so I lifted my hand to the side of my eye, though of course, I couldn’t feel what color it was from touching it.

“He practically confessed everything the first night he came here,” Nicolette went on, almost vibrating with excitement for finally being able to reveal her discovery. “He said he’d met his one true love recently—very recently—and that he’d only seen her from across a room, and he couldn’t talk to her because he’d known she was already married, so… It all fits. It’s just that none of you were paying attention to what he was really saying. Vienne is his one true love.”

A moment of realization seemed to shimmer through the room as eyes went large and mouths fell open.

Then Soren surged forward, yelling, “You bastard! How dare you? With my wife?”

Allera, Nicolette, and Brentley, moved collectively to block him from me. At the crib, the infant began to wail, and I could see Vienne through all the people trying to sit up, probably to go to her child. Her sister and the two healers hurried to urge her back down, telling her they still needed to sew her wounds closed.

Meanwhile, Soren raged on, glaring at me from the other side of the three holding him back as I unsteadily pushed myself to my feet.

“He touched her! He put his foul, High Cliff bastard mouth on my wife! I’ll kill him for this. I’ll cut out his liver, and—”

“Soren!” Yasmin yelled. “We need you over here. Now! Someone must hold Vienne down so the healers can attend to her. She’s trying to stand.”

Chaos reigned. I tried to step around everyone so I could get to her. I could feel her panic, and fear, and confusion. Someone just needed to calm her down. Someone needed to take her baby to her. But Brentley and Allera caught onto my motive and stopped me.

“No, don’t go near her.”

“Get him out of here!” the king ordered, pointing at me.

“Come on, Urban,” Allera said steadily, her voice calm and coaxing as she tried to pull me toward the exit. “You already helped. It’s time to go now.”

But I shook my head, unable to ignore her distress. “No. I can’t leave her. She’s scared. She’s going to hurt herself. What if something happens, and she takes a turn for the worse? I need to be here to help. I need—”

“You need to go,” Brentley said, getting into my face. “You’re causing a ruckus, and she won’t be able to calm down until you stop it.”

Fresh tears poured down my cheeks as I focused on Brentley. “But she’s still so weak.”

“I swear to God,” Soren roared, making the fear I felt from Vienne flare hotter. “If he’s not out of this room in five seconds, I’ll murder the High Cliff son of a bitch myself.”

The fucker was certainly welcome to try; see how far that got him. But when I narrowed my eyes his way, Allera tugged on me more insistently.

“No one’s going to be able to focus on helping her until you’re gone. Dammit, Urban, they’ll execute us both. Please!”

I shuddered out a relenting breath and nodded, even as I frowned toward the bed, where I could tell Vienne was still struggling to rise.

“She wants her baby,” I told Nicolette, rushing the words, even as I let Brentley and Allera drag me backward toward the door. “Get her the baby, and she’ll stop struggling. Just get her the damn baby.”

Nicolette bobbed her head and turned toward the crib, hurrying to follow my order.

I tried to get one last glimpse of Vienne, but I could never see her face, just bloody, pale-skinned glimpses here and there through all the people.

Once Allera and Brentley tugged me from the room, I shook free of them and glared. “I can walk on my own.”

Brentley didn’t look so certain, but Allera touched his arm and nodded, letting him know I could be trusted.

Wanting to slam my fist through a wall because they were making me leave, I spun away and stormed back to my chamber.

Vienne was still alive. For that, I was grateful.

And now everyone knew what she was to me, except I couldn’t seem to concern myself with exposure. I was still too pissed I had to be the one to leave. That dick Soren had been making a hundred-times bigger fuss than I had. I’d been the one to save her, too. I should’ve been able to stay.

Except deep down I knew she wouldn’t have wanted me there. With the truth revealed or not, she still didn’t feel the link between us. She didn’t know me. My presence at her bedside wouldn’t have soothed her at all. And that… That was why I wanted to roar in rage and sorrow. I couldn’t be there for her when she needed someone helping her through, when she needed someone who would actually worry about her and want to hold her hand.

I wasn’t what she wanted, and that hurt the most.