A Kingdom of Blood and Betrayal (Stars and Shadows #2)(42)

This wasn’t a dress to display me as a Starblessed. If anything, it displayed me as Evren’s mate.

It was odd. I looked so unlike myself, but at the same time, I felt more me than I ever had before. Stronger. More sure. I had no idea how I could feel that way when I felt so confused at the same time. It was as if I was discovering who I was, but still so unsure about who I wanted to be.

But even that was a lie.

I wanted to be Evren’s mate. I wanted to tell him yes when he joked about taking his hand, but there was another part of me that was still so fearful. Even though I had felt more at home in the Blood kingdom than I had ever felt anywhere else, I was scared to let that feeling be real.

I looked in the mirror, and I watched Thalia as she fussed with the strap of her shoe around her ankle. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had found home in a friend, and that almost made me more fearful than Evren did.

Thalia had become my best friend, and I feared the heart break of losing her.

“Okay. Come on.” Thalia headed in my direction and grabbed my hand in hers. She pulled me toward the door as a smile lit up her face. “We’re going to miss all the fun.”

I smiled and tried to push down my intrusive thoughts because her joy was contagious.

She pulled me along with her, not stopping until we pushed outside the castle doors. I took a deep breath as I stared up into the sky and saw the twin moons shining at their fullest. Back home this day had been a bad omen. It was a day when stories were told of the vampyres and what they were capable of. It was a day when we were warned of the dangers that lurked just outside the edge of our town.

But I felt none of that fear here.

Instead, people were bustling around the palace and through the streets. Flowers were tied together and hung from posts and through the trees. A small boy ran past me, his laughter filling the air.

“This way.” Thalia nodded forward, and I followed her through the small courtyard at the front of the castle and toward the streets.

More laughter rang out as my feet hit the cobblestone, and Thalia stopped at the closest vendor and handed him a coin. The man handed her two small bunches of wildflowers, and she passed one to me before thanking him.

“It’s customary.” She held up the flowers as we walked. “To lay a flower on the doorstep of anyone you wish prosperity for the year.” She dropped a flower at the first shop we passed. “Evren drops a flower on every doorstep in the kingdom.”

My chest ached and I wanted to roll my eyes at how damn endearing she made him sound. “Are you trying to make me like him?” We passed another door, and this time, I stopped and laid one of my flowers on the stoop.

“You already like him.” She shook her head as she rolled her eyes. “I’m just trying to prove to you that there is nothing wrong with that fact.”

“Maybe I don’t like him at all. Maybe I just find him insanely attractive.”

“Who’s insanely attractive?” Evren asked, and I almost dropped all of my flowers as I spun to face him.

“Sorin.” The name fell from my lips, and Sorin grinned next to him.

“The feeling is mutual, Adara. I’ve already told you what would happen if you weren’t Evren’s mate.” His smile dropped from his lips as Evren’s hand slammed across his chest. “Shit. I was just joking around.”

But Evren was no longer looking at him. He was too busy staring at me.

“Princess, you look…” He shook his head softly as if he couldn’t complete his sentence.

“What?” I asked softly, and he took a step closer to me, closing the space between us.

He wore his normal black, but his clothes were freshly pressed and molded to his skin. He wore a small pin against his chest. A dagger with a serpent coiling around it almost protectively.

He stepped even closer, and I pulled my gaze away from the pin to look up at him.

“You look absolutely stunning, princess.” He lifted his hand and ran his finger over my hair that fell against my shoulder. “Like a fucking dream.”

My marks stirred along with my magic, and I tried to swallow down the emotion that flooded me with his words. “What’s this?” I ran my finger along his pin, and my magic quivered at the contact.

“That’s the crest of the Blood kingdom. The crest of my mother.” His voice was soft as he spoke to me.

“I don’t trust your mother.”

He chuckled and his hand trailed over my shoulder. “I would find you foolish if you did so blindly.”

“Yet you do?”

“I am much like my mother.” He looked to the side when someone called his name and nodded in their direction. “Every decision she makes is one for her people.”

“She sent her men to attack you.” My blood boiled as I said it, and I knew that regardless of why she made the decisions she did, I would never forgive her for that.

“She sent her men to save you.”

I shook my head, and Evren took my hand in his. I smiled at a few people that were passing by, and each of them looked so in awe of their prince.

“Come on.” He pulled me after him, and even though I tried to pull my hand from his, he refused to let go.

Sorin and Thalia were just ahead of us, and Thalia was still laying flowers upon every doorstep she walked by. I watched the people of Evren’s kingdom as we passed. Each one of them was dressed in their best, and they nodded or bowed their heads in Evren’s direction as we passed.