Chapter 5

Elowen Vale's POV

"I'll tell you the truth. He never loved you. Not even from the beginning. The only reason he got close to you was to get his hands on the organization's secrets.

"You probably don't know this yet, but Caspian wiped them all out. Mom, Dad, every last one of our uncles in the organization. Their bodies have probably been rotting for days by now." Mara laughed.

I froze, the words hitting me like a physical blow. Tears spilled down my face before I could stop them.

"No!" I screamed. "Mara, they were your family too! How could you do something like this?"

All I felt was hatred.

The smile slowly vanished from Mara's face, leaving behind something cold and ugly.

"I was only fighting for what I wanted. Do you really think I'd just stand aside and let you have a man like Caspian? I wanted him, Elowen. And I was willing to do whatever it took to make him mine."

Make him mine?

Before I could ask what she meant, Mara walked out and locked the door behind her.

The next night, I found a bottle of ointment in my room. It was the kind used to help broken bones heal faster.

A week before the wedding, Mara had me dragged out of my room and taken into the courtyard for her wedding dress fitting.

She didn't care that everyone was still there. She simply ordered them to strip me down.

"Wow, Elowen. Look at all those scars. They're disgusting. Oh, and I heard the women locked up on this island are treated worse than prostitutes. Don't tell me you..."

Her gaze flicked toward Caspian. She left the rest unsaid, but the implication was obvious.

I clutched my clothes against my chest and gave her a cold smile.

"What, Caspian barely touches you? Is that why you're so curious about what it's like?"

"You!" Mara flew into a rage and raised her hand to slap me.

Caspian's eyes were fixed on the scars covering my back. His grip tightened around the glass in his hand until it shattered. "Enough!"

Mara had never seen Caspian in such a stormy mood before. She immediately backed down, not daring to provoke him any further.

But the way Caspian looked at me had changed. His gaze lingered on me, troubled and conflicted, as if he were wrestling with something he couldn't quite resolve.

The night before the wedding, a violent thunderstorm rolled in.

Caspian got completely drunk and somehow ended up outside my room. He sat there alone with a bottle in his arms, mumbling to himself until he gradually drifted off.

"Elowen... that girl you captured five years ago was my little sister. Why couldn't you just let her go? She was only 15. Whatever you did to her left her in a coma. She never woke up…

"If you hadn't been so cruel, I never would have done any of this to you…"

Five years ago?

I stared at him in shock.

I had caught a suspicious girl lurking near the base five years ago. So that girl had been Caspian's sister.

But I'd told Mara to let her go.

Once Caspian had fallen asleep, I changed into dark clothes and slipped out of my room without anyone noticing.

I made my way into the rear wing of the estate and found an almost fairytale-like bedroom tucked away inside. There, lying asleep on the bed, was the girl I'd been looking for.

She looked exactly the same as she had five years ago.

A faint smile tugged at my lips as I slipped a specially formulated pill into her mouth.

I hoped Caspian would enjoy the wedding gift I had planned for him tomorrow.