Chapter 61: Chapter 61

The announcement of the wedding and the ensuing coronation put the castle in such a frenzy that I spent my time avoiding the castes who flocked to watch the ceremony. The castle wasn’t even large enough to accommodate everyone and it was necessary to fill the surrounding hotels. The inhabitants of Brechin wondered what could well explain this rise in tourism at the start of winter and took full advantage of it to fill their coffers.

But the news didn’t make everyone happy. Thomas avoided me and remained prostrate in his pavilion by the lake. The excitement around the wedding exasperated him. If he stayed in Mortain, it was only to offer a decent life to his son and an education among the castes. Alone, what would he do? Like me, he now needed to be surrounded by his family, whoever they were. He now cared for Guillaume full time and rarely showed up at the castle.

Eric was beginning to resurface but was avoiding my gaze. The first day he showed up in the common room, an icy silence spread among the guests. Caleb and Salomon had risen to welcome him to their table and the incident was over. Everyone knew he had killed me. The truth about the affair and Blake’s manipulation still struggled to get across, but as time went on, Eric won them all over to his cause. His calm temper and honourable personality dispelled any last fears. Salomon remained his closest ally and Thomas his refuge when he wanted to leave the frenetic atmosphere within the walls of Mortain. One evening in November when I was strolling in the confines of the castle, I came across him while in the library. It was the first time we had seen each other alone since he woke up from his coma, and I was well aware that, like his brother, Eric was avoiding me.

“How are you?” I inquired, not finding anything smarter to say.

“I’m recovering slowly,” he said, closing his book and finally raising his eyes in my direction.

I sat down in the chair opposite him, the fireplace radiating its warmth a few feet away from us. The Eric I found looked like the one I had left a few years earlier when I fled to France. Sure of himself, he had regained his muscular frame, and his dark face had regained the beauty that inhabited it.

“So you’re going to become queen.”

“Yes, I know, it’s ridiculous.”

“Not that much. If there’s one person who can compete with the threat of ghosts that I’ve been told about, it’s you.”

“Are you serious?”

“I knew from our first meeting that you were destined for something big. My brother, you and I came to this world late. You have the opportunity to make this society less archaic and more tolerant. If the Six managed to take power for themselves, I wouldn’t give much for our skin in the future, or that of humans.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so understanding.”

“Salomon told me everything. The caste community has always known a monarchy in some form. Our kind only know how to be led in this way, but still it would take good leaders…”

A silence. I couldn’t believe that Eric revealed himself with so much indulgence towards me. The heat of the flames began to mix with my emotions and my body began to burn. Eric noticed it and gave me a sad look.

“But following your destiny as a queen involves marrying Carmichael.”

My throat tightened as his words hung in the air.

“I’ve changed, Eric,” I said after a while.

“I know, but marry Carmichael… for the rest of your life! For eternity!”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You love him?”

I was far from expecting such a direct question and I thought back to Thomas, who had asked the exact same one. I squirmed in my chair and blushed when I noticed that Eric was beginning to show signs of weakness in my presence. I got up in the direction of the exit. Before leaving, I had one last look for him.

“What I feel for him…, I don’t need to control it, and it feels good.”

I turned around and opened the door.

“We were damned anyway,” he muttered.

I had heard and, with a heavy heart, I left.

I had noticed that Eric had been getting closer to Carly Stanton lately. My antipathy to her a few days before the wedding had no limits. Not only did she show herself to be insistent with Eric, who was almost half her age, but she also allowed herself some familiarity with my future husband, which was beginning to get on my nerves. I had asked Carmichael when this leech was going to leave, but he had been evasive and insisted that she stay so that Eric could find memories buried in his mind. He wanted her to stay, I was sure of that, but I refused to be any more jealous and pathetic than I already was.

My brother was unhappy, and it broke my heart to see him wander aimlessly around the castle. He had been deeply marked by our sensory breakdown. He had lost his powers, and his presence at my side no longer had the same effect. My gifts of attraction no longer subsided, which created some problems for me later, by the way. My control over this cursed gift was becoming painful day by day as the castes arrived in droves. Above all, I had to concentrate on retaining the enthusiasm of the newcomers. Carmichael laughed at how much the male presence of castes at the castle had a proportional effect on my pheromones. He laughed, but I knew that his feelings were also abused. Since I had interfered more closely in his life, he too had to adapt to the power of our combined powers. But Carmichael had centuries to learn to control himself. I suffered in silence under my crimson cheeks. Johnny told me that the castes had given me a queen’s nickname: Everliegh, the temptress.

We were both in the temporary room I occupied in the south wing. The Eleonore had been destroyed, and Carmichael refused me entry to his top-level apartments the very moment I had said yes to his request. This distance overwhelmed me even more when I realised that he would not touch me until the coronation took place. My painful pre-wedding ordeal had begun!

“I’m never going to hold out with everything that’s coming up,” I said, panicking. “The wedding, the coronation, the orders, the war… damn, the stress, Johnny!”

“Honey, don’t worry! Johnny is going to organise a wedding for you that we will still remember in a thousand years. Your coronation will mark the spirits so strongly, that all the castes of the world will join you. On the other hand, we’re really going to have to talk about the dress. Honey, your choice really has to be right, you have to be Everliegh the temptress, not a scared little buffoon chattering her teeth!”

Johnny’s enthusiasm had not faded after the news, quite the contrary! Carmichael had asked him to arrange everything for the wedding, so I couldn’t get away from his presence. He talked about that and all the little details associated with this or that decoration, music, dress, flowers, cakes, costumes… I only managed to find a moment alone when he had to go to a meeting to organise the wedding. He treated his business as a professional and proved to be a formidable player.

“Your dress, I found it!” he exclaimed a few days later. It is DI-VI-NE!”

He showed me a photo and my eyes widened in fear.

“No way!”

“You joke! It’s perfect!”

“No, no and no, Johnny. I want something simpler.”

“You’re going to be queen, doll, so act like a queen, damn it! Do you think Marie Antoinette is remembered because she was beheaded? Well, yes, maybe a little, but we remember her mainly because she had style!”

“Yes, but as you rightly noticed, it didn’t work out for her!”

“But you don’t worry, you’re immortal!”

I didn’t win this case! Johnny was determined and always found the right arguments.

“Oh by the way!” He said. “I’m bringing a hairdresser from the city.”

“Will Elvis be here?”

“Of course! His business is going well. He took Mohamed as manager. They’ll both be here with Seb Bassot, Faycal and Bakary.”

“Really, are they coming? I thought that after what they had seen, they preferred to stay away from me.”

“Hello?!” laughed Johnny. “We’re talking about guys from the city here. Danger attracts them!”

“A little like you.”

“Oh no! I came for a Lamborghini, a completely crazy friend and for my business, which will soon be successful thanks to your coronation, my beautiful!”

Johnny was to leave the following three days for London. He had booked a whole train to take the castes and find their outfits and accessories for the ceremony. All the means were at his disposal, and he didn’t hesitate to make use of them as he wanted.

After saying goodbye to Johnny before he left, I went to meet Carmichael in his office, caught up in a discussion about the tight security of the castle and his estate. An absolutely gorgeous dark brown man stood in front of him. He turned his head in my direction and observed me in a lengthy and scrupulous way. I didn’t know what his problem was, but his muscles started to tense after he felt the consequences of that exchange. He put on a satisfied smile that made a dreadful dimple on his left cheek. His blue eyes were penetrating, but nothing showed in them during this mutual inspection. His imposing build matched the features of his face. His strong jaw revealed an incredibly sexy mouth and his well-defined eyebrows accentuated the perfect composition of his face. Clean-shaven, the man had cropped hair, and the neatly styled locks made him look relaxed in response to his outfit for the day. His black jeans clung to his thighs and fell wider over a pair of dark shoes. His T-shirt showed muscular arms covered in tattoos. The dangerous side of the character didn’t escape me, nor did his look, similar to that of the man I was going to marry, I guessed who he was.

“Honey, let me introduce you…”

“Connor,” I said, cutting Carmichael off.

“She is insightful,” said the dark voice of the newcomer.

“She’s divine,” adds his brother.

Connor stood up to kiss me. He was six feet tall, so I stood on my tiptoes to return the favour. His kisses on my cheeks left them inflamed and his gaze, when he pulled back, felt the full extent of my powers. Controlling myself in front of Connor and in the presence of Carmichael was agony, my libido was on a roller coaster and that wasn’t lost on the protagonists in this play. I sat down on the second chair in front of the desk, trying to keep my composure.

“Are you here for the ceremony?” I asked. “Does that mean you’re joining us against the Six?”

“I wanted to see the future king and the future queen with my own eyes before making my decision. I believe that there are many in this case.”

I was beginning to better understand why Johnny was so obsessed with the details and the ceremonial dress. The legitimacy of my sovereignty would only be acquired thanks to this fateful day and my way of behaving there too. It was necessary to surprise and astonish them. This didn’t put pressure on me at all!

“Connor!”

Carly Stanton burst into the office without warning. She went to greet Connor and Carmichael. I felt a small outburst of anger creep in, which Carmichael caught from the start, smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Glad to have met you,” I said to Connor as I stood up.

“The pleasure was mine,” he replied, his voice oddly soft and silky in my ears.

I rushed like a fury to join Johnny. My best friend was sublime, but I had no attraction to him, nor he for me. Being human and gay, Johnny was a stranger to caste quirks, and even despite his eternal spiel around the coronation, he was easier to stick with than anyone else.

I missed Ethan’s calming powers, and even worse was the lack of Carmichael. And with all these castes teeming in the castle, the last days before the wedding turned into suffering and self-sacrifice.