"Tell me something honest."
REVIEW
Would I read it again? Yes No Maybe
Spicy Level Legend How spicy is this book?
SUMMARY
Emilie’s parents arranged a marriage with King Cyrus. He is widowed from his first arranged marriage. Cyrus is King of Osavian. Prince Ladon is commander of the armies or something. He doesn’t trust Emilie and her family. He believes Emilie is a spoiled rotten princess and is only marrying Cyrus for his money and power. Which is what Emilie’s parents want, but not her. She wants to be free from her parents because her mom is kind of the worst.
Ladon spends the majority of the first part of the book trying to convince Cyrus not to marry Emilie. He is also super mean and rude to her for no reason. Cyrus asks him to help her learn how to fight and he basically just kicks her ass.
Ladon tries to warn Cyrus about Renya, the ruler of Murvort. Cyrus is like dude nah, she is harmless. They get a message from the border saying that two of the soldiers have went missing and one of their heads have been returned. Ladon wants to send men over to find them but Cyrus doesn’t want to start a war so he only sends a few guys over. Cyrus gets another message saying "everything's fine, you should come check it out”. Ladon says he is going too - he needs to go check on his soldiers. Emilie wants to come too but Ladon is like yeah no, but Cyrus says she can go.
Once they get there, Ladon instantly knows something is wrong (mainly because everyone is very dead). And yes something is terribly wrong. Murvort soldiers are lying in wait and there’s an ambush. Emilie gets separated and Ladon goes to get her while the soldiers they traveled with protect Cyrus. But shit goes sideways and Ladon and Emilie get captured.
Renya is the bad guy just like Ladon tried to warn Cyrus.
She uses a giant snake (very Voldemort of her) to attack Emilie and when Ladon starts begging her for an antidote, he says he will do anything she wants. And then they’re both knocked out. When they wake up, their arms and legs are covered in black line tattoos. Renya uses it to control them and subdue their magic. In order not to have to describe all of the sexual assault I’ll just say: Renya uses Ladon as her personal sex slave and entertainment (and makes them her housekeepers). Emilie mouths off one time and Renya sends Ladon back to their room and then Emilie finds out what Ladon has been subjected to every single night.
Emilie and Ladon grow closer because they are forced to. Forced proximity and shared trauma and all that.
They befriend a harpy who helps them when she is able.
Two other slaves, look like teenagers. Renya mentions they have been missing from their family for a decade. She gets pissed because they killed one of her hellhounds so she uses her lightning to fry the boy and then uses her snake to kill the girl. Then makes Ladon clean up the rest.
They discover, with the harpy’s help, that there are tunnels but they were closed off with runes by Renya. They need her blood to open them.
More sexual assault: Renya forces Emilie to give Ladon a blowjob. Its not that she doesn’t want to, and its not that he doesn’t want it, its the fact that Renya forces her to do it with her watching.
One night after they are forced to “entertain” her guests (aka more sexual assault), she makes Emilie take birth control, which freaks her out because she is still a virgin. She asks Ladon that night to please have sex with her because she doesn’t want her first time to be rape. So he does, willingly. There’s also another time when she makes them paint their bodies gold, and then pose on top of the dining room table in a sex position, while everyone eats dinner. (Renya is so fucked up).
Another night, Renya calls both of them to her room and wants Emilie to watch her fuck Ladon. But Ladon is having trouble getting an erection which makes Emilie laugh and say she is just shocked that such a beautiful woman such as Renya is having trouble seducing a man. But she says it with a whole bunch of disrespect so Renya is like fine, little whore, you think you can do it, go ahead. Emilie is, of course, successful. Which realllyyyy pisses off Renya so she uses her lightning to whip Emillie into unconsciousness. Ladon begs her to stop so she whips him a bit. It's around this time that Ladon realizes he is in love with Emilie. She takes Emilie to an actual cell and Ladon back to his room. Emilie has been gone for two weeks, and Ladon has destroyed the room they were staying in. He is showering when there’s some explosions and Ladon fears that he is going to get stuck in his room while the mountain collapses around him. The harpy comes and gets him and takes him to Emilie. Emilie has discovered a tunnel entrance in her cell and they use Renya’s blood that Ladon has gotten (by biting her one time when he was going down on her and spitting it into a tube he kept in his pocket) to open the tunnel.
At the end of the tunnel, they are greeted by some soldiers. It's Cyrus and his men.
Cyrus takes them, including the harpy, back to their camp they have set up. They are taken to a healer’s tent where the harpy whips up some lotion stuff and is able to remove the black line tattoos on Emilie and Ladon. Ladon wants to immediately join in the fighting and Cyrus can’t convince him to sit it out. Emilie also wants to help but Cyrus is hesitant on that. He sends Emilie back to his tent, which makes Ladon and Emilie uncomfortable, but they go along with it. They know right now is not the time to tell Cyrus what has developed between them. When Cyrus goes to his tent to retire, he sleeps on the floor, and lets Emilie have the bed.
The next day there is a battle. Ladon takes off from everyone else and ends up in the hedge maze where this started forever ago. He finds Renya with Tristan and Luther (her little henchmen). They fight and Ladon manages to kill Tristan and then Renya and Luther (for lack of a better term) disapparate.
Meanwhile, Emilie is fighting in the main battle and doing a pretty good job thanks to Ladon and his training while they were in captivity. Cyrus gets stabbed and while his wound shouldn’t be fatal, it's not behaving normally either. The area around the wound starts turning dark and not responding to the healers.
He isn’t the only one who has this weird infection, at least a dozen others do as well and the healers have no idea what to do about it.
Two days later, back at Renoa (aka home), Ladon and Emilie are attempting to act normal but neither of them feel right. They also have to pretend that they aren’t in love with each other. Cyrus is either in a coma or an induced coma. They meet in the library, Emilie says she wants to do this the right way, so they need to act platonic until Cyrus wakes up so they can talk to him. Ladon is doubtful they can remain platonic but she says she wants to be with him forever and the only way they can do that is with the approval of Cyrus and Ladon’s mom. They make out for the “last time” until they can talk to Cyrus. As Emilie is walking out, Ladon says, “Falling for you might be the most foolish thing I’ve ever done, but I love you.” She replies, “Then I must be a fool as well, because I love you too, Ladon.” Ladon stands there for a few more minutes, love drunk, and then he starts to walk out, when he sees his mom. She looks at him with “empathy and frustration” and says “we need to talk”.
Well…fuck.
Magic Recap:
Cyrus - fire magic
Ladon - earth magic
Emilie - wind magic
Renya - straight up witch. She can do lots of magic, including lightning and mind control.
#ad Click here to purchase this book from Amazon, As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.