The Flame King’s Queen (Fire and Desire #3)

Chapter 22

22

Zabriel

C ompetition days are some of the most rewarding I’ve had since becoming King of Maledin. It makes me indescribably happy to see the people and my fellow dragonriders enjoying themselves. Isavelle has taken a relaxed step back from the events now that she feels she’s proven herself, and now she’s just enjoying being the guest of honor as a proud and beloved spectator. Though she and Esmeral don’t compete, many people in the crowd still wave their colors.

After five events, Stesha and I are leading the board, with Sundra not far behind. The wild dragons are still in the competition, which surprises me. I thought they would have eaten their riders by now. Rhan, in particular, does well on Ragdyn.

As we near the final events, I can feel rivalry crackling between myself and the dragonmaster. Exchanges and compliments such as “Good skies to you, Ma’len ,” and “Nilak flew beautifully,” are spoken automatically as we fiercely assess each other and the state of our mounts. Dragons can sometime lose energy or determination if they are in front of noisy crowds day after day. Pavel’s dragon, Lethis, isn’t enjoying all the cheering, and Auryn seems more and more irritated by all the flapping banners, but Scourge shows no strain and neither does Nilak.

Unlike many of the others, our dragons seem to thrive on all the attention, Scourge with stoic pride and Nilak with the haughtiness of a dragon finally receiving the adulation she feels she deserves. Her head is lifted proudly, her best talons are forward. She gleams from her snout to the tip of her tail. I wonder if the dragonmaster gets any sleep between polishing her scales. Scourge won’t let me touch his scales with a polishing cloth, and black doesn’t show the dirt much anyway, so I mostly spend my nervous energy between events pacing around the castle.

As I make my rounds of the various courtyards and lonely corridors late one afternoon, I realize eventually that I’m not alone. It’s not unusual to pass soldiers or castle workers, but I have the strange feeling that the same person has been watching me for the past hour. It’s a woman, and she’s standing in shadow with her hands clasped demurely in front of her. She has draped a thin, gauzy veil over her features that falls all the way to her knees. Her clothes are very fine, or at least they once were. They’re embroidered with gold thread but seem faded and slightly crumpled. I wonder if she’s a visiting noble who wishes to speak with me but she’s nervous to approach the king.

“My lady, if you wish to speak with me, you may step forward. Or are you lost?” I call to her.

She gazes at me in silence, or at least I think she does because I can’t make out her eyes through that gauze and the shadows. There’s something both familiar and ominous about her, and as she continues to stare at me, a shiver goes down my spine.

I approach her warily. “Do I know you? Who are you?”

The woman turns slowly and walks away, her clothing rustling like dead leaves. I should continue on my way and tell the guards to look out for a woman acting strangely within the castle. At the door into the corridor, she glances over her shoulder at me. There’s something odd about her silhouette through that veil. It’s entirely too gaunt, and her figure is painfully thin and fragile, but somehow still maddeningly familiar.

I approach her, peering through the gloom for a clearer look at her. “Who are you?”

“Zabriel,” she whispers, and her voice is dry and scratchy. Slowly, one of her hands appears from beneath the veil and reaches for me. A skeletal hand.

I feel my stomach vanish from my abdomen. I can’t move a muscle as that bony white hand slowly approaches my face.

“You let me die, Zabriel,” she whispers.

These are her clothes. It’s her sweet voice that is whispering to me from a dry, ravaged throat. “Mother?”

Her bony hand touches my cheek, and she feels as though she’s made of ice. “I died, and you forgot me. You have all forgotten me. You abandoned me even before I was dead.”

My chest feels tight with grief and guilt. The former queen puts her bony hands around my throat and starts to squeeze. Her sharp, icy bones cut into my flesh, and my windpipe feels as though it’s being crushed.

I seize her wrist and try to pull her off me, but her strength is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

“Help me, Zabriel. Help me,” she cries, as if she is the one being choked and not me. Green light burns in her empty eye sockets.

“You’re not real. Emmeric made you,” I choke out.

I can feel my life force being sucked out of me. Black spots are dancing before my eyes. I’m going to die in this lonely courtyard, and leave my mate and my baby unprotected. Terror bursts through my veins, but I can’t manage to break free. Distantly, I hear the sound of running feet.

“There he is,” a woman cries, and I recognize Isavelle’s voice.

“ Sha’lenla . Stay back,” I rasp.

But Isavelle isn’t listening to me. I can hear her chanting strange words and see her moving her hands out of the corner of my eye. There’s a flash of red hair, and another woman begins casting a spell.

Isavelle shouts, and a gold crack of lightning leaps from her fingers and through my dead mother’s skull. The former queen reels back with a soundless scream as she clutches her head with both hands. The veil she wears is pulled from her head as she thrashes about, and I see decayed flesh, exposed bone, and gray hair clinging to a bony skull. All her flesh has withered away.

Ravenna casts her own spell, and my mother’s skeletal form falls to her knees, but she still doesn’t die. Or un-die. I’ve never gotten my head around what undead means. Ravenna brandishes a long, thin dagger, and she stabs my mother through the heart, finally finishing her off.

I cry out raggedly and in pain. Blood is roaring in my ears as I watch my mother crumple in on herself and slowly turn to ash, flaking away until she’s nothing but a dark smear on the ground.

Ravenna backs away from me, the dagger dropping from her fingers and clattering on the stones. “I’m sorry, Ma’len . She was killing you.”

There must be such horror on my face to make her so afraid of me. Or is her fear for me?

“Up there,” Isavelle shouts, pointing at something above my head.

Standing on a walkway overlooking the courtyard is Corin, Aurissa’s rider, and he’s grinning down at me with a preternatural smile stretching his lips. There’s something wrong about him, like a corpse that’s been animated, or a person who’s wearing a mask that’s almost real but not quite.

“Grab him before he can run,” Isavelle calls to the guards who have followed my mate into the courtyard. They race upstairs to seize him, but before the guards can surround him, Corin’s features melt away, revealing his true face. Emmeric’s face.

Green light flares in his eyes, and he grins at me before a circle of light appears behind him, and he steps through it. The light vanishes, and so does he.

Wind blows through the courtyard, sending my mother’s pale ashes up into the sky. I never knew where my mother’s body lay. There was so much chaos the day they were killed, and I was never able to return to the castle and bury their bodies before I was imprisoned beneath the mountain. Emmeric must have found her, and he resurrected her to torture me.

Isavelle approaches me and takes my hands. Warm, living hands. My own flesh is like ice. “Ravenna, he’s bleeding. Can you cast that spell on Zabriel?”

“ That spell?” I ask, confused. “On me ?”

“Ravenna cast a healing spell on your mother’s animated body to put her back to rest,” Isavelle explains gently. “They work against the undead, the opposite way that they work on the living. This will help you.”

I can’t feel any pain in my throat, but something is trickling down my chest that I suppose must be blood. Ravenna lifts her hands, and I feel a gentle rush of warmth. For a moment I feel stinging pain, and then the sensation fades.

I blink and realize how close I came to dying within the walls of my own castle. I pull Isavelle into my arms and hold her tight. “Thank you, sha’lenla . You saved my life. And you, Ravenna. But how did you know I was here and in danger?”

Isavelle looks conflicted as she tells me, “Kane sensed there was something wrong. I almost didn’t listen to him.”

“Kane? Kane sensed I was in danger and warned you?”

“We are just as astonished as you, Ma’len ,” Ravenna says.

I stare at the ashy smudges on the ground, all that’s left of my mother. Did Kane sense something wrong, or was he part of this? Emmeric was wearing one of his dragonrider’s faces.

“I will speak to Kane,” I say through gritted teeth to whichever of my soldiers are close enough to hear. “Drag that man here on his knees if you must.”

“Why, am I under arrest for saving the king’s life?” sneers a voice I’ve learned to hate.

Kane walks into the courtyard, pushing a man ahead of him, holding him by the scruff of his clothes. The man is unsteady on his feet and his hands are tied before his back. It’s Corin, but he looks drunk or drugged and completely unaware of what’s happening to him.

Kane peers at me closely, examining my face and the blood on my clothes. “It nearly killed you, whatever it was. Some kind of undead, I suppose?”

“It was Zabriel’s mother,” Isavelle says. “Queen Magritte.”

“His mother? ” Kane exclaims with a laugh. “No wonder she was able to get her hands on you. I would have loved to see—”

Isavelle interrupts him. “Shut up, Kane.”

“Did you do this?” I ask him. “Bring an enemy within my walls? Emmeric was wearing Corin’s face.”

Kane shakes the drunken or drugged Corin in my face. “Do you not see what I have here? He was tied up in a cupboard. You’re so stupid sometimes, but I suppose it isn’t a surprise. Kings are always fools.”

Emmeric must have used some kind of impersonation spell to make himself look like Corin and enter the castle. My people didn’t notice there was anything strange going on because we don’t know Corin, but Kane and his riders should have.

Isavelle’s hand tightens on my arm. “Kane, speak plainly and without insults, or you will find yourself thrown in a dungeon.”

Kane smiles, revealing his dragines. “But I’m having so much fun, witch. Let’s hear a few more of the foolish king’s theories, if he can stay on his feet. The man looks as though he will fall down at any moment.”

Ravenna approaches Kane with a sweet smile. “I also enjoy fun. Do you remember?”

Kane contemplates his mate, and there’s a dark flicker in his gaze. He turns back to me. “I resent that the king has accused me when I’m the one who sent the witches to save him. I have no designs on your throne. I have made it very clear what I want. I fucking hate the Shadow King, remember?”

Kane goes to the center of the courtyard. He gets down on one knee, wipes a gloved forefinger through the ashes, and rubs it with his thumb. “It was a powerful spell that was used to raise the former queen from her resting place. Difficult to disrupt once she had her bony hands on her victim.”

“Queen Isavelle was able to do it,” Ravenna tells him.

He turns to me. “The witches are growing more formidable. I wonder how you’ll control them when they’re both stronger than you, Ma’len . Perhaps the day will come when you’ll make use of my services after all.”

“Your services as a witchfinder? I am not going to need them against my own queen, and if you try to use them against anyone else, you will be arrested. You have one minute to tell me why you didn’t realize Emmeric was wearing your dragonrider’s face, or you and your men will all be banished from Maledin.”

“Your threats are so unoriginal, Ma’len . But if you must know, for the last few days I’ve felt an evil presence around Lenhale, but I haven’t been able to pin it down. I thought it was the queen’s sister, but all that little idiot has is a headful of wyvern wings. My mate is always up to no good…” His sidelong gaze lingers on Ravenna. “But only when it comes to tormenting me. This was something else.”

“Why am I only finding out about this now?”

A hateful smile curls his lips. “I spoke with the queen at length. Didn’t she tell you? Ah, I understand. The king is too stupid to understand matters of magic. I suppose you could have tried acting it out with hand puppets…”

“Kane—” Isavelle begins hotly.

I reach for Isavelle’s hand and squeeze it reassuringly. Now I understand what’s been happening here. “All right, Kane. As long as you weren’t keeping secrets from us. Go back to your dragons, and take the real Corin with you. When he comes to his senses, try asking him how he ended up drugged and replaced by an undead mage, but it doesn’t really matter now.”

Kane stares at me in silence.

“What?” I ask coldly.

“Is that all?”

“Would you like to be flogged and banished? I can order it if you insist.”

“I would like some gratitude,” he snaps. “That’s twice now I’ve used my witchfinder powers in service to the King of Maledin, and what do I have to show for it? No one gives me their thanks. No one listens to me. Your mate didn’t take my warnings serious enough to tell you about them, and that nearly got you killed.”

There’s little I loathe more than someone who is constantly cruel, belittling, and arrogant and then bleats about injustice and ingratitude. “Thank you for doing the bare minimum as a guest of this castle and a resident of Maledin, Kane.”

“The bare minimum? Being the only one to sense evil magic performed right under your nose and warning the queen about it is the bare minimum?” he splutters.

“Your abilities are extraordinary. Your character is not.”

Kane takes a deep breath and prepares to go on a rant, but I hold up a hand.

“I don’t want to hear it. I esteem those I trust. You have done nothing to earn my regard, and everything to earn my censure, yet you stand there so confidently, so filled with self-congratulation, as if you single-handedly saved my life. Have you asked for gratitude for the witches, or just for yourself? An Alpha who takes credit for the hard work of others is a pathetic sight. Remove yourself from mine.”

Kane’s breathing is short, sharp, and angry. He glances at Isavelle and Ravenna as if waiting for one of them to speak in his defense. Neither does. He storms away through the stone arch.

I smile at Isavelle and Ravenna. “Thank you for saving my life, both of you. Ravenna, when my head is clearer I will think of some suitable reward.”

“Oh, I think you just gave it to me, Ma’len . I’ll leave you both in peace.” Smiling, she curtseys and makes her way out of the courtyard.

I wrap both arms around Isavelle and kiss the top of her head.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Kane sensing evil within the castle,” Isavelle says, her voice muffled in my chest. “I thought Ravenna might have been performing dark magic to make Kane suffer, and while I didn’t approve and I was worried for her, it’s not as though she doesn’t have good reasons to protect herself from him in any way that she can.”

“So she’s not performing dark magic in my castle?”

Isavelle hesitates. “I don’t know. I suppose Kane was sensing Corin and not Ravenna.”

Maybe he was sensing both. “Are there not consequences for performing spells with the intent of harming the living? I don’t know anything about dark magic other than what it has turned my brother into, but he has lost all his humanity because of that lich.” I pass my hand over my throat, wishing I couldn’t still feel my mother’s bones sinking into my flesh.

“Yes, and Ravenna knows that. She will be weighing her decisions carefully, I hope. But how are you feeling Zabriel? You must have been so horrified when you saw your mother raised as one of the undead.”

“Will you think me less of a king and your Alpha if I tell you I was scared out of my wits?”

She caresses my cheek. “I will think of you as a man who loved his mother.”

“Then it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you for saving me, sha’lenla .” Isavelle’s scent fills my nostrils, but it’s not enough to soothe the ache in my heart. I need more of her. Burying my nose in her hair, I ask, “Is there anywhere you must be?”

“Nowhere but with you, Zabriel.”

I scoop her up in my arms and carry her away. “Then you’re coming with me.”

Upstairs in our chambers, I lay her out on the bed. My hands roam all over her as I undress her and shrug out of my own clothes, but I can still feel the ghost of that dead hand around my throat.

“I can’t lose you, sha’lenla . You or the baby.”

“You won’t,” she whispers to me. “We love our king. We’re not going anywhere.”

I cradle her soft breasts in my hands, sucking one of her nipples and then the other. The only thing that’s going to convince me that she’s safe in my arms and I’m alive is to make her come again and again, until her slick is all over me.

I lay on the bed and pull her thighs over my shoulders, and run my tongue up her sex. She jumps and cries out, and then settles into panting and whimpering while I alternately push my tongue inside of her and lick her clit. I make a game of how many fingers I can push inside of her before she comes, which is all four on one hand and three on the other, and she drenches me with her slick.

Isavelle tries to sit up, but I stop her.

“Lay back. I want to worship my queen.”

Gods, how incredible she looks laid out in my bed, with her rounded thighs and her swollen belly. Whenever I see her around the castle, the baby is noticeable every time she moves, and I can’t keep my eyes off her. Now that she’s naked, my knot is aching at the sight of my baby that she’s carrying within her. I urgently need to get my cock inside her and fill her up with cum to make the baby strong.

I turn her onto her side and pull her back against my chest, and slip a finger between her thighs so I can caress her clit. “You should see yourself as you walk around my castle. Ripe as a peach. Beautiful as a summer’s day. Smelling irresistible. It’s a miracle I can get anything done, because do you know what I’m actually thinking about?”

“What, Zabriel?” she asks, her eyes closed and her head tipped back in bliss.

“I’m thinking about fucking my Omega. Having you locked tight to me wherever I go, my cum leaking out of you while I knot you and fill you up even more.”

Isavelle moans even louder, and I smile against her throat as her cries reach a fever pitch and she arches with her climax. There’s a great spurt of wetness between her legs and she gets her slick all over my cock. I can’t wait any longer, and while she’s still panting, I hook her thigh over my forearm and thrust into her.

“Gods, Zabriel,” she cries out as I pump into her.

“You are the queen I’ve always dreamed of. My beautiful Omega.” I sink my teeth into the back of her neck with a growl, and then lick the spot.

“I love your teeth in me,” she whispers.

I bite her again, harder this time. Her scent fills my mouth with sweetness. I make myself fuck her slowly, my fingers circling on her clit and making her come again and again until she’s a panting mess and her slick is covering both of our thighs.

“Do you want my knot?” I growl in her ear.

“Please. Please ,” she whimpers.

I thrust faster and harder, one arm locked around her hips so I can work my knot into her. She gasps every time the thick bulge of flesh pushes insistently against her sex. I hold her tight with my teeth, growling in pleasure, until my climax surges through me and with a final hard thrust my I drive my knot inside her, and it swells up. Isavelle screams my name as her blood bursts in my mouth.

“Don’t let me go, Alpha,” she whimpers, shuddering in my arms. “Hold me. Fuck me with your knot. I need you.”

Groaning, I give my queen what she needs, pulling her further down on my knot and pressing up with my hips until she comes again.

Isavelle’s well-fucked scent has driven away the darkness of the day. With my knot locked deep inside her, I wrap my arms tightly around my mate, and I finally feel myself again.