Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
KILLIAN
My queen is happy. My people are safe behind my walls. My army is training harder than ever. Thea’s Gift reaches new heights every day as she works to hone and control her power.
And yet.
Unease lives inside my chest like a serpent, slick and cold and coiling. Something is wrong. Something is coming. Something is missing.
That’s the part that worries me the most. Missing. I’m missing something important. I’m not seeing something I should and it could mean the end of everything. I pour over the maps and correspondence, reports of Barony’s abominations, of the army’s movements.
“What the fuck am I missing?” I growl to myself, running a hand roughly through my hair and taking a long drink of my whisky.
It burns in a comforting, familiar way, the same way Thea’s skin does when she comes apart from my touch.
Hers is a cold burn, of course, but a burn all the same.
I don’t think she even realizes that it happens and I’ve never told her.
It’s a secret touch meant only for me, a hidden language between the two of us.
My lips curl at the thought of it happening just an hour ago, the cold burning my palms as my fingers clenched around her waist, pulling her down hard atop me over and over, her hands bound behind her back…
“Missing?” she asks sleepily from the doorway. I look up to find her leaning against the wooden frame, thin silk nightgown hiding little. Heat stirs and my cock takes immediate notice as it always does when I gaze upon her. Gorgeous. Perfect. Mine.
She strides inside and hops atop my war table, heedless of my papers, and I smile. She kisses me soft but deep, and puts her hand over my chest.
“What’s wrong?”
I exhale roughly. Having someone to share these troubles with is novel, but something I can never thank the Makers enough for. I have Frederick. I have Dessa. I have my advisors and officers. But none of them are Thea. None of them know my heart and mind and soul the way she does.
“Something’s…off, and I can’t pinpoint why.
I feel like I’m missing something important, forgetting some detail or…
fuck, I don’t know.” I shake my head in frustration.
“It feels as if I’m constantly running, my heart never slowing, my blood always pumping, always on edge and ready for something, but I have no idea what. ”
“You don’t think it’s just because of the coming battles?”
“No, this is different.” I can’t quite explain why, but it is.
“We’ll figure it out, Killian. I know it.” I lean my forehead against hers, taking the strength she gives me with one touch, the buoy in the stormy seas I can cling to. If I have her, I have everything. I can do anything. “Speaking of battles, I have two questions on that front.”
I pull back and brush fiery locks from her forehead before kissing it and quirking a brow.
“Just two?”
“For tonight.” I huff out a laugh but nod for her to continue. “One: when do you think the first fight will happen? Dessa said that there’s a group moving across the northern edge of The Perilous. Will we meet them?”
“I think so.” I try to find the best way to phrase what I want to say, pursing my lips.
“It will be a good…practice ground for you.” The contingent isn’t small, but it isn’t overly large.
Ryker’s ravens have heard that Barony is sending some of his abominations and I believe that he, too, is using this as a test of sorts. “We’ll leave end of the week.”
She takes a deep breath but nods. I know that she’s nervous, but I can also see the fire in those emerald eyes, the warrior in her standing up and readying to fight.
“Well that brings me to question number two: if I’m to ride into battle as the Ice Queen of Duskthorne, shouldn’t I actually be the queen of Duskthorne…?”
My eyes fly wide. I haven’t pushed the idea of marriage, or her taking the smaller throne that could sit beside mine, that will only ever be meant for her.
If she never wanted it, that was fine with me.
I’d never given two fucks about royal business and royal lines and royal bullshit, so if she simply wanted to be together without marriage and titles, I was ok with that.
But a part of me did long for it for reasons I can’t even quite explain.
Whether I wanted it or not, I am the King of Duskthorne, and having Thea choose to be my queen in truth, to watch over and protect my people by my side, to want to be tied to me in all of the ways both man and Makers have designed…
“Are you saying…?”
She wraps her arms around my neck, fingers sifting through the hair at my nape the way that I love. Such a casual, familiar touch, but one that makes my chest tighten.
“I’m saying that I am yours, Killian. I am yours in every way and that includes being by your side as your queen.
This place is my home and it somehow always has been.
Your people are my people.” She kisses me then, just a quick brush of lips before she pulls back enough to add, “Plus, I think Tesni may very well die at the thought of me being a queen.”
I laugh at that and kiss her fiercely, pouring every word I can’t say into it, letting my body tell her everything my heart longs to. Within moments the ember becomes a full flame, and both of us burn out of control. Bodies clash, tongues dance, nails scratch, and oh does the ice burn.
My war table has never been in such shambles, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.
“Does it feel different?” Dessa asks Thea as we make camp.
The Alliance’s forces are half a day’s journey away and we’ll meet them tomorrow.
Thanks to Thea’s Gift, we were able to make the trek from Duskthorne in half the time, even with stopping in Tithmoore to pick up some of their troops to bolster our numbers and to visit with Ryker.
He and Thea have had a strange connection since the moment they met, and it’s only grown since then.
Neither of them can explain why, but the two of them act almost like.
..I shake myself, deciding to think on that after we’ve won this battle and are safely back home.
“May I present Queen Thea Blackheart,” I’d said when we entered Ryker’s throne room, making Thea roll her eyes but her smile only grew wider.
We’d married the night after she’d decided she wanted to take up the crown, in a small ceremony—though Cece and Dessa both insist on a full week-long celebration once the war has been won.
Cece and Dessa melded together immediately, and I could practically see the joy in Thea’s heart at the sight of her old life and her new one coming together so perfectly.
Mia had remained behind with Cece and Math looking after her and I know that Dessa is happy for it.
As much as she loved having her sister near during the last campaign, I know she feels safer with her behind Duskthorne’s walls now.
Thea had insisted on taking my mother’s surname, deciding that the new line of Duskthorne royals should have nothing to do with my father. I agreed, not having realized how much I hated having to use his name as king, even as sparsely as I did.
“Besides,” she’d said, “soon you won’t have to hide who you are and the truth of this place. Soon Gifteds will be safe and Barony will be a pile of ash—er, well, a block of ice, technically.”
“Does what feel different?” Thea responds now, pulling me back from my thoughts.
“Riding into camp as one of us instead of a prisoner?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I do kind of miss the ropes,” she says thoughtfully, but she shoots me a pointed look, that wicked gleam in her eye.
I’d had her tied to our bed just a few days past, tethered and squirming and desperate as I brought her to the edge over and over, never letting her fall until she was nearly feral with need… I clear my throat and she laughs.
“And not just as one of us, but as our queen,” Dessa sighs.
“I never would have thought…” She shakes her head, a fond smile on her lips.
I know she’s happy because she loves Thea, but even more so because she never thought I’d find anyone to share this life with, these burdens.
“I cannot wait until you let us celebrate properly.”
Thea rolls her eyes but smiles, and they start to talk dresses and balls and parades, and I try to envision it all, but my mind keeps being pulled away by that uneasy feeling, stronger now.
I keep telling myself that it’s simply fear for my wife—my wife.
Makers, I’ll never tire of those words—being in battle for the first time, but I know there’s more to it than that.
Something is wrong. Something is coming.
The words echo inside my mind over and over until I grit my teeth, wanting to pull my hair out to make them stop.
We make camp and settle into our tent for the evening.
Soren goes out to hunt and spy, and as soon as he slips away, a current of desperation charges the air around us.
Tomorrow we fight and though we are well prepared—I can block any Gifts and Thea is nearly unstoppable, though she is insistent that she doesn’t want a repeat performance of what happened on the tundra—there is always a chance that one of us may not walk off of the killing field.
“Killian,” she whispers, and that’s all it takes.
A heartbeat later, she’s in my arms, fingers clawing, fabric ripping, lips seeking and finding.
Despite the desperation and fear, we move together slowly, deeply, savoring every moment, every touch and taste and sound.
She breaks apart beneath me, clutching me close until I join her, whispering her name into the crook of her neck over and over.
She is my peace. She is my home.
And she will survive. I vow it to all the Makers. No matter what, my wife, my queen, my soul will survive.