Chapter 18 #2
Zyran is there, just like something in my chest told me he was. His wings are tightly folded behind him, and he holds the banister, staring out over the night sky and the city. My skin glitters in the moonlight from the flowers as I walk over to his side. “What did you do?”
He looks down at me, his eyes as dark as the sky above us. “I don’t think tonight’s a good time to talk about it. You should be having fun with your friend. That’s what I brought you here for. Normal fun. You’re so young and you deserve that.”
“I might be young, but my life has hardly been sheltered or easy.” Silence. “Someone just told me that you killed royals and massacred hundreds of people. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me what you did.”
“It’s true.” He whispers it, and the words crack something in my chest slightly.
He killed some of my family. “Don’t you ever wonder why you have no other family beyond your parents?
There were two heirs: your mother and your uncle.
Your uncle was older, but your mother was more powerful.
Oblivion chose her; therefore, she became queen.
But your uncle was not happy about that.
He hated her for it and spent his life building supporters to his side, not your mother’s.
I was tasked with watching him, so I did—I got close to him, made it seem as though I was on his side.
I got close to his daughter too. Not the way you and I are, Meredith, but she was very infatuated with me.
I will say I used that to get closer to him, to report back to the king and queen what he was doing. ”
He pauses and gulps once.
“She was like her father—manipulative, wanting the throne. But the king and queen, your parents, never classed her as a princess because your uncle had never married her mother. Her mother ran off, leaving him with the child. Being born in wedlock is an important factor for a royal family, and she was, for all intents and purposes, a bastard. She was furious about this, and your uncle had made a plan to assassinate the king, his pregnant wife, and their son. I managed to stop that plan, and you were born. But you were born with so much oblivion, Meredith—it shook the grounds of this very city—and he hated it. Your uncle and your cousin knew that someday you’d be more powerful than any of them.
There would be no negotiation about who should have the throne other than you.
It was history repeating itself for another generation.
Dain would likely have become just as bitter that you had taken the throne over him.
It was a mess, and your uncle knew it. He knew the best chance was to kill you and kill everything that stood in the way of his throne. ”
He looks out over the city, seeming like he doesn’t want to continue, but then his eyes lock onto mine.
“So I stopped him. I killed him. I killed her. I killed everyone who supported him—all six hundred of them. I thought your mother and father would be pleased, or at least understand my actions. I understood she would grieve her brother, but I couldn’t let him kill you.
Something, even then, made me want to protect you.
I had never even laid eyes on you, Meredith. ”
I clench my hands on the railing.
“Of course, your mother was grieving, and they had to follow the laws. I was cursed to be this”—he gestures to himself, the wings, the grey skin—“and thrown to the Folkland. Stripped of everything I was. Time in the Folkland is different—faster. Hundreds of years passed in the blink of an eye on that island, even if time does not pass the same way here. Twenty years for you, hundreds for me. I spent many years wondering what had happened to the city that I loved, that I sacrificed everything for, only to be cursed and thrown out.” He exhales slowly.
“They call me a royal killer for that. Do you hate me for it too?”
“No, gods, no. Zyran…I might have called you my monster to begin with, but you are far from a monster.” I touch his hand. “You protected the royal family, even if taking lives from the royal family was the only way you could do it. My father shouldn’t have cursed you.”
“When we take the touch of oblivion, we promise never to kill anyone in the royal family, or we will be cursed. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I don’t regret it.
” He takes a step towards me. “I certainly don’t regret it now either.
When I first saw you, I knew with absolute certainty that you were my mate—that I had been protecting you even back then, when I never even knew you. ”
“You should have told me this, Zyran.” I hesitate. “Is that why Dain hates you?”
“Dain thinks I murdered his uncle. Doesn’t understand any of it, and he doesn’t want to know the truth.” Something shifts in his expression. “I dislike him, though.”
“Why?”
“Because you should be on the throne, Meredith. The queen that all of us would kneel for.” His hands grab my hips, pulling me to him.
“Though I much prefer to be on my knees for you.” His lips crash onto mine.
I fully embrace it—deepening the kiss, hands sinking into his hair, pulling him towards me.
I love him, I realise with a shock. I’m in love with Zyran, and now there are no secrets lingering between us.
He is mine and I don’t want it any other way.
I part my legs and he steps between them, pulling me hard against him.
His hands brush down my breasts, and I gasp, a bolt of pleasure shooting through me.
“I haven’t done anything more than what we’ve shared before,” I whisper.
“There’s something I want to do to you. Let me taste you.
” He kisses my jaw. “When I first take you, you’ll be wearing mate marks, Meredith.
If we are lucky, fated mate marks will burn over my skin and then yours,” he whispers against my skin.
“But first, let me bow for my queen. You’ll always be my queen, Meredith. My love.”
He goes to his knees for me. My breath hitches as he pushes up my skirt.
If he sees the burns on my legs, he doesn’t seem to notice—and I could cry.
He isn’t disgusted by them. Illyia was right.
Zyran pushes my dress to my waist, revealing my core, and stares up at me with unbridled lust in his eyes. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” I know he needs to hear it, and it’s about far more than this. It’s about the messed-up past and the future for us. It all balances on trust. He runs his hands up my thighs slowly. I give him a shaky nod.
“Then hold onto the railing.”
I do as he asks, my fingers clutching the metal railing as I look out over the city.
The night air is cool against my skin, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from him.
He buries his face between my legs, and my head falls back, my hair blowing in the breeze.
His hot tongue runs all the way up my slit and around the small nub at the top.
A cry echoes out of my throat as pure pleasure bolts down my spine, flooding across my body. “Goddess!”
“It’s just you and me,” he murmurs against my hot flesh. “You will scream my name, love.”
He takes his time, unhurried and devastating, as though he has all night to take me apart piece by piece.
His fingers work in and out of my body, and his tongue controls me.
I moan, my hips arching into him, and I know it won’t be long now until I lose myself to him.
His hand runs up, cupping my breast, his fingers running over my hard nipple.
I gasp his name like a prayer, my knuckles white against the railing, the city sprawling endlessly below us—indifferent and oblivious to what he is doing to me.
The amazing pressure builds and builds in my body, until it crashes into the most intense release I’ve ever felt.
My whole body shudders, my legs threatening to give way beneath me.
I cry out Zyran’s name to the stars and the wind, and he growls, his hands digging into my thighs.
“Fuck, you taste like everything I’ve ever dreamed of. ”
He rises slowly, his hands grazing up my spine as he stands and wraps an arm around me to keep me upright. I am trembling. The city hums far below, and for a long moment, neither of us speaks—there are no words left, only the wind and the warmth of him pressed against my back.
As I come down from it, he kisses my neck once, looking at me like there is no one else in the world. I can’t manage a word. He lifts me up, cradling me in his arms, just holding me to him as I sink my head into his neck.
“Thank you,” he whispers quietly into my ear. “You’re the first person that’s ever known the truth and not hated me for it.”
My monster, who is not a monster at all.