Chapter 42
Forty-Two
Truces are for the weak.
There is nothing harder than getting sworn enemies to stop killing each other. - King Richard
As I sign the Raza-Vyla agreement between our people, my chest expands with bittersweet pain. For the first time in too many generations to count, there is peace between our two kingdoms. But Aurelia isn’t here to see it, and damn the gods, this is her dream. She should be the one signing it.
Back when she was alive, I was content to let our wars continue. I didn’t have enough vision to see a future where that would ever change. Not until that fucking night, when she begged me to carry on her fight because she didn’t have a chance of killing our older sister inside the fairy ring.
I wanted to refuse her. But if I did, she would be forever trapped in that circle of shrooms. Hidden under the ancient eskila tree, where the Earth Elemental was said to have died during the Great Extinction, the fairy ring is the only thing that thrives in a meadow of decay.
Our trees surround it on all sides, but a firm line of rot meets the bright colours of the forest. I couldn’t bear the thought of Aurelia’s sweet soul being trapped there, forever hungry, forever left to feed on the drops of blood spilled by new challengers inside the ring.
And I wasn’t naive enough to hope that she’d win a fight against our sister. Aurelia was too soft to fight dirty. But I was not.
Still, I should’ve found a way to save her. Then she could be here, seeing the dream she never lost. Even when Raza took everything from her, she never once gave up on it.
Whereas, I hated Raza with a passion once it took her from me. I would’ve burned it all to ash if not for the vow she pulled from me.
As King Dravr straightens, I breathe out slowly. My eyes find his signature beside mine. I lean down to pick up the piece of paper. Holding it above my head, I show it to the room of Vylians and Razians alike.
“We are now no longer enemies.” My voice carries across the hall. “We are no longer at war. Our friends and family that have been held as prisoners will be returned to us – tonight.”
Gesturing to Marrabel, I signal for her to open the doors at the end of the hall. Prisoners of both sides have been stationed outside. They’ve been bathed, finely dressed, and groomed, and as they walk in, complete and utter silence reigns.
For a second.
Two.
Then noise erupts. Both sides swarm to greet their loved ones – people they haven’t seen for years, people they once thought long dead.
Names are shouted in desperation. In hope.
In disbelief. Tears are shed. Laughter carries.
New generations meet the old. Grandchildren embrace people they’ve only ever heard of.
Tears flow down hardened faces, and I wish like hel I could join them.
That there’s a loved one I lost in that crowd.
That she is there – the woman who all of this is for.
Grieving in a mask of silence, I turn to look at King Dravr. Disbelief hides behind his mien of strength, a feeling I share wholeheartedly. This was years and years in the making, and still, it does not feel real.
Nothing about tonight feels real.
It’s been amazing.
Too perfect.
Like a trap.
Searching the crowd, my eyes go back to the spot where Arienna was standing. She’s still there – alone. My heart pulls me to her, needing to be by her side.
Spreading my wings, I fly across the gap between us. Jace lands behind me, silent as always. The tension in my shoulders ease as soon as she’s within touching distance.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask her.
She shakes her head, the world in her eyes as she looks at me. “N-no. You’ve just done something amazing. We should stay and celebrate a bit longer. All night, in fact. Well into the morning.”
I scowl. Dammit. I knew I shouldn’t have let her orgasm. Holding her gaze, I lift my fingers and rub them together.
She shivers, but she doesn’t clench.
My eyes narrow. A smirk curves my lips as I realise what she’s trying to hide. “Did my little queen take it out?”
Her lips part. Her cheeks flush. “N-no?”
I take a step forward. She takes a step back. Breaths leave her lips in a frantic beat of arousal.
“Wha– what are you doing?” Her eyes flicker around the hall. They’re no longer on me, and that deserves another punishment. One I’ll be all too happy to carry out. “We’re in a crowded room. There are people –”
“There are always people around me,” I inform her as her back hits the wall. Her corset’s pushing her breasts up in a most erotic way. Rising and falling, her tits beg me to touch them. To taste them. To mark them as mine as I have her neck.
Towering over her, I raise my hand. My knuckles brush over her plumped up mounds. She should always wear corsets.
Or nothing at all.
Looking into her eyes, I smile. “I do believe you lied to me. That’s such a bad habit.”
“I… I... didn’t?” She is such a bad liar, my wife, always making her statements sound like questions.
Lowering my hand to the slit in her dress –every dress should have slits– I burrow it under the fabric at the V of her thighs. When I touch her wet heat, her head lolls back against the wall, bearing her neck to me. There’s not a man who could resist accepting such a gift.
Leaning down, I lick the base of her throat. I suckle and kiss as the crowd shifts behind me, their presence increasing my arousal. She’s such a naughty temptress, my wife.
Sucking her skin into my mouth, I mark the other side of her neck, claiming her so everyone, from any angle, will know she’s mine. So the Court will know.
If they touch her, I will kill them.
I kiss my way up my wife’s neck to her ear.
A smirk on my lips, I suck her lobe into my mouth just as I feather my fingers across her pussy.
Slipping a digit between her lips, I push inside.
“I don’t feel a toy there.” I grab her ear with my teeth instead of my lips.
“Where is it?” I growl, loving how she shivers in response.
She really is going to be the death of me.
One of these days, someone’s going to kill me while I’m distracted. Already, the crowd has disappeared into silence, leaving just her and me.
“It…” A beautiful crimson paints her cheeks. Her eyes lower to the floor. She mumbles something so softly I can’t quite make it out.
But then the words register.
And the widest fucking grin spreads across my cheeks as I release her ear to look at her.
“It fell out?” I repeat, wanting to make sure I heard her correctly.
The smallest nod moves her head.
“It. Fell. Out?”
Looking up, her eyes pleading with me to be quieter, she whispers, “Yes.”
“And where is it now?”
I didn’t think it was possible, but her face turns even more crimson. A foreign warmth builds inside my chest and spreads to every part of me. It wraps me in its arms, making me slightly uncomfortable in its entirety.
“Fabia… has it,” she squeaks.
“Fabia…” My eyes crinkle as I stand upright, no longer trying to tease her body into coming back to my chambers right now. “Why does she have it?”
“Because she has pockets,” Arienna mumbles, her words falling into each other to create a jumbled mess.
Laughing, I pull her into my arms. I need to hold her, touch her, kiss her. Just be in her arms for a moment.
Until my duties call me back as they always do.
Tilting her head up, I kiss her. Breathing in every breath she releases, I taste every particle making up her sighs and moans. Mine. It’s all mine.
“Your Highness,” Jace says, ripping me away from her.
Stopping abruptly, I turn to face him. But I keep track of her body behind me. I hear her ragged breathing that she’s desperately trying to control.
My eyes shift from Jace to my brother, who’s at his side. A tightness envelopes me, putting me back on edge. “You’re here,” I say, scanning the crowd around us. Nicholas hates crowds. Ever since Stephanie scarred his face, he’s avoided them like the plague.
So if he’s here, that only means one thing: bad fucking news. I knew tonight was too good to be true.
“What is it?” I demand, my thoughts full of what it could be.
A coup finally starting. An ambush set up by King Dravr’s men.
The Alzans or the Okahi having finally pushed into our territory.
The damn Court having re-decided that a ‘member’ includes family members, so they’re charging Jace with treason.
Fuck.
Blinking, Nicholas looks at me in confusion.
Then his grin spreads wide across one half of his face.
The other is pulled tight, melted into uselessness.
“Relax, you paranoid bastard. I’m here because it’s an important night and Fabia convinced me I shouldn’t miss it.
” He holds out a hand. “So congratulations. You did what no one thought you could.”
“Except for us,” Jace cuts in, pointing at both him and Nicholas. “We believed in you.”
Nicholas tilts his head to the side in a gesture that says, ‘Not really’.
My stomach tightens; I’m not quite ready to relax. “What are the reports on the Alzans and the Okahi?” I demand of my brother.
Grasping my shoulder, he shakes it. “Gods, man, relax. This is a night of celebration.” He tilts his head towards Arienna. “Just go back to fingering –”
She gasps, and I shove him away.
But a smile graces my lips.
Coming up between us, Jace wraps a heavy arm around each of our shoulders. “We should have a drink for Aurelia. She would’ve loved to have seen this.”
My smile falls.
Nicholas tenses.
“You have to promise me, when we’re ready for peace, you’ll push for it.”
Holding my brother’s gaze, I nod jerkily. When he does the same, Jace releases us and walks back to the long tables laden with food and drink.
“Who’s Aurelia?” Arienna asks, her voice soft as if she fears encroaching on something she shouldn’t.
“Our sister,” I say, not looking at her.
“The one you killed in a fairy ring?”
My jaw tightens. “No. The one who died of cancer.”
Nicholas turns away, and I don’t blame him.
The lie we spread about her death haunts all of us.
But the Court can never find out what we did.
If they do, my crown will be taken from me, and every law and treaty I’ve brought into existence or helped draft will be overturned.
Oyveni’s Law of Ascension is clear: princesses (or princes) cannot become queen (or king) unless they prove themselves by killing their sisters inside the fairy ring. All of their sisters.
When Jace returns, he comes with four glasses. He gives one to me, one to Nicholas, and then one to my wife.
My breath catches. She never knew Aurelia. She doesn’t know what our sister did for Raza, what we did for her… I don’t want my queen’s toast to be meaningless. I want it to matter because it matters to me. It matters to all three of us.
But when Arienna looks at me, her pale-pink eyes full of concern and empathy, I know Aurelia would’ve wanted this.
She would have loved her – my queen.
Nodding at her, I turn to Jace. “To the woman we all loved.”
A shudder runs through him as he lifts his glass. “To the queen she would have been.”
My fingers tighten on my drink as I remember how hard I begged her to take the crown. To let me kill Seqora outside of the fairy ring. But she refused to win by cheating; she said that would fracture our people even more. I didn’t care.
I didn’t fucking care.
Looking at me sadly, she murmurs, “Even if I won, we’re at war on all fronts. I’m not the ruler Raza needs right now, Dickie. You are.”
A soft touch on my hand down at my side causes me to still. My wife’s fingers thread through mine and squeeze. A squeeze I feel all the way in my heart. She gives me peace within the panic. Draws a straight line in the chaos of my mind. And gods, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve her.
“To the pain in the ass she was,” Nicholas says with a soft chuckle as his eyes find mine, and despite the agony in my chest, I smile. Aurelia was more stubborn than him and Jace combined.
My smile slipping again, I raise my glass, as do Nicholas and Jace. Right as we lift them to our lips though, Arienna cuts in with a soft, “To the wonderful bookworm who would have loved that library.” Tears shine in her eyes.
Burn in mine.
A ragged noise of torment is pulled from Jace.
Tossing my head back, I down the entirety of my glass, but it’s not my throat that burns.
To Aurelia.
I wish you were here.