Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
A queen does not marry for love. She marries for duty.
I love you, my queen.
- King Richard
My heart stops when I walk into the Great Hall after having showered and changed out of my blood-stained clothes. My footsteps falter. My lips want to dance into a smile, but I fight it. There are too many enemies here.
“My queen,” I murmur, easily spotting her in the crowd. She can’t hear me given she’s on the floor and I’m at the top of the grand stairs, but she turns anyway, her eyes looking up at the open doors.
The biggest grin splits her lips as her eyes light up.
My heart beats rapidly, too fast to contain at the knowledge that she’s been waiting for me, constantly checking the entrance.
As the announcer calls out my name and titles, I walk down the stairs.
She runs up them, so free with her feelings.
Echo trails behind her, her face clear of a mask.
At some point in the evening, she must’ve dismissed her clones.
Fabia hurries with them, trying her best to keep an eye on the crowd as well as the stairs.
They reach Jace and I a third of the way down. Arienna throws her arms around me, and I don’t hesitate to hug her back. “What are you doing here?” I murmur as I shift my balance so we don’t tumble.
“I thought you might need me.” She lowers her voice to just above a whisper, not consciously.
But more because the burden on her shoulders is just too crushing for her lungs to handle.
“Fabia still has trouble sleeping, and I can still hear Stephanie’s screams, and you had four people screaming for hours…
” She trails off, her body shaking. Holding her tighter against me, I press my lips to her temple.
“Thank you,” I say, even though the screams no longer bother me. No one’s ever cared to ask. To make sure I could handle the weight I was forced to carry. Not even Aurelia.
Pulling back from her, I nudge her to turn around. If I hug her for much longer, I think I might lose the ability to breathe. My eyes sting, but I blink away the wetness as I look at Echo.
“I didn’t finger her, Your Majesty.”
I freeze. Jace coughs. Fabia blushes hard.
But my queen beams as she nods her head vigorously. “Yep! She knocked me out instead!”
My eyes narrow on the head of my Royal Guard, but I’m not dumb enough to chastise her.
Not when Arienna clearly seems to like this solution better.
But I swear to the gods, if one more person hurts my wife, I’m dragging their ass into a fairy ring.
They need to learn that she is not bait.
She isn’t a hassle. She is my fucking queen.
Echo smiles, a mere twist of her lips, acknowledgement passing silently between us. As she turns to lead us down the stairs, Jace leans in. “I think you should give her a royal order to never smile again,” he whispers. “That was scary as fuck.”
“No,” I say as I walk with my queen.
“Coward.”
“Shh, you two,” Fabia whispers from a few steps behind us. “If I can hear you –”
She stops abruptly, perhaps not wanting to chance it.
I look at my bodyguard and grin.
He glares at me, but there’s a look in his eyes that has me saying whatever bollocks comes to mind just so he can’t get a word in. The last thing I need is him loudly saying I think I can take her in a fight.
“Are the period panties in Brownston real?”
Why the fuck did I ask that?
That is not something I want to know.
This is way worse than anything Jace could’ve said.
The fact that he laughs confirms that too.
For fuck’s sake, I should have kept my mouth shut, but Echo scares the shit out of me.
“Oh, yes!” Arienna exclaims with so much joy, I know I’m outlawing the damn things. No brownie is ever going to get a permit to sell them at our markets. “I designed –”
Oh dear gods.
“Them myself!”
Thankfully, we reach the bottom of the stairs, and I “very gracefully” shove her into the crowd of people so she can’t continue our conversation.
“Are any of you on your periods?” she ask.
They freeze.
I freeze.
Echo disappears into the crowd to attend to “other stuff”.
Jace snort-chuckles.
And Fabia, I’m pretty sure, mutters, “You fucking idiot.”
“Um… no, Your Majesty,” one of the women says. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and enough panic on her face to know where this is going. Two of the others shake their head in ignorant bliss, but the fourth one very softly says, “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry you don’t have pantie lickers here,” my queen says sadly.
“Do you mean…” She clears her throat as she glances at the other women. “Panty liners, Your Majesty? Because –”
“I think I hear my husband calling,” the blonde woman says as she bows quickly at the two of us, then hurries off. My wife waves at her before turning to the woman on her period.
“– we have those here.”
“Nope! I mean panty lickers,” my queen says without any shame or embarrassment whatsoever. “They’re panties with tongues – not real tongues though.” Frowning, she shakes her head. “That prototype didn’t work so well because it turns out leaches might look like tongues and –”
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” one of the other women says. “My husband is also calling.”
“You don’t even have –” I start, attempting to derail this conversation however way I can, but she’s gone long before I get the rest of the sentence out. Dammit.
“– they might love sucking blood,” Arienna continues, “but they do not like licking it.”
“Did you… find that out yourself?” the woman asks, and I desperately want to strangle her. I do not need to know all this stuff about my wife.
“No, Fabia wouldn’t let me.”
Remind me to give her a promotion.
“But luckily, brownies love to volunteer.”
“Tell them about the current design,” Fabia cuts in from behind us, making me wary. What stories is she trying to make sure Arienna doesn’t reveal? Deciding I don’t want to know, I keep my mouth shut.
Which is what I should’ve done in the first fucking place.
“Oh, yes! It’s an artificial tongue that licks your blood up.
Which doesn’t just keep your lips clean so you don’t have to wash when you go to the loo every time, but it also feels amazing!
Did you know orgasms help with period cramps?
” Her head snaps to me, her eyes calculating.
“Though I might have to change a few things because I have learned some stuff since getting married...”
I’m not sure if I should be proud of that or embarrassed to hel, so I stand there utterly expressionless.
“Your Majesty,” a giant of a man says as he walks over to us, his voice deep and rolling. His tone is one of pure professionalism, but it’s heavily laced with tight anger. It is a tone I know well.
But I’d rather take a physical threat than continue this conversation, so I steer my wife towards him. None of the women look sad to see us go.
As we stop in front of him, I take in the jagged scar cupping his left eye.
Sharp silver fury stares at me under spiky maroon hair.
I’m solidly straight, but even I can tell he’s handsome.
The battle-hard women undressing him with their eyes clearly think the same.
A tattooed snake baring its fangs runs down the side of his face, its body slinking back behind his ear and then down and around his neck before disappearing into his black and red robes.
Despite myself, I look down, and it takes everything in me to stop from laughing out loud at the ridiculously large bulge he’s carrying.
“Redric,” I say, the slightest bit of humour shaking my voice. “Is it Commander still?” I ask, shoving my tremors of laughter under an air of respect and hospitality.
Before he can answer, Jace jumps the guy. With a deep-bellied laugh, he wraps his arms around him.
Redric stiffens, his jaw locking, but he doesn’t force my guard away. He looks like he wants to break Jace’s neck, but he waits patiently until he’s released.
Pulling back, Jace holds him by the biceps as he looks down between them. He isn’t subtle about it like I was. “You still got those massive balls of yours?”
“Jace,” I say sharply enough to get him to back off before he causes another war.
The man’s a Vylian, and even if he’s only a commander, he’s skilled enough in hunting witches that if he decides to go rogue, he can still deal us a heavy blow.
And even then, King Dravr will protect him.
Witches are too valuable to lose, as are their hunters.
Jace releases him and steps back.
“I’m a wariq now, Your Grace,” Redric says. The highest title there is. King Dravr will definitely go to war for him; to leave a warress or wariq behind is to tell every noble that they’re nothing more than commoners.
“Hi,” Arienna says, her eyes wide as she drinks him in. My hand tightens on her as jealousy tightens its grip on me.
Fuck it. War it is.
“Speak quickly, Wariq Redric,” I growl.
“I wish to immigrate over.”
Before I can tell him no, Arienna shoves in front of me and blurts, “We’re monopolists.” She puts her hands on her hips. “And you can’t stay here.”
A deep rumble leaves me as I pull my wife back into my arms. “There’s your answer,” I say as I fight the urge to scoop her up and carry her upstairs.
Signalling to the staff, I head for the table. My brain is screaming all the words I want to say. I love you. Marry me again. I love you.
Fuck, do I love you.
My tongue tight, I pull out her chair. My palm damp, I try to force those damn words out, but she cuts in before I can.
“Who’s Redric?” she demands sourly as she sits down.
I glance at her as I take my own chair, wondering where her mind is. “A Vylian soldier Evangeline kept bullying.”
“Your ex?”
I nod as the rest of the nobles sit down. King Dravr is at the other end of the table, but the other Vylians are woven in amongst the Razians. “She’s also the reason Wariq Redric is here, I imagine.”
Her shoulders loosen a bit. “He’s not here for you?”