Chapter 87
Belle
I staggered toward the castle gates, grasping at the exhausted remnants of my magic. The vast river of power I’d drawn from the castle was gone, leaving only what was mine—and far too little of it.
The gatehouse was charred and still radiating heat. I covered my mouth against the swirling ash and plunged through the wreckage, the soles of my shoes growing hot.
“Valen,” I shouted, panic rising.
The right tower of the gatehouse had almost completely collapsed, spilling rubble across the ground and crushing the drawbridge. He was buried. Arms shaking, I channeled my magic into the stones. Move!
The rubble shifted, clearing a path to a body that lay bloody and naked. Unmoving.
Please, Gods, no.
I dropped to my knees, ignoring the broken stones that dug into my shins. I gently cradled his head. “Valen.”
His mask was gone, his cheeks coated in soot, and his skin paler than I’d ever seen it. Bloody lesions and bruises covered his body. None were deep enough to kill him, yet his chest wasn’t rising.
I shook his shoulders, tears streaming down my face. “You bastard. You can’t leave me now. I love you. Do you hear me?”
When he didn’t move, I pressed a hand to my mouth to stifle a sob, something inside me shattering like the walls around us.
Siggy had been right. We’d broken the curse, but it had cost Valen everything.
I beat my fist against his chest. “Fuck the Fates. Come back to me!”
Valen gasped and bucked as my fists slapped against him, clutching my wrist. “Damn woman, are you trying to finish me off?”
A choked sob escaped my raw throat, and I pulled him to me, pressing my lips to his as I wept. “You’re okay, gods, you’re okay.”
He groaned in pain, but when I moved to pull away, he threaded one hand through my hair and pulled me closer, claiming my mouth in a desperate kiss that tipped the world on end. I forgot my pain and exhaustion. In that moment, only we existed, lost in each other’s arms.
“I love you,” I breathed against him, unable to deny the words and yet unable to keep my lips from his.
His fingers dug into my back. “I would have come back from the dead just to hear those words.”
“You had better,” I said, biting his lip, desperate to claim him as my own, to keep him out of the grasping hands of the Fates forever.
“Fuck,” he groaned, pivoting me on his lap. “I’ve loved you from the first moment you defied me—though I was too blind to see it.”
I swallowed a whimper as his finger dragged across the gouges the shrapnel had left in my back. He pulled back, his eyes clouding with concern. “You’re hurt.”
“Me?” I choked out a laugh, running my fingers through his hair. “Just exhausted, concussed, and a bit scratched up. You were buried beneath a landslide. What do you need? My blood?”
His throat rumbled with desire. “For the moment, just you.” He drew me back to him, his kisses softer now, but no less desperate.
Shouts rose behind us. Gregoire gave orders to someone. The castle bells began ringing. None of it mattered. My sense of time slipped away, and I lost myself in him. My body, no longer running on the fear of the moment, was spent. I curled into Valen’s arms and closed my eyes.
“It’s gone,” Valen whispered, his face buried in my hair. “I’m free of the dragon, the curse, of that bastard. You saved me. You saved all of us.”
I lay against his chest, savoring the drum of his heart. He was safe. That was all that I’d wished for, all I cared about.
A throat cleared behind us. “Your Highness…”
I twisted in the king’s arms, looking back at Gregoire in shock. His eyes darted away, his cheeks scarlet as he held out a jacket and a pair of trousers. “It might be best if you retired inside, Your Highness.”
Reality rolled over me like thunder. We were lying in the rubble of the fallen gatehouse, tangled in each other’s arms, Valen completely naked. Soldiers and courtiers hovered at the gate, wearing expressions of shock, relief, and confusion.
There’d be questions. Where had the dragon gone? Why was the king naked and without a mask? Those from the court might even recognize him as the prince from the Bloodvale.
“What are you all gawking at?” the king growled. The gathering crowd scattered, and Valen stood and helped me to my feet.
“Gregoire makes a good point,” I said. “You should get dressed. There’s a lot we have to attend to.”
The king grunted. He gave the huntsman an amused look, snatched the clothes, and began pulling them on.
“Thank you, Gregoire,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Where did you find the uniform?”
“I stripped it from the biggest soldier I could find…” He leaned to the side, eyes widening as he took in the king. “Though I’m not sure everything will fit.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Are you okay?”
“Just thinking I picked the worst possible man to measure myself against.”
Confused, I raised my brows.
He shrugged. “You’ve got a king claiming you. Hard to compete with that.”
I pulled him into my arms. “You’re a good friend, Gregoire.”
He chuckled. “It could’ve been more.”
“She’s mine,” Valen rumbled behind me. “Don’t forget it, huntsman.”
I turned and my chest tightened, seeing Valen for the first time without his mask beyond the confines of his bedroom.
He was handsome yet fierce, color returning to his skin, hazel eyes shining.
The jacket fit a bit tight across his shoulders, and the pants left little to the imagination, but it didn’t matter. He looked every bit a king.
“Your mask…” I said.
Valen’s lips curled with distaste. “Locke crafted it with his magic. I imagine it’s in a thousand pieces, scattered to the wind alongside him.”
A bitter breeze sent a chill down my neck. “Good riddance to both.”
A pained expression cut across his face as the scars of betrayal I’d thought I’d healed opened anew. “I’m sorry, Belle. I should’ve known it was him—”
“Stop that,” I said, refusing to let the guilt take root. “None of us could’ve known. Everything about him was crafted to deceive us, to feed our doubts. It doesn’t matter. He’s dead, the curse is broken, and your kingdom is whole.”
“My kingdom…I still have my kingdom.” Realization fell over him, and he took my hand. “You beat the Fates,” he laughed.
I met his eyes. Gods, they were beautiful, and I’d never seen them so happy.
Shouts rose from the battlements. “Men at the gates!”
We turned.
A naked man had wandered into the road, his expression dazed, hair wild, and body coated in dirt. A woman emerged from the forest behind him. “Please, help us—we don’t know what happened, or where we are…”
“The beasts…” Valen whispered. “They’re all restored, just as I’ve been.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. In the chaos, I’d forgotten about the beasts. How many were there?
The king looked to Gregoire. “Huntsman. Do you want a place in my court?”
Caught off guard, Gregoire stumbled forward to a knee. “Yes, I do, Your Majesty.”
“You’re my new Royal Warden with the rank of Captain. You’re going to be responsible for my woods, and everyone in it. Recruit whatever soldiers you need and gather these people up, then get clothes from the steward or wherever you can find them.”
The huntsman leapt to his feet with a salute. “Yes, sir!”
He began shouting to the men on the walls, and I grasped the king’s arm as the urgency of the moment set in. “The statues. They’ve all come alive.”
Valen’s expression was distant, then his eyes came into focus. “Let’s go.”
My legs trembled at the thought of going anywhere. My body was a burnt-out husk, and the pain of every blow I’d suffered came to the fore as the euphoria of the moment faded. Valen must have sensed my exhaustion, because he swept me off my feet.
I cried out in surprise as he rushed through the smoldering remains of the gatehouse and set me down gently in the middle of the courtyard.
Destruction surrounded us. The tower and ramparts had crumbled where Valen had crashed into them, and the courtyard was blackened with dragon fire.
Soldiers ran this way and that, the castle bells chiming.
Yet the dark gloom hanging over Fellspire was gone—replaced by something unfamiliar. Hope.
The captain of the guard rushed toward us. “Your Highness. The statues—”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll deal with it.”
The captain looked back to the castle, then to us as he came to a stop. “Yes, but there’s a man with a sword claiming to be king—”
“He’s not a king. Not anymore,” Valen growled. “Gather your men and round up everyone who appears lost. Take their weapons—except the king’s. They’ll be frightened and confused. Explain that five hundred years have passed. That should take the fight out of them for a bit.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and began shouting at the running soldiers.
“What will become of them?” I asked.
“We’ll make a place for them in our kingdom, just as with the beasts.”
My eyes rounded in surprise. “Our kingdom?”
Valen turned to me, his hand warm against my cheek. “The curse is broken, and this kingdom has been reborn. With all the former beasts and statues, it may even double in size. It will need a queen as well as a king. Someone who is brave, powerful, and kind. You are all of those and more.”
My lungs constricted, like something had gripped my chest.
He took my hands in his and cast me a disarming smile. “Will you join me on the throne, princess? Will you be my queen?”
I gaped at him, utterly stunned.
He was asking me to marry him. That I would’ve said yes to in a breath. I’d risked everything for him, and I’d never give him up. I loved him without pause or question.
But a queen? I’d never dreamt of it, never even imagined it. I’d always despised the court as much as the confines of the castle. I wasn’t cut out to rule or give orders or play political games.
Yet I loved him.
Valen raised an eyebrow. “Princess?”
I swallowed.
Perhaps I could grow into a crown, just as I’d grown into my magic.
And the castle wasn’t so bad. In a way, it had become home.
I’d made friends here. Loreli. Isolde. Even Gregoire, the new Royal Warden.
Plus, I had the whole forest to explore.
A library to organize, with more books than I could ever dream of reading.
I could be happy here with him.
Valen looked as if his heart were breaking. “If I must beg—”
I squeezed his hands. “Yes,” I said breathlessly.
The tension in his shoulders eased, and I winked. “But only for the books.”
“Only the books?” He dragged his teeth over his lower lip, his eyes a warm honey color. “Are you certain that’s all?”
I stepped close and looped my finger under the waistband of his trousers and tugged. “Well, and this.”
He gave me a slow, knowing grin. “Crown or not, that’s yours, princess—and always will be.”