Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Blue Lotus Pools, Blood Kingdom
Freya
I turn my face up to the bright afternoon sun, soaking in its warmth after so long trapped in the cold dark of the nighttime court.
I wrinkle my nose at the sweet, honey-like fragrance from the blue lotuses, which float on the surface of the pools that circle the small courtyard behind the royal wing of the palace.
The lotuses’ cool, blue petals pale to shimmering white at their tips, as if holding onto the moon. Bees hover lazily around their golden cores.
The palace is quiet.
The cool corridors are empty that led here, although Shadow and Devil still padded next to Daire and me as bodyguards.
Now, the demonic lions are curled in the archway in the shade.
Most Shadow Vampires and their Blood Lovers sleep deeply after their wild nights of dancing, feasting, and rutting during the day.
It feels like this palace belongs to Daire and me alone.
This world is ours now.
The question is what we do with it.
Next to me, Daire’s white wings are stretched out wide, as he spins with his long neck thrown back. His face is turned up to the sun, as if both in dance and prayer.
He looks like a lotus flower who needs the sun on his face to open — to be reborn.
His lips are busted, his jaw is swollen, and his throat is ringed with bruises.
Yet he seems calmer and happier than he has since Lanlin carried him back to our Blood nest last night, a bloody fucking mess, so I don’t want to disturb him.
I smile, softly.
Only my Bandit King could open his exhausted eyes, as Lanlin pretended not to panic while rushing to grab water, cloth, and bandages (keeping up the pretense that he didn’t care), and brighten when he saw me.
Daire grabbed my hand, rasping through his blood-stained teeth, “Missed you, love. Do you like my bad boy look?”
“You looked fucked up.” I frowned.
The half of Daire’s face that could be seen under the mask was a bruised mess. His lips and jaw were pulverized. His right palm and the soles of his feet were cut to ribbons.
It worried me that his wrists were ringed with bruises like he’d been held down.
Did Sobek do that? Or Lanlin?
Daire tried to smirk, which pulled on his busted lip.
He hissed with pain, as his lip started to trickle blood again. “Pfft, you should see the other guy.”
“I believe that it was me who beat Sobek until he choked on his own poisonous blood for daring to lay his hands — and fangs — on my Blood Lover.” Lanlin’s face was inscrutable.
He passed me a wet cloth.
He was hovering, pushing the bedding over Daire but keeping his distance.
I glanced between them but then back at the savage bite on Daire’s neck. “Your fangs only bit with permission, right? Otherwise, I’ll cut off your balls with my new Night Sky Blade.”
Lanlin looked far more delighted than I would have expected from that threat. “You are learning, dearheart, how to be the perfect Shadow Vampire Queen. If I ever bite either of you without consent, then please do castrate me. I gave you that weapon to keep you safe.”
Huh, I never thought any man would ask for castration.
I guess everyone has their kink.
I bit my lip, carefully running the cloth through the blood that stained Daire’s beautiful white feathers red.
I leaned closer, inspecting him for injuries.
Where was all the blood coming from?
“It’s not mine,” Daire said, softly. “It’s Antler’s.”
Confused, I glanced at him.
Daire was no longer looking at me. His eyes were misted with tears.
He turned to the side, dragging the blankets over himself.
“Dove’s friend,” Lanlin explained, climbing onto the bed and simply lying next to Daire but not touching him. “He died in the Hunt.”
My heart hurt.
I lay down next to Daire on the other side, not caring that blood and dirt was staining my dress. Daire and I could bathe properly in the morning.
We needed to sleep. But we needed time alone to talk more.
I didn’t expect that Lanlin would understand that. Yet he hadn’t slept. Instead, he’d fetched fresh linen robes for Daire and me, which he’d silently laid on the end of the bed.
He hadn’t been in our nest, when we had awoken in the afternoon. He’d given us the space that we’d needed. But I discovered a tray next to the clothes with a beautifully arranged breakfast of round barley loaves, sweet dates, sticky figs, and grapes, along with a single blue lotus flower.
I smiled, stroking over the flower’s petals.
Then I touched the soft scrap of papyrus next to it, where Lanlin had drawn the one symbol that I would be able to read: The Ankh.
I pressed a kiss to my Ankh bond mark in thanks.
I didn’t expect Lanlin to feel my touch because he would likely be sleeping. I hoped that he finally would be. Yet after a long moment, as if he was rising from sleep, I felt a slow, languorous kiss.
My smile widened.
“Brilliant!” Daire grinned, snatching up two daggers that glistened between the loaves. “Just let someone try and hunt me now.”
He bared his fangs, arcing the daggers through the air.
It was an apology.
The breakfast and flower for me, the daggers for Daire.
Well played, vampire.
Now, it’s daytime, and under the sun, my head aches because as much as Lanlin is fast becoming my nighttime Alpha, my daytime Alpha is flying here at great personal risk.
And they are mortal enemies.
I ball my hands into fists.
It feels like I am being torn in two. Both Lanlin and Aurelius are my pack. I am certain about it now.
Along with Daire, we are the four Golden fated mates.
Yet how is it possible to quieten the ghosts of the past and learn to love each other?
Lanlin risked Daire but then he saved him.
Lanlin has bonded with Daire, taking him as his Blood Lover.
Lanlin may not know how to court, love, or even socially interact but he is trying.
I have never seen anyone try so hard.
He has never been touched but he was prepared to face that challenge for me.
It isn’t only on the battlefield that this Alpha is brave.
I can see why Aurelius and he would be friends. I hate that they are enemies now.
Daire twirls even faster like he can’t keep in his energy. How desperate is he to fly?
How much does it hurt him not to be able to?
His wings flap, faster and faster.
“I learned in the Blood Lover’s Guild,” Daire pants, “that the priestesses from the Scarlet Temple, damn them to hell, gather up lotuses from this holy pool. They use them in their incense, brewing drugged drinks with them that drive folks into heats and ruts, as well as in burials…”
He breaks off, dancing to the side of the courtyard beneath a fig tree with breathtaking speed and beauty. Unfortunately, he heads straight toward the lotus pools, as if he doesn’t even see them.
“Watch out,” I yell.
Daire stumbles over the lip of the pool and unable to catch himself, falls face first into the water with a loud splash that breaks the quiet of the courtyard.
I try to stifle my laugh, but I can’t.
Daire emerges spluttering and coughing. He shoves the flowers off his shoulders and head.
“You look like a Shadow Merman.” I saunter to the edge of the pool.
Daire sits up amongst the pretty flowers with a laugh. His white robe has become transparent in the water, clinging to his strong chest and thighs. His silky curls and wings are soaked.
At a sudden cawing in the azure sky, I glance upwards.
Daire’s ravens flock into the courtyard, settling in the branches of the fig tree like guards.
“Nay, I hope that I don’t look like those terrifying fish-tailed bastards. Although, mermen are so beautiful that they can tempt sailors to their deaths.” He bares his neck in a way that few Alphas would to their Omegas. “I am beautiful enough to be one.”
“And modest enough to be one too.”
“Who needs modesty when you’re god-like?”
“And sitting on his ass in the middle of a pool.”
Daire holds his hand out to me with a half-hooded look, which is as seductive as any Shadow Merman’s. “Why don’t you join me?”
I put my hands on my hips. “It looks cold.”
“What you call cold, I call refreshing.”
“You’re good at double talk.”
“I’m a fae.”
“A trickster.”
“And proud of it.”
“I’ll help you out.” I grip Daire’s hand.
I realize that it’s a mistake, however, the moment that he tightens his fingers around mine and his eyes dance with amusement.
Daire drags me into the water with him.
I yelp.
Daire catches me with a playful laugh, dragging me onto his lap.
I splash water into his face. We tumble backward in a tangle of limbs.
“You asshole.” I kiss Daire’s wet lips, careful to be gentle of his injuries.
He kisses me back, however, not carefully at all. “I think you mean soulmate.”
“I do.” I stare into Daire’s lavender eyes, trying to count every one of his long, dark lashes. He was almost claimed by another pack. I almost lost him. My heart beats faster. “Don’t do that again. Don’t leave me.”
“I didn’t have a choice, love.” Daire tightens his hold around me.
“I swear on the Shadow Devils that I did everything to survive to get back to you. I never stopped fighting. Since Maximinus and Tarquin burned my world to the ground when I was thirteen, I have accepted that I may die. You can’t go into a battle believing that you’re invincible; it’s dangerous.
Death has haunted me at my shoulder for a decade.
Fate is fickle. No one gets to decide when death comes for them.
But I am not making it bloody easy for the bastard to take me, aye? ”
I kiss down Daire’s bruised jaw, shaking with how close I came to not being able to touch him like this again. “Who left these bruises on you?”