Chapter 20 #2
“You’re a bloody idiot.” Daire pushes himself up, prowling to join Freya. His lavender eyes are piercing in the dark. “But you’re our idiot. Also, it’s the type of reckless, impulsive move that a rogue like me would pull. I’m rubbing off on you in the best ways. I salute you.”
I blink.
Is that a compliment or an insult?
Freya shoots Daire a dirty look. “Don’t encourage him.”
“Why not? I like the version of him without the stick up his arse.” Daire pushes his curls out of his face.
I suck in a shocked breath.
Now, I can see Daire’s battered face.
I reach out, gripping his chin. He tries to pull away.
“Stay still,” I command.
I turn his head side to side. Sparks spray from my horns.
An inferno is burning in my stomach.
“You have been choked,” I list clinically. “Several backhands too. Show me your wrists. I see. You were held down by someone more powerful and bitten by fangs…”
Unexpectedly, my powerful, golden wings burst out, ripping through my tunic. They flap, threateningly. Ash disintegrates from their flaming tips.
Freya grips my shoulder. “Calm down.”
Daire looks delighted, before he can shutter his expression. “Beautiful wings. I’m bloody honored that you care, when once you thought that pets like me deserved to be thrashed.”
“You’re not a pet anymore,” I say through gritted teeth. “You’re my fated mate and future King. And no one is allowed to hurt you but me.”
“I’m not sure that’s as reassuring as you mean it to be.”
I give a sharp grin. “Who said that I mean it to be reassuring?”
I spin Daire, slamming his back against the wall. He groans.
“Now,” when I trace my thumb over the bite on his neck, his groan is of pleasure; his cock tents his robe, “if Lan hurt you like this, then I will tear off the fucker’s bat wings for you.”
“What is it with both of you and your violent threats as love language?” Daire’s eyes twinkle. “It wasn’t bat-face. In fact, he saved me from the bastard who did this. Without him, I would have died on the Hunt.”
I let go of Daire, taking a step back.
My shoulders slump with guilt. “I’m sorry that I took so long to fly here. I did my best—”
“On the sacred ash, I know you did. I never expected you to fly to my rescue like I’m some type of damsel in need of saving. You keep doing that. What are you trying to prove?”
My pheromones are now a thick miasma. It is becoming harder to think clearly, at least to dissemble.
I press my lips tightly together. Sweat drips between my shoulder blades. My eyes become glassy.
My knot aches. My balls are heavy.
Thank the Shadow Gods for my lessons in self-control.
My labored breathing is like steam in the dark.
I retreat further into the shadowed cave.
“Hey,” Daire calls after me, “I asked you—"
“That we are pack now,” I burst out, low and rumbling. “Bound and bonded by golden threads. Fated forever, whatever happens.”
Daire and Freya stare at me like they have never believed my other love confessions. Am I truly that cold?
My heart hammers in my chest.
Please let them believe me this time.
Forgive me.
Daire’s expression is more guarded than my Omega’s. “And what about our bat?”
“Our bat?” I snarl. “Are you forgetting that you are only meant to be pretending with him?”
“It’s not pretend,” Freya whispers.
Fury surges through me.
My hand drops to the hilt of my dagger. “Lan is not part of our pack, even if he is bound to us by fate. I won’t—”
“But it’s not your choice, is it?” Daire’s voice is hard. “It’s Freya’s.”
“And I won’t deliver Lanlin to you,” Freya sounds firmer than ever, “unless you swear that you won’t hurt or kill him. He is my Alpha, just as you are. I want him as part of our pack.”
I turn back to her, my heart breaking.
How can she say that?
“Have you forgotten that his mother murdered yours?” I hate that she winces but I can’t hold back.
I am shaking from my rut, unbalanced pheromones, and Hadrian tugging at my mind.
“That he killed my brother? Fucking look around you…” I march to the dragon skeleton, whose bones are like the beautiful arches of their own tomb.
“They murdered these prisoners. This is what Bloods are: brutal.”
“And what are dragons? Tyrants?” Freya throws back. She grasps Daire’s hand, pulling him after her, as she follows me further into the cave. “Should I judge you by what your parents did? What about by Tarquin’s actions or Maximinus’?”
I look away.
Sweat drips into my eyes. Ash tumbles from my wings.
It’s a struggle to work out my thoughts. “I can’t make a Blood Oath. I made one to my brother to take revenge on the vampires.”
“Haven’t you done that already?” Daire arches his brow. “You forced their king to prostrate himself in front of you. You rule over their kingdom. You burned one of them at your fucking feast in honor of your brother’s deathday. Isn’t that enough?”
“I can’t accept Lan as part of my pack.” I clench my jaw. “But I do promise not to kill or hurt him.”
I can’t stop anyone else in my court hurting him, of course.
Wraith, as well as Vicious’ Guild of Assassins, have been planning a lot of fun games for weeks now for Lanlin.
War has a whole welcome speech worked out that involves her fists as well.
I give a sharp smile and hope that I don’t give myself away.
Daire eyes me, suspicious.
Freya launches herself, however, into my arms with sparkling joy. “Thank you.”
When she kisses me, I fight not to drag her even more deeply into it. Our tongues entwine. I breathe in her pheromones, kissing down her neck to lick at her scent gland.
I shudder.
“You’re hot,” Freya points out, concerned.
I pull back as quickly as I can. “I always am when I’m around you. Now, I have made you a promise. Be honest with me.” I glance at Daire. “Are you both going to continue to be difficult? Or are we truly on the same side?”
Daire wraps his wings around himself. “Hey, slander. Give me one instance of me being difficult…?”
“When you tried to assassinate me.”
Daire smiles, proudly. “Aye, fair enough.”
“Thirteen times.”
“I’m persistent.”
“But not very good.”
“Really?” Daire cocks his head. “How do you know I meant to kill you?”
My chest tightens. I stare at him in surprise.
I have beaten the fae every time that I have fought him on and off the battlefield. I thought that he was simply a disgruntled pet who I could easily control.
It amused me.
But what if he was the one who was amused, playing with me?
I flush, meeting his dancing gaze. “Were you working against me?”
“We were enemies,” Daire replies. “You captured and caged me. Locked me in a dungeon. Turned me into a pet. Just because you gave me a blanket, warmer clothes, and made sure that I didn’t starve, it doesn’t make up for the fact that you turned my world to ash.
Because of you, my friends are dead. My crown has been melted.
My kingdom has fallen. But you say that you can’t accept Lanlin into your pack… ?”
Daire’s voice has gradually risen, and I stumble back at the force of his words that break through my muddled mind. I fall back onto the skeleton wings of the long dead dragon.
I am breathing too hard.
He’s right.
I did all that.
How can Daire be my dragon rider, consort, and future King, while I wish to take everything from Lanlin?
My world feels like it has been torn up from the roots.
Aurelius, Aurelius, Aurelius…
Freya is calling me, but I can’t answer her. I am too lost in my own dark, shattered thoughts.
“You were working against me all along,” I whisper. “You must hate me.”
The silence is too long.
My throat feels like sandpaper.
I won’t cry. I don’t cry.
Then why are my eyes smarting?
Daire and Freya are both kneeling on the other side of the skeleton wing to me.
Freya grabs my hand, squeezing.
“We love you,” Daire’s eyes glow in the dark of the cave, “you blind idiot. But we hate the oppressive, power hungry Draca Kingdom. We hate how it conquers other kingdoms like it’s a game, using people as pawns. Plus, in case you forgot, I’m a rebel. I was never tamed.”
“And I’m a wild wolf,” Freya adds. “No one can tame me. I told you that when we first met. I won’t spy on the Bloods, if it’s only to break them too.”
“If you want to prove that you’re in our pack,” Daire adds, “then you need to show it in actions more than words, and I’m talking about more than courting us with severed heads, although that was a bloody good start.
We are all in cages. But you must decide what you’re prepared to sacrifice to break out of yours. ”
“Everything,” I breathe.
I scrape my claws along the bone, struggling not to close my eyes and give in to the rut.
I feel the phantom lash of the whip across my back, uncle’s too soft touch, and the death cries of my cadets on the battlefield.
I have plotted for years…and I know now.
I would give up…everything.
Daire’s gaze gentles. “Then you must decide if your revenge against Lanlin means more than your love for Spark. You can’t hold onto both.”
My gaze shoots to my beautiful Omega. “Nothing means more than you, my Vesta.”
To my surprise, she doesn’t lean and kiss me like I hope or reward me by purring.
Instead, she tilts up her chin. “Then let me decide how I want to handle Lanlin. Take down Maximinus. Then give me back my kingdom and Daire his. We aren’t only your King and Queen, but royalty in our own right.
Stop thinking that peace means empire, and that empire is the only way to peace.
Be our undercover rebel within your own kingdom and then burn it fucking down. ”
I stare at her in shock.
She has just lit the spark that could burn down my entire empire.
She’s a strong Queen already.
Pride fills me.
“Did you just command me to burn my own world down for you?” I murmur.
She nods.
“I am so bloody hard for you right now, my Spark.” Daire leans over me, kissing Freya.
I watch the languorous way that he cards his fingers through her long hair, holding her in place.
They look beautiful together.
They fit.
My King and Queen.