Chapter 59
Therxian’s head bowed under the weight of the shackle around his neck that simultaneously, with the shackles around his wrists, kept him pinned upright.
He scoffed bitterly. In all of his plans, he had not quite envisioned this happening.
And yet, once again, he was chained to the wall of his nest, but this time he did not have a clever human around to keep him company.
His heart ached at the thought of his mate.
What was her fate? Did Buosoa arrive on time?
He hated the feeling of uncertainty and powerlessness that was currently plaguing him.
His every thought circled around his worry—and there was nothing he could do about it.
Hissing to vent his frustration, he shifted his weight on his tail and tugged at his arms uselessly.
The clatter of the chains was the only sound in the heavy silence of the nest. It was almost ironic that his imprisonment offered the same level of solitude that he had once embraced—though with the distinct addition of being bound.
He sagged in the chains, his gavo flicking restlessly.
It was uncomfortable, but he might as well conserve his strength.
He hung there until his arms began to develop a slight ache.
Thankfully, even while resting on his coiled tail, the chains were low enough to cause him any exceeding discomfort beyond that.
It was not enough to distract him from the small annoyances.
Such as the fact that the way his gavo scraped the wall with its slightest movement was also irritating.
He twisted slightly in an attempt to relieve the pressure on it but froze when he heard the echoing rasp of someone entering the entryway of his nest. Therxian stiffened, and he winced at the twinge in his neck as his lead lifted slightly so that he had a clear view of the entrance.
An aggressive vibration rose within him, and it erupted in a loud hiss when a female entered—a female who had no business being there.
A female who supposed to be gravely ill.
He had seen her collapse with his own eyes among the other poisoned females.
She had succumbed just before his mother had.
And it was clearly all a staged performance and a well-orchestrated lie.
Ferinia entered alone and she moved slowly across the floor, her tail gliding sinuously.
She regarded him, satisfaction gleaming in her bright eyes.
Ferinia smiled. “You appear confused, Therxian. Now, why was that?” She cocked her head as she regarded him with a feigned expression of confusion, but it melted away in a long, slow smile.
“Oh, yes. I know. I am supposed to be rapidly declining within my maternal nest from an unknown source of poison, like those other useless females. And perhaps I would be... if I had actually taken the poison at all,” she hissed, her smile widening.
“Of course you did not,” he muttered bitterly. “You feigned it all. It was you behind this madness all along,” he spat.
A smile curled her mouth. “Indeed. To think that so much of this all could have been avoided if you had done the sensible thing and chosen me. Even when presented with Gareiia’s obvious scheming, you would not turn to me and yoke strength to mine where it rightfully belonged. Instead, you chose another.”
With a flash of clarity, he came to the startling realization that everything had been a performance.
Ferinia setting herself against Gareiia’s aggression and playing the part of the determined but more sensible option while making the younger female appear more power hungry and desperate.
Gareiia had been everything that he would have imagined a daughter of Yilada to be.
Even Vekatha’s relentless support for the returning daughter had convinced him that if a nestling had been hidden, it would have been within the first house.
Gareiia had been the most logical possibility.
And her venomous, entitled position had simply reinforced that illusion.
“You were fostered within the fourth house to draw suspicion off you while secretly colluding with the first house,” he rasped.
Ferinia inclined her head as she drew closer to him.
“Indeed,” she hummed. “The first house wanted to foster me, out of their allegiance to my mother, but she was wiser than that. She secured my place in the fourth house through a secret alliance, but Shalyia was my tutor when I was young as a courtesy between noble lines of the upper houses, and with Zara, she manipulated things in my favor.”
“But Gareiia—” he rasped.
“Was groomed to serve her purpose and yet proved herself to be a selfish, spoiled female who believed that she could ignore everything that had been put in motion and carve out her own place as queen.” She chuckled cruelly.
“She deceived herself well with her illusions of grandeur. She had even begun to believe that she was far better than me. Naturally, she had to be dealt with. It is fortunate that I was well-prepared. Though she was instructed to lure you in for me, I took precautions. She never suspected that her loyal and ingratiating Dehv was my eyes and ears and hopelessly bonded to me.”
Therxian’s jaw tightened. “And my brothers as well?”
She inclined her head again, her gavo snapping lightly as the corners of her mouth lifted with amusement.
“Quite so. And each of them succeeded, even if the males they brought me were ultimately useless. I would never have guessed that the males of the royal line would be so dramatic in engineering their own escape. Nearly half committed suicide, another escaped only to be tragically killed in the effort to retrieve him, and one even found a way to castrate himself after the first failed breeding attempt. Naturally, I had to put him down since he was no longer of use to me. And then there was Slengral who not only took a mate before Vekatha could secure him, but even when his return was enforced, he still managed to escape with his family.” She sighed dramatically.
“I truly thought my opportunity for a smooth accession had passed and that I would be forced to take it by violence. Which I do not object to, but it is really so much more trouble dealing with all the little rebellions and objections to my legitimate claim.”
“But then I returned,” he rasped.
His eyes slid shut as he inwardly cursed himself.
He was a fool. If he had stayed away as Slengral insisted and so many within the Vehal advised, the Aglatha would have collapsed into civil war but could have ultimately led to better clarity and a willingness to remake the shinara into something better in the aftermath.
Instead, he provided Ferinia the tool she needed.
“Yes. Unfortunately, it seems that you are just as difficult as your brothers, but far wilier,” she retorted.
“I thought I had learned well enough from my mistakes with Slengral and created the perfect environment to prevent you from slipping out of my grasp.” Her smile fell, her eyes glittering sharply at him.
“I did not anticipate such difficulty accosting me at every turn. Every trap, you neatly evaded. I did not understand how... except I realize now that you had help, did you not? From your ‘mate?’”
“I did,” Therxian replied as he smiled bitterly at her. “Indeed, your traps and efforts set up the environment for our bond and cemented it. I should be thanking you.”
Ferinia scowled in response, her eyes narrowing on him.
“It is inconsequential. It is just another female to dispose of. As I did Gareiia. With the announcement of your mating, she knew I would act soon and thought she could get to you first. Foolish female,” she scoffed.
A hard, cruel smile hitched the corner of her mouth.
“But Dehv dealt well with her, do you not agree? Of course, the blame has been put on you. The entire palace witnessed her behavior in the throne chamber. All Dehv had to do was present himself as a witness to the guard—and you saw what happened for yourself.” She laughed mockingly.
“All he had to do was say that he witnessed you agreeing to secretly meet with her and then allow the guards to discover you with her dead body.”
“And what exactly does that accomplish. I would have been executed if not for Jathella interceding on my mother’s behalf,” he hissed.
She regarded him coolly, and her smile returned.
Cold. Calculating. “Oh, Therxian, you would not have died,” she whispered as she drew up close enough that he could feel the heat of her body on his scales.
She wafted her wings, and he was hit by the pungent sweetness of her pheromones.
It was nauseating, and he grimaced with distaste, uninterested in curbing his reaction despite the way she was studying him.
“It will be far easier once the bond is broken. Once I forge a new bond with you, this stubborn resistance of yours will just melt away,” she observed, her voice dropping into a thoughtful murmur.
“You could hate me for the rest of your life, but you would be powerless against the effects of the bond. At last, you are exactly where you were always meant to be.”
She touched the manacle around his neck with one finger, her claw gently scraping across it as she slowly ran it across the metal.
“At least until I enter the queen’s nest. This arrangement is only temporary, after all.
But soon everything will be perfect.” Her hand lifted his jaw and glided over the sensitive scales there.
“Once you are in my nest, you will never leave it.”
Therxian jerked his head away with a venomous sound rising from his throat. Ferinia’s eyes chilled, but then she laughed and her hand dropped away.
“Still defiant, I see.”
“Until my last breath,” he affirmed. “The queen’s nest is not yours to take. And neither am I.”
A cold laugh erupted from her. “That is where you are wrong. It was meant to be my throne all along. Your mother is the cause of all this pain. She betrayed her blood, her shinara, everything that we have believed for generations and that has kept it safe, and for what? For the love of a male. And even then, she could not let go of the throne and pass it along to one who would protect it. She chased away my mother, exiled her even though it meant her death for doing what was necessary and right for the Aglatha. Now I am taking it back the only way that makes sense. The sacrifices are inconsequential.”
“I doubt Gareiia’s mother feels that way,” Therxian challenged.
“Perhaps not,” Ferinia agreed. “She will grieve, but she has other daughters who will grow up in a society that understands their place. She knows why it had to be done. She even accepted her own punishment for not curtailing Gareiia’s rebellion when she saw evidence of it.
But your loss, I think, will be the sharpest,” she leaned in close and whispered, her hand touching his belly.
A shiver of revulsion swept through him, and she laughed.
“What is it like to know that your mate is dying at this moment beneath Dehv’s claws?
” she whispered in his ear. “Or that your mother will soon follow her into the Shangla’s garden.
And that will only be the beginning of your pain as you endure night after night of forced extrusion to satisfy my need to breed.
And I will fly you well, Therxian,” she hissed.
Hot, bitter fury rose up within his stomach, his heart aching with a pain that raked through it.
He did not think. He just reacted. Drawing his tail up, he whipped it at her in a merciless slash with the gavo partially raised, cutting into her scales.
Her shriek of pain was almost musical, but it was the spray of her blood against his scales as she recoiled that gave him the most satisfaction.
She wound back on her tail, carrying herself swiftly across the room as she glared at him with pain and rage brightening her eyes.
He stared back at her expressionlessly, challenging her to do her worst. Daring her to come close again.
“Even if you succeed in all of these things, I will never bond to you,” he promised with a menacing hiss.
“I will spend every breath hating you, and I will do everything I can to bleed you any time you attempt to touch me and breed me. I will make you share my pain at every opportunity, and eventually... I will make certain to kill you.”
Her eyes widened fractionally as she stared at him, but then a cold mask descended over her features once more and she withdrew further toward the entryway, her blood leaving a wet trail.
“We will see,” she coldly replied. “It will be interesting to see how long you remain committed to your vengeance once the bond is broken and you are once again susceptible to my pheromones. I wonder how long it will take your will to fracture beneath instinct.”
“You might be surprised,” he returned.
Her mouth curved into a mocking smile. “Then we will begin. For tonight, languish as you remain chained in here and pray that your mate did not suffer much. May her released spirit keep you company.” Her smile dropped as she turned toward the entrance tunnel.
“Do not feed him tonight,” she ordered in a raised voice to the guard he was certain was lurking at the other end.
“Let the prince get his first taste of suffering.”
Alone again, he hung his head, his body slumping with the grief bearing down on him. What if Buosoa had indeed been too late? A quiet, mournful hum of keening rose within him as he grieved with the full weight of his hearts’ sorrow.