Chapter Six
Legend
She fucking launches.
Her body wraps around mine like a murderous vine and laughter spills from my throat as my fingers knead their way up the back of her neck. I tear her off just in time for the room around us to dissolve into a splatter of colors when one of my brothers rips open a portal.
Smart. Probably not a good idea for the people of Rathe to witness one of their future Queens gut their king alive. The portal spits us onto ancient cobblestones, and I hit the ground hard.
The Royal Court spreads before us in towering stone archways draped in ivy, and gardens that have witnessed centuries of bloodshed disguised as politics and family drama.
“Let go,” she snarls, but her grip tightens instead of releasing.
I roll us over, pinning her beneath me on the warmed stones. “Make me, mate.”
Her eyes flash with something deadly, but I feel the way her pulse jumps at the name. “Stop calling me that.”
“Why? It’s what you are.” How she manages to look sexy as hell, even while plotting my demise, is beyond my range of power. “The bond doesn’t lie, my little menace. I know you feel it.”
“I feel homicidal rage.”
“That too.” I grin down at her. “It’s all connected.”
Her knee comes up fast toward my ribs, but I catch it, fingers wrapping around her thigh.
“We’re doing this here?” I ask, genuinely curious. She’s fucking bold, I’ll give her that, but of course the Gods would grace me with nothing more than a fucking menace as my mate. They know I wouldn’t have it any other way. “In front of the ancestors?” I mock innocence.
Her eyes turn to slits, but with every deep breath her tits brush against my chest, and I’m suddenly aware of every fucking inch of her. Her nipples swell beneath her cotton shirt and my hips twitch into her a little.
She challenges me head-on. “I’m doing this everywhere until you’re dead.”
“Promise?”
Her frustrated scream echoes off the walls. Goddamn. I’ve never been more in love with such a fucking monster. “I swear to God, Legend, if you don’t—”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Creed snaps from somewhere in the distance, reminding me that we’re not alone. Of course they wouldn’t suck me through a portal with her alone. Wait. Did they think she could take me? She probably could. Be willing to test it, too. “Both of you shut the fuck up.”
I kick up from the ground, leaving her flat on her back.
“Why are those weird fucking things staring down at me?” Haide points to the gargoyles perched on crumbling archways.
She’s right. They’re watching our violent dance with stone eyes that have witnessed worse.
Florals of vines crawl up the walls like grasping fingers, threading through cracks that time carved into the foundation.
Beyond the gardens, there was the Royal House.
The Royal House is just beyond the gardens, but I doubt we’d make it very far before Haide started throwing shit around the room.
“Okay, now everyone calm the fuck down.” London extends a hand to her friend. I know she’d do nothing to hurt Haide, but I can’t help the jerk reaction that claws at the back of my mind.
Mine. Don’t fucking touch or I’ll rip out your spleen.
Jesus.
No wonder Father made us take all those lessons in control.
“What is this mate shit he’s talking about, Lon?” Haide stands, apparently ready to switch back to the topic at hand. Of course she asks London, because fuck me and what I’ve got to say.
The silence from Rathe’s newest royal is truly amusing, but it’s Haide’s next words that has fire licking through my veins.
“A mate? I thought that just meant you wanted to fuck someone. Really badly. But then…that would mean I would have had multiple mates, and—”
I’m across the bed of Lilly’s in a flash, my hand on her throat and her body dangling in the air like a fucking serpent looking for its next place to sink its fangs.
“I’d be very careful with your next words, mate.” The smirk that spreads across my face drips with venom. “Or you might find yourself, I don’t know…”
The color in her eyes sparkles like stars catching fire. As if my threat excites her. Mania ripples through my veins once again, and my palm heats as warmth spreads through my body in waves. I need to rip her clothes off and fuck her until she finally submits.
“Aw, little king,” she all but purrs. “Don’t tell me you have a jealous streak?”
I slowly lower her to the ground. Her feet don’t even hit the blades of grass before I want to hurl her across the world.
“Because I’m not the kind of girl who should ever belong to a man so easily triggered by other men.” She pauses. “Or women.”
My jaw tightens.
“That’s it!” Creed’s hand flies up and a pile of bricks forms between our feet.
“Creed,” I warn, fingers flexing on her throat.
He ignores me and the stones grow higher.
Haide is out of my hand in a flash. Before I can reach her, a portal opens and snaps shut, leaving nothing but a dust of smoke.
“Fuck!” I yell, glaring at them all. “What the fuck? Where did you put her?!”
Knight rolls his eyes. “Chill. We don’t have time for petty mate drama—”
“Says the guy who killed his mate’s best friend in a jealous fit and then felt bad later and wiped it from her memory!”
“But since you’re hellbent on making your point”—he continues like I didn’t speak—“and Rathe U is reopening…” I already know what he’s going to say before the words leave his mouth. Like a hit of Pixie Herb, my muscles relax.
Because this just became a game of cat and mouse.
And I’m nothing if not a thorough hunter.