28. Malachi
Malachi
Periwinkle.
No, violet.
Light waves crest as I tilt my head back. Magic thrums through my chest, spreading out. Saturating my pores, and yet…
I push to my elbows, glancing at the female spread over me. Her slick heat slides up and down my shaft. I should feel the tight grip. The vibrations with the bounce of her body. Her breasts jut out as she arches her back, but I feel nothing.
“Your Majesty?” Her eyebrows pinch as I grab her hips, shoving her down harder.
She catches herself on my chest with a squeak as I flip us around and drive into her deeper. But it’s not enough.
I need more.
“More,” the voice demands.
Tipping my head back, I open wide. The sting of my teeth cuts through, greater than the sight of this red-haired female wriggling beneath me. She tilts her head, baring her neck for her king, and I hate how much she wants it.
No fight.
No challenge.
I grab her wrists with ropes of magic and pin them overhead as I sink my teeth into her neck. Blood pours into my mouth, gushing down my throat in thick waves.
But I can’t drink fast enough.
I pump my hips as she starts to scream. Her body tightening with her release as her blood spills into me. Her heart pumps, flooding my mouth with another rush of blood as I drink her down. Each beat is slower than the last as I drink and drink.
And drink.
I shove forward, pumping my release into her while swallowing harder with each gulp.
“Mal—” She loses her voice.
Her fight.
Her nails, once scratching against my magic, pause. Her head lolls to the side, and I retract my teeth as blood paints her neck and chest red. I don’t bother cleaning her up as I pull out of her and tug on my pants. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Sticky blood trails down my chest.
She’s breathing, barely.
She’ll heal and come crawling—begging—for it all over again like she did the last time.
But it’s not enough. Nothing is.
I grab the orb hanging around my neck; a pulse shoots through me.
“Open,” the voice whispers.
Stepping into the hallway, I find my way through the manor until I reach a grand space where my sister is pacing before a fire. Her shadows drink any light spitting from the flames. They drain the glow from her alabaster skin.
Hazel’s dark eyes find me as I step into the room, and her shadows part just enough for me to pass through before she clenches her fingers and coils them back in. I’m not the only one struggling to contain my magic lately. The orb calls us both.
She turns to face me, her long black hair unmoving. Her gaze falls to the blood staining my chest, and her shoulders tighten.
“She’s alive,” I assure her.
For some reason, that’s where Hazel draws the line. Even when the female crawled into my bed and told me to take whatever I wanted. Even as the shadows at Hazel’s fingertips dance, itching for death. She cares if I’ve ended that female’s life for some ungodly reason.
“You miss Selia.” Hazel’s head tilts.
The purple flecks in her nearly black eyes sparkle. Sometimes it’s as if my sister can see my secrets in the threads.
“Selia tried to kill me.”
A malicious smile ticks up in the corner of Hazel’s mouth. “And yet… you miss her.”
Maybe there was a part of me that would have missed Selia under different circumstances. She was my favorite. She understood my disdain for her family. Or so I thought. Just like her brother, I never should have trusted her.
I glance down at my hand, the one that gripped the blade I drove through her heart. I can still smell her blood. Feel the heat of it coating my fingers.
You don’t need her.
I clench my fist, shoving that thought to the back of my mind. “Bring me another. This one didn’t work.”
Hazel’s dark eyes follow me across the room as I grab a glass of wine. “Your magic is insatiable. I doubt anything will work at this point. You’re endless lately.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I’m almost there.”
“Where is there exactly?” She drops into a chair by the fire, flinching when her shadows pool on the floor.
They’re unruly like the veins that reach out of the Well. Clasping her fingers in her lap, she manages to rein them in, but it’s clearly becoming more difficult.
“You said yourself you need more magic to unlock that which you possess around your neck. Without Elorie and Wilder, how do you plan to harness it?”
“So little faith. But wise nonetheless. Father underestimated you.”
Her teeth clench at my comment. At the mention of the male who would have seen her beheaded had he not feared what her magic might have done should he have tried it. He wasn’t a visionary like me. He didn’t understand the power in nurturing that which others fear.
Hazel might resist on occasion, but her loyalty is deep, and her magic is stronger as an asset than a threat.
“I no longer need Elorie and Wilder for their magic. Not while the Well is doing the work for me. I learned from you, dear sister. Now that I’ve figured out how to tap into what the Well drains, I have everything I need.”
Her eyebrow ticks as I sit in the chair across from her. “You’re siphoning off the magic the Well is taking? That’s why its veins reach farther now?”
“Soon it won’t matter how far they reach. I shall see this realm to dust, and we shall create something new. Something worthy of the praise we give the gods who do not care to save us.”
“But you promised.” She leans forward, her black nails digging into the arm of the chair.
Fear stirs like a wicked tang in the air as her magic nips the edges of my aura.
I promised my sister that when I remake the realms, I will unmake her.
Put her out of her loneliness. Her isolation.
Her magic is her torment, spreading death and making it impossible for her to touch anyone without killing them.
She’s bound to those shadows. To the voices that whisper through them.
I promised I’d set her free so she would help me.
Not yet.
“I will,” I lie anyway.
Her rage licks against the gods-touched orb around my neck, and it recoils just the slightest. Enough that I know better than to encourage a bad mood.
Hazel relaxes as a knock sounds at the door.
“Come in.”
Lady Reah pushes the door open. The priestesses are better at hiding their disdain than most. She holds back from commenting when she meets my gaze, cautiously eyeing the orb.
After what happened in the Ley Court, some of those in my realm have whispered of rebellion.
They can’t see that I’m doing this for them.
Which is why I’ve dispatched Alasdair to set their minds right while I prepare for what’s to come.
“You received my summons,” I say as Lady Reah stops before me.
Her white hair is tied in tight braids, wound in a bun atop her head. A single one hangs loose beside her ear, resting over her shoulder.
Down the hall, the female I bedded moans as she starts to wake. It draws Lady Reah’s gaze, since her senses are more honed than most Fae.
“You’re not well.” Her stare moves to my bloodied chest.
“Is that a matter of observation or a foresight from the fates?” My fingers thrum on the arm of my chair. “What message was so urgent that you could not send it through my generals?”
She cools her expression, folding her hands over her white lace dress.
“There is a problem in Tempest,” she warns, though her tone remains even. “The priestesses have been unable to find answers in any of our visions. What the orb does to the realm does not agree with the fates. What’s to come cannot be seen at all.”
“The orb is gods-touched, but the gods refuse to speak of it to you. That says more about them than what it has shown me.”
“What has it shown you?” Lady Reah asks. “There are whispers you wish to unmake the realm.”
Hazel’s attention perks, even as she does not move. She shifts in her seat, watching embers shoot onto the stone before bathing them in darkness.
“I wish to save this realm. To see it become something greater.” My fingers toy with the orb.
It throbs for me.
Calls for me.
Paints me a picture of something so grand I cannot explain it.
Power so vast there is no containing it.
Its magic reaches for something out there, summoning me to that call in the distance.
When the orb is finally unleashed, I will not need anything. Not Elorie or Wilder. Not even my sister. I will harness the power of creation.
“Fate has a way of correcting that which is broken,” Lady Reah warns. “Careful how far you test the edges of this magic you wield, Your Majesty.”
“Careful with the words you use so carelessly to threaten your king.” A surge of power throbs in the room.
The force pushes Lady Reah back a step, while Hazel is unmoving. Surprise flares in Lady Reah’s eyes, as if she does not understand what I can do.
What I will do should anyone challenge me.
After the failed Rite, I sensed my people growing restless. The court fell, and rumors spread throughout the territories. Whispers of rebellion grew louder, so, using General Balk as an example, I made sure to paint a picture of what would happen should they attempt anything as careless.
Alasdair did the rest, spilling blood until the others fell in line.
Soon they’ll understand. Even if it unmakes them, I will weave them a new fate, and their spirits will thank me.
“Anything else?” My tone is flat, my fangs jutting, and my belly hungry for blood.
“That’s all, Your Majesty.” Lady Reah begins to turn.
“Remember, should your niece make an appearance, I’m the first to know.”
She pauses, glancing over her shoulder. “Of course.”
At that, Lady Reah walks out of the manor. Just as the female stumbles down the hall and into the room.
“I’m going for a walk,” Hazel announces, standing. “Alasdair will be here tomorrow to report on the battlefront. Try to get some sleep.”
I don’t bother responding as she glides across the floor. Her shadows drift in a trail behind her. It isn’t until the last feather of her magic wisps away that I finally stand, meeting the naked female at the doorway.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
Hurt fills her face. “You don’t remember?”
“Never mind.” Annoyance peaks as I wrap my fingers around her throat.
Magic weaves up and over her skin, making it more golden. I thread light through her hair, crafting the perfect illusion. The red strands turn a honey brown one by one. I close my eyes and pull the vision from my mind.
When I finally open them, the female before me is that of a memory.
Of death.
Something strange fills my chest.
“Tonight, you’re Selia,” I tell the altered vision of the female.
But when she frowns, she doesn’t look like my little storm cloud. Her mouth opens, and I dread her ruining my imagination entirely. My thumb taps her lips, magic slipping into her mouth to steal her voice.
Still, I can’t look at this altered version of what is real.
So I spin her around and bend her over the couch as I sink into her body.
Maybe when I rewrite this realm, I’ll craft my storm cloud again. Maybe it will no longer matter.
I grab the female’s hair and let that thought sink deeper. I let myself imagine a new beginning. A new end. I thrust harder, and the female starts to fight me a little. Just as my Selia did.
“Did you want your king to stop?” I ask, thrusting hard.
She shakes her head because, of course, she doesn’t. She just wants to pretend she doesn’t need this as much as I do. She wants to wiggle and fight and give me what I need. So I grab her hair and force her back to arch. Leaning over her, I sink my teeth into her shoulder.
I drink.
And drink.
And drink.
But she tastes nothing like a storm.