Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Silver Banquet Room, Shadow Court
Aurelius
I stare my uncle in the eye, despite how hard my heart is hammering in my chest, as I open my mouth to choose death.
I spent my childhood isolated behind the walls of the academy because I was taught that I was a danger to civilians.
Yet despite Maximinus’ and my instructor’s best efforts, I became friends with the cadets.
I found a new family and learned the value of my soldiers’ lives, despite being mired in bloody campaigns.
I am a rough warrior. I have lived a military life with little comfort.
Since Daire and Freya have turned my life upside down, I have also learned about the simple joys that the civilians of my kingdom experience: dancing, gifts simply for the sake of giving, and love.
I won’t plunge my kingdom into a civil war that I can’t win. I won’t cost another one of my Golden Family their lives. And I won’t risk the lives of soldiers, cadets, or my people unless I am certain that I can remove Maximinus from power.
Why is my life worth more than everyone else’s, simply because there is a crown resting on my head?
“Well, boy?” Maximinus leans toward me, his eyes gleeful.
A heavy silence settles over the Silver Banquet Room.
War, Lucius, and Ignatius have all now drawn their swords.
Why aren’t my soulmates here? Would they truly abandon me to die?
Shadow Gods, hear my final prayer. When my soul is snatched from my body, snapping the golden threads of fate, don’t also steal the souls of my soulmates who are bound with me.
Protect them, even if they have failed to protect me.
“I choose…” My mouth snaps shut.
“What?” Maximinus barks impatiently.
I can’t face this without feeling my Omega through our bond one final time.
I reach out over the threads that are wrapped around her throat.
Freya’s emotions slam into me: terror like she is the one facing death.
I jolt, sitting forward on my throne. “Wait…”
I hold up my hand.
I ignore everyone, focusing solely on Freya.
My pulse speeds up.
What is happening to her? Did Daire and Freya’s mission fail to capture Lanlin, and now the fucker is hurting…killing them?
It’s my fault.
Embers spray in my distress between my horns.
Unexpectedly, the terror through the bond reduces to be replaced by a spark of hope.
I stare at the space in the center of the chamber, where Freya and Daire were meant to appear tonight, allowing the hope to infect me as well.
Suddenly, a portal forms.
“She did it!” Lucius sheathes his sword. “I knew that she would.”
I allow myself a smile, as the shadowy portal slowly widens.
They’re here. They fucking did it.
They didn’t abandon me.
I remain as still as a statue on the couch.
“You were saying?” My icy gaze fixes on Maximinus.
“The sun is not yet risen, and my mates are returning because they were always working as my spies to capture the Shadow Vampire King. Since you were so insistent that I take the full credit for the failure, then you won’t mind that I take the full credit for the victory. ”
Maximinus stalks off the dais. “Prove that it is one first.”
Lucius rests his hand on my shoulder briefly and squeezes.
This is the moment that he has stage managed for me.
I blank my expression.
I must do this. But will this be harder than dying?
I can’t quite mask the flinch when Freya falls through the portal along with Daire and Lanlin.
Daire’s conspiracy of ravens pours through the portal like scorched petals caught in a storm. They fly over the heads of the council members who cuss and duck.
My eyes widen.
Freya looks beautiful in a traditional white and gemstone House of Sin wedding dress. But it is stained red with blood. Daire is wearing nothing but a pleated kilt, which exposes his pale beauty, except he is equally painted in dried blood.
Did Lanlin savage his neck like that?
I will pull out his fucking fangs.
Yet I can’t tear my gaze away from Lanlin himself.
Daire has thrown himself over the vampire, covering him with his outstretched wings, as if he can shield Lanlin from what is about to happen.
Yet I am shocked from the glimpses that I can make out of the Shadow Vampire King who is normally the most powerful person in a room.
Despite being dressed in a matching wedding outfit to Daire, Lanlin’s face is bruised. His chest is black and blue like his ribs are broken. Blood still seeps from deep claw marks in his wrist, staining his arm in scarlet rivulets.
Although his hair is decorated with ribbons and diamonds, it is a tangled mess.
I study the silver shackles around his seared wrists.
I should feel exultant to see my enemy chained and captured with his magic suppressed.
Instead, I don’t know how I feel.
What in the name of the Shadow Gods happened to them?
Finally, the ravens settle on the floor of the dais around me.
The chamber explodes in excited chatter and mocking laughter.
War steps forward, threateningly. “Silence.”
The room falls quiet, as if looking forward to the entertainment.
I won’t disappoint them.
I can’t.
It is the hardest thing that I have ever done to coldly remain sitting on the raised dais.
“Congratulations,” I force myself to say, “on capturing our enemy. You’ll be rewarded. Soon, I shall bond with you. Now, leave the prisoner and come and sit with me, my King and Queen.”
Lucius scripted those words and then helped me to memorize them.
They are everything that I have dreamed these long weeks apart from my Omega about achieving.
Yet they taste like ash.
“Oh, fuck off to the Shadow Devils, and if you find them, tell them that I sent you,” Daire snarls. “You are not treating another king like you treated me.”
“He’s no longer a king,” I say, before I can stop myself. “He’s mine to do with whatever I like.”
“But you promised.” Freya pushes herself shakily to her feet. “You swore that—”
“What I promised,” I reply through gritted teeth, “was not to kill him. And I shan’t because I don’t believe that kings should be executed.” I glance significantly at Maximinus. “Plus, death would be too easy for the assassin who murdered my brother.”
I notice out of the corner of my eye the encouraging nods and smiles of the crowd.
“You promised not to hurt him,” Freya insists, stepping in front of Lanlin.
I force myself not to growl.
I wish that I was in my dragon form and could telepathically communicate with her.
What happens next will hurt Lanlin, but it will save our lives and all our kingdoms.
Why doesn’t Freya trust me? Have we been apart for too long?
Maximinus arches his brow. “Are you on our side, wolf? Or have you been seduced over to the enemy? Are you a traitor?”
The word traitor hangs heavy in the air.
Lanlin shoves Daire away from him, and Daire tumbles to the side, taken by surprise.
“She is still under my mesmerism,” Lanlin declares.
My gaze sharpens with surprise. “I have seduced her like all Bloods use the power of their allure to trap the innocent. It will wear off, but we were bonded. I have a strong influence over both my Omega and Blood Lover. You shouldn’t take seriously anything they say.
I see now that it was nothing but a fake bond to capture me. They were never mine.”
It’s a lie.
When we were young, lying together under the moonlight in Mother’s rose garden as Lanlin stroked one of his rats with his gloved hand, he once admitted to me how much he hated the magic of mesmerism.
“It is Hor’s talent,” he whispered. “He uses Omegas like puppets. I shall never use that skill on anyone. I would rather pluck out my own eyes and eat them.”
I shifted on the grass, grimacing as the fresh welts on my back stuck to my academy uniform. “Aren’t you a prince? Why don’t you have this nasty Hor person killed?”
Lanlin turned his head, until our noses were touching. “Aren’t you a prince? Why don’t you have this nasty Caligo, who whipped you this morning, killed?”
I blushed. “I don’t have that authority.”
“Neither do I, Relius. But one day, I will kill Hor with my own fangs. Perhaps, then you will visit my kingdom, and we can unite our lands of sand and gold. But wishing it simply because we’re princes doesn’t mean that we can stop the bullies, right?”
I squirmed under Lanlin’s intense gaze. “Not yet, Lan. But one day I will.”
I imagined flying to his kingdom and then carrying him on my back as the first Alpha dragon rider to live with me, far from the High Priestess who hurt him, forcing him to wear gloves and branding him monster.
I believed then that he was my best friend. But now I know that the High Priestess was right.
He is a monster.
“Sin…” Daire desperately reaches for Lanlin, but Lanlin recoils. “Let me help.”
Lanlin holds up his wrists, which are reddened beneath the silver shackles. “Have you not done enough, Little Raven?”
Daire pales, staggering back a step.
Freya wraps her arms around Daire’s shoulders. Her eyes are red-rimmed.
Lanlin is saving them…and he’s trusting me.
Lanlin studies them both. “So, this was the plan all along.”
“I’m sorry,” Freya chokes out.
Her devastation through the bond is like a weeping wound.
“Don’t be. I understand. You’re alive, and we’ve escaped the hell beyond hells. I never expected to see…” Lanlin glances through the window in surprise. “A dawn. Although, it will be both my first and last, I suppose.”
“No.” Freya shakes her head frantically, moving to stand in front of the path of the fingers of the dawn, which are trailing through the window. “Fucking no.”
Lanlin struggles to his knees, grimacing at the pull on his broken ribs. He meets my gaze through swollen eyes.
I swallow.
How can he kneel there calmly like his wrists aren’t burning, and he isn’t my prisoner?
Like I’m not taking everything from him?
Fury rushes through me.
Lanlin is no longer my friend.
I’m only saving him because my Omega wants him and he’s bound to me by the golden threads of fate.
How dare he still understand me better than anyone else?
It’s not fucking fair, when he’s the one who took Tarquin from me, abandoning me to the care of my uncle.