A Crown of Cursed Hearts (Kingdom of Blighted Thorns #3)

13. Vexxion

13

VEXXION

A very beautiful fae woman had just kissed me, and I had no idea who she was. While I’d been with fae women in the past, using their bodies to escape my wretched existence while they did the same with me, I’d quickly found celibacy more appealing.

Now this one straddled my lap, staring at me with tears trickling down her cheeks and a sweet smile curling her plump lips that faded much too quickly. Despair drowned out her features, and I suspected I was the cause, though I had no idea why.

The crow I’d thought long dead hopped off the back of the couch to perch on her shoulder. He cocked his head and peered at me, not flying to me like he would’ve long ago.

A male I’d never seen before sat on a low table nearby, staring at me with a mix of hope and dismay.

“It’s me,” the woman said in a creaky voice. “Your fury. ”

“I have no fury.” Other than the one burning within my heart. Rage could twist a man into something he abhorred, but I ached to use it to lay waste to the king who’d cursed me for a lifetime.

A glance around told me we sat in the blue parlor at Weldsbane Manor.

“How did you get inside my estate?” I asked them with a sneer. “Though it truly doesn’t matter. Leave, no. Both of you.”

“Vexxion.” The woman’s grip tightened on my shoulders. “It’s me. Tempest. Please. It’s me.”

“Jeez,” the male said, rising. “She loves you. You need to treat her better than this.”

“I don’t know either of you,” I bit out.

I lifted the woman off my thighs and placed her on the sofa beside me, rising and rounding the table to put distance between us.

She got up and the man moved to stand beside her, his arm going around the back of her waist as if she needed support to keep from falling.

“It’s alright,” he told her softly. “Give him a moment to let things settle.”

“You two need to leave,” I said again. How had they gotten past my wards, and why did they act as if they knew me?

Was this yet another trap sent my way by the king?

“We’re fated mates, and I’m not going anywhere,” she snapped, stalking over to stand in front of me. Her leather tunic and pants hugged her curves, and for one moment, I was tempted to touch her. The feeling scorched across my bones.

I shook the inane emotion off .

“I don’t have a fated mate,” I drawled.

Her chin lifted, and her gorgeous green eyes met mine. I could sink into them while I sunk my body into hers and—

Fuck, what was wrong with me? I didn’t know her and whatever her scheme was, it was not going to work.

She held out her arm, turning it to reveal a symbol etched on her skin as beautiful as her. “What do you think this is?”

I knew very well what it was. I’d studied my own each night, tracing my fingertip across the pattern, placing all my wishes for something better into a relationship that might never happen.

And colors . . . My life had only been shades of gray and now . . . I saw colors.

Because of her .

“You’re Brenna,” I croaked, revealing more of my emotions than I liked if only for a moment. I flipped my arm over to show the world her symbol’s match.

“I’m Fury ,” she said. “ Your Fury. I was born Brenna, but I don’t remember having that name.”

“By the fates,” a woman said from the doorway to my right.

I reached for one of the blades at my waist and pulled it, rounding to face the threat.

“Whoa.” She came to an abrupt halt and lifted her hands. Unlike Tempest, she wore a simple linen tunic and dark pants. She’d pulled her long red hair back, securing it at the nape of her neck. “There was a time when I worried you might hurt my friend, but as far as I know, you were never eager to kill me.”

“Vexxion’s back,” Brenna— Tempest —said to this and the other women entering my parlor. The second wore her dark hair in tight braids, and her deep brown eyes pretty much glared.

“He doesn’t seem to remember me,” Tempest said. “Any of us, I guess.” She looked up at me with so much pain in her pretty eyes I ached to stroke away the tears tracing down her cheeks. It was all I could do not to tell her everything would be alright.

I’d spent so much of my younger years longing for the time when I’d meet her, telling myself that together, we could defeat any threat and rise from what was left to build a new, wonderful world. I never thought I’d actually find her. I’d begun to believe she was dead.

“How did all of you get inside my estate?” I asked, striving to keep my tone even.

The women and the man sat in chairs inside my parlor, as if they not only knew me but my estate.

“Sit,” Tempest told me in a tone that told me she’d do her best to make me obey if I didn’t comply.

Because I couldn’t see any harm in doing as she suggested, and I needed answers, I sunk onto another sofa. She joined me, sitting so close her thigh brushed along mine.

I eased away from her and again, she sent me a look filled with complete devastation.

“I don’t know you,” I said, though I kept my voice gentle. My fated mate was here. We could still build something, though I didn’t know what it might be.

Together, we might finally kill the king.

My gaze swept across the others. “I don’t know any of you, actually. Explain what’s going on. ”

Introductions came first. Reyla and Brodine had grown up in a border fortress with Tempest, though I couldn’t imagine how the Lydel heir had ended up there. Airia had worked in the aerie at Bledmire and would bear watching.

Tempest shared how she and I had met months ago, how I’d collared her at the Claiming and trained her, how we’d fallen in love. She’d nearly killed Ivenrail—a detail that stunned me. She finished with how we’d escaped Bledmire the day before and brought me here with them.

How Ivenrail nearly killed me before they fled.

If this was all true, why didn’t I remember?

The one detail that stunned me the most was that Tempest had somehow removed the collar the king snapped around my throat like a noose when I was five. I’d spent years doing all I could to ignore the feel of it squirming beneath my skin.

That feeling was gone, giving me the only reason I could believe her.

Could all of this be true?

“ You’re still collared,” I pointed out dryly, tracing my finger across her throat like I wielded a blade.

A shiver tracked through her, and her eyes closed, though only for an instant.

“You obtained collars like this for me, my friends, and Brenna,” Tempest said, explaining who Brenna was, though she now went by the name Layla. My brother was with the king’s new wife?

“You didn’t tell me how you got them,” Tempest said. “But we used them. The new collars remove the Claiming vines and mask that we no longer have them. ”

What had I given for such a thing, and why would I do something like this? But if they were no longer collared yet appeared as if they were, they could travel through faerie without giving away that they were free.

And now it appeared Tempest had obtained the same collar for me.

“Where did you get it, little one?” I asked her. Only the Lieges possessed the magic to create collars.

Her gaze slipped from mine. “It doesn’t matter.”

Tipping her chin up with one finger, I studied her face. “It does,” I snapped. “Tell me.”

“Don’t use that tone with me.” She pulled away from my touch.

“What tone is that, little one?” I drawled, enjoying teasing her for some unknown reason. I wanted to get up and walk away from her, but I also wanted to tug her back onto my lap and wrap my arms around her.

Reyla and Airia scowled, and Brodine leaned forward, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

“The kind of tone that says you won’t allow me to refuse you an answer,” she said with a quake in her voice that I knew in my heart was not fear. Her pupils had dilated, and her breaths jerked in and out, making her full breasts press against the inside of her leather tunic. I couldn’t look away.

My tone had aroused her.

Perhaps we had loved each other, though I couldn’t find the feeling inside me no matter how hard I tried.

I frowned, dismissing that part of this for now. “You said someone who calls herself Brenna—excuse me, Layla —married the king? Then my younger brother stole her immediately after the wedding?”

“I did.” Zayde strode into the parlor holding hands with a woman with Tempest’s same eyes and hair color. Was this the king’s new wife? She was taller than Tempest, and her build a bit lusher, but the two women could be sisters.

I love you, someone said in my mind.

“Fuck,” I bellowed, rising from the sofa and striding away from the infernal woman who insisted we were fated mates, who insisted we’d loved each other for months.

The others jolted and gaped at me.

Mind-to-mind communication was only possible with fated mates. We had the same symbol. She could invade my very thoughts.

She was my fated mate, but I didn’t know her. Yes, I’d sought her almost from the moment I knew she existed. From about the time I was nineteen, I’d seen her as my salvation. But I wouldn’t be forced into feelings I didn’t have. The idea repulsed me.

Yet she didn’t repulse me. Even dressed in simple leathers, a rough outfit I’d scorn if it was worn by any other, I couldn’t look away from her beauty.

Whenever she looked my way, shock coursed through my veins.

Her nearness hit me like a wild storm, shaking my body awake. She wasn’t just pretty; she was raw magnetism wrapped in flesh. My pulse pounded, and my chest tightened, lashed by a primal hunger I couldn’t deny.

I wanted to devour her with my senses, consume her until I couldn’t tell where she left off and I began. This fierce desperation unhinged me; the air felt thick and suffocating. In that instant, nothing mattered but closing the distance separating us—an instinctive need clawing at my soul to possess this gorgeous being.

I fought it with everything inside me.

Watching my mother be sliced apart before my eyes had nearly severed my mind from the world around me. I’d been made to watch by a monster who knew no boundaries, a fiend who wouldn’t stop until he’d not only ground me into the stone beneath his boot but made me cry out in bitter surrender.

Yes, I’d dreamed of a future with the woman I knew as Brenna. Yes, I’d sought her from the time I realized what she could mean to me. But I couldn’t love her, and she should not love me, not as long as Ivenrail lived.

The thought of handing part of my soul to anyone made visceral fear bolt through me. I steeled my body to hold back its tremor. Having feelings for anyone would only lead to my downfall. I refused to hand a new weapon to the person I hated most.

How had I allowed myself to have feelings for this woman?

Because she looked like she was going to cry, and seeing this gutted me in a way I couldn’t describe, I returned to sit beside her, though I left the space of a thigh between us.

Don’t speak to me in my mind again, I said, my tone as gentle as I could make it. It was vital that I establish boundaries between us.

Her long pause was filled with her ragged breathing. Her hands clenched by her thighs, and her body quaked. “Alright. ”

I knew she existed from the time I was small, back when her aunt flitted to my cold quarters inside the castle. She’d peered around for a long time while I sat on my bed and watched her. Striding close, she’d stopped beside my bed and studied me.

“Vexxion,” she’d said.

I’d only nodded. I didn’t know who she was then, but a spark of hope had burst inside me, a bitter, amazing thing I didn’t dare trust. When she stroked my forehead, that only reinforced my aching need for someone— anyone —to treat me with kindness.

“I can’t stay long,” she’d said.

And there it was. She’d abandon me there to suffer some more.

“I have to show you this.” She’d projected an image of a small girl with dark hair and green eyes before me.

“Who is it?” I’d asked.

“Her name is Brenna Lydel. Your mother and hers betrothed you when she was a child. Don’t tell anyone, or they’ll kill her.”

“Why?”

“Others have said . . .” She’d pinched her lips together.

I’d looked up at her. “Said what?”

“It’s a silly myth perpetuated by a witch, nothing you should worry about now.”

“Tell me,” I’d growled.

“You two could change the world.”

“How can two people change the world?” Even at five, I knew it would take an army to do something like that .

She was foolish to come to me. I sensed the king would kill her if he found her there.

And she could only spit out silly words that meant nothing.

“I can’t say anything further. When the time is right, you’ll know.” The woman nudged her chin to the small girl’s image. “Remember her. She’s the one you must seek, the only one who can do what must be done.”

The words my mother made me memorize before she died—before Ivenrail murdered her—floated through my mind.

When nature bends and true love speaks with all its might, only then will justice end the bitter blight.

As I studied Brenna’s little girl features, my wrist had blazed, and even as a child, I knew that this girl who was only a few years younger than me would one day mean everything— everything —to me.

In the image, she smiled, playing with a toy on the floor, happy while I lived with desolate sadness. But she was my fated mate, and I knew then that I would seek her for the rest of my days.

It was only when I grew older that I realized I had to put my dreams aside. If and when I finally met her, I’d have to shove her away. Loving her would only result in her death.

The old woman had left, and I hadn’t seen her until years later when Ivenrail brought her before him, calling her Vera. He thrust her to her knees in front of his throne and demanded Vera tell them where she was.

She’d refused to say a word, and he’d encased her with a frame and hid her somewhere within the castle.

I grew older. More bitter .

And my hope of anything better fled.

I had not found the child who’d grown into a woman—the very beautiful woman sitting beside me. If it happened, I’d remember.

How had I allowed myself to fall in love with her, to give her the hope for a future together I could see shining in her eyes? The same hope was trying to worm its way into my heart right now.

I cut it off. I had to cut it off.

Zayde settled in a chair and tugged Layla down onto his lap. She placed her arm around his shoulders and leaned into his chest. I didn’t miss the matching symbols on their wrists. How could I forget my brother finding his fated mate, let alone me finding my own?

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Zayde said, confirming that everything Tempest and the others shared was true. She must be right about the collar. I no longer felt it twisting and clawing around my neck. “And I’m glad you’re back. I was worried . . .” His gaze fell on my throat. Did he know the collar was gone? “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to Lydel first,” Tempest said, her voice only a touch shrill. Her gaze jerked my way before she made her eyes point forward. “I’m going to break the curse, gather an army, then go back to Bledmire and finish what I started.”

Zayde frowned. “This sounds great, but I’m not sure how you’re going to do all that.”

“I’m not either, but it must be done.” Tempest peered toward the windows covered with sheer drapes. Night had fallen while we spoke. “As eager as I am to leave immediately, we should wait until tomorrow. I know where Lydel is, but I don’t know how long it’ll take to get there—”

“Four day’s flight,” I said. “If we leave first thing in the morning, we can stop partway for the night and continue the next day. After that, we’ll have to camp. We’ll reach the island late in the afternoon on the fourth day.”

“Sounds good,” Zayde said, and the others nodded.

Tempest told Zayde all that had happened since they parted at Bledmire, and my brother’s happy gaze locked on my throat.

After we ate dinner, I magicked the dishes away.

Tempest had respected my request not to speak to me in my mind, but her gaze never left me. She loved me. I could see that as clearly as the mark on my wrist.

Why didn’t I love her?

We sat in the parlor, drinking wine one of us poured and strategizing, though until we reached Lydel, and Tempest somehow broke the curse, we wouldn’t be able to proceed with any real plan.

Finally, Reyla rose and placed her wine glass on a table. I magicked it away like I had the dishes. “I’m going to bed.” Her gaze sought Tempest’s, and the sorrow in her eyes was magnified in my fated mate. “I’ll help make up a bed for you.”

“She’ll sleep in mine,” I barked.

I was as shocked as everyone else at my words. If I were wise, I’d shove her as far away as I could, not suggest we share a room. Yet here I was, falling into that naiveness I’d lived in for a short time after Vera came to me, the silly unbroken part of me that suggested this woman could offer a better future for me than the one Ivenrail tried to force down my throat .

“If you insist,” Tempest said shortly.

“I do.”

Reyla strode over to stand in front of me. “If you hurt her, I’ll gut you.”

She had very little magical training, though I sensed tremendous potential. What little she could host at this moment could be dispelled with a flick of my finger. Still, I nodded. She had the right to protect her friend.

“And if she doesn’t, I will,” Brodine snapped. His gaze flicked to Tempest, and I didn’t like the protectiveness I spied there. I might not be able to have her, but I’d be damned if I’d step back and let him be with her instead.

“I can take care of myself,” Tempest snarled. With bitterness spilling across her face, she rose from her chair. “I’m going to bed as well.”

We all got up and started for the foyer.

Brodine slid between me and Tempest, taking her arm when her stride faltered. “Are you sure about this?” He shot me a scowl that should burn, but I answered it with a slick smile.

I had aroused Tempest, not him.

“I’m fine, Bro.” Her words came out in a sigh, and she leaned into his side.

A snarl ripped up my throat before I could bite it back. “Do. Not. Touch. Her.”

Scowling at me, she shrugged her friend away. “Go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She walked into the foyer alone, favoring her left leg.

“Why are you limping?” I growled, latching onto her arm and making her face me. I scanned her body, expecting to find wounds, which was silly. She was safe enough inside my home. But that limp . . . “Who hurt you? I’ll kill them.”

She wiggled her arms until my grip loosened and she could step away from me. “I believe whoever did it is already dead.”

“Vexxion.” Warning coming through in Zayde’s voice. Would he threaten me too? “Don’t . . .” He huffed and took Layla’s hand. She squeezed his, and he linked their fingers. “She loves you. Don’t hurt her or you’ll answer to me.”

“I’m not cruel.”

He lifted his eyebrows, though he knew me better than anyone else. I’d only ever shown him my soft side. “Try to be kind.”

I gave him a curt nod.

He and Layla flitted from the parlor, and I assumed he’d take her to the suite he kept here at Weldsbane. My brother being with her like this stunned me. If she was married to Ivenrail, he’d come after her. The Zayde I knew would never have gone against his father, let alone steal the king’s bride.

This showed me again that what I’d been told was true.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Odd feelings kept churning through me as if I stood in a deep pool of water and all my emotions had sunk to the bottom. I ached to reach down and grab onto them, tug them up and make them shine in the light of day, but every time I tried, they slipped through my fingers and settled back into the mud.

Taking Tempest’s hand, I flitted us to my room, finding her scent everywhere.

This was my sanctuary, and I didn’t know what to think of her spreading every bit of herself around. A bag sat on a chair, and I was sure it was hers. A gown lay nearby. Also hers.

“You were my fated mate,” I said softly, unsure why the notion still surprised me.

Seeing her hobble into the middle of the room made rage storm through me. I would exhume whoever had caused her pain and make sure they felt my wrath.

“I am your fated mate,” she growled, not facing me. She had the sweetest ass, molded by her leather pants in a way I ached to do with my hands. Turning, she sighed. “You’ll remember us. You have to.”

“And if I don’t?” I rasped. I’d remained passive while in the parlor, giving everyone a chance to have their say, but this was my house. My bedroom. And I controlled what happened in the only real home I’d ever known.

“Then I’ll find a way to go on without you.” Such hollowness in her words.

If I let the feeling inside, it would gut me.

“I’m sure I loved you too,” I said, though I still couldn’t grab onto the feeling.

The glare she sent me should’ve pinned me to the wall. “Statements like that hurt me. You can be cruel. I saw it—no I felt it too many times over the past few months—but even when I had doubts about everything going on around us, they couldn’t shove aside my belief that you cared for me.”

“You doubted me as well?”

Biting her lower lip, she nodded.

“ Why did you doubt me?” I strode right up to her.

She took a step backward. “You gave me just cause.” She shared what happened after we arrived at Bledmire, how I’d twisted her emotions to the point she didn’t know what or who to trust.

“That does sound like something I’d do,” I said wryly.

“Quite happily most of the time.” Pivoting, she walked away from me. “I’m going to take a bath. I’ll sleep in a chair or on the floor.”

The crow she’d named Drask after she healed his injuries and adopted him—another strange thing—soared into the room through the open window and landed on a perch. He cocked his head, and I swore he was glaring at me as sharply as Tempest.

“You’ll sleep in my bed,” I ground out.

“With you or alone?” Her lips twisted into a sneer that matched the turbulent feelings churning inside me. “Do you plan to see if you remember fucking me?”

She was beautiful, the loveliest person I’d seen in my wretched life. I wanted to make this right, but I would never do anything that might shatter her.

“You could sleep with me,” I snarled, watching the storm clouds flicking across her face. For whatever reason, I loved pushing her, prodding her into a reaction. The heat in her pabrilleen green eyes set me aflame.

“I’m not fucking you until you remember me.” She limped from the room, and water soon gushed into the tub.

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” I called to her.

“Good,” she snapped.

Yes. Good .

My damn cock disagreed. Funny how my mind might not remember her, but my body shouted it did.

If I were wise, I’d sleep in a chair. I wasn’t sure I trusted my body not to seek hers while I slept. Despite her recent comment, she might welcome it, but I didn’t know her. I would not climb all over her, let alone possess her, until I did.

Because I felt compelled to do so, and a small part of me was softening to her already, I magicked some items into the bathing area.

Her gasp rang out. “Are you trying to rip me apart, Vexxion?” she asked, her voice hoarse with an emotion that spiked right through me.

“I’m not.” I savored making her respond to my words and my very presence, but I was not trying to hurt her.

“Where do you get these roses?” she asked so softly I could barely hear her.

“Somewhere special,” I said. “I’ll take you there one day.”

Her choking sob echoed in the small room.