Blood of Two Crowns (Hallowed Fates #2)

Chapter 29

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

MAREINA

I f it weren’t for the oppressive heat of the suns, the flight to Creshmir might have even been enjoyable. Instead, my boob sweat was enough to tempt me into flying naked. Just when I decided in favor of it, the sound of wingbeats behind me snagged my attention. Tendrils of red magic were already pouring out of me as I whirled around, shocked to discover the male who’d blessedly interrupted lunch with Azrael.

“Don’t you have a squadron waiting for you?”

A rueful smirk tilted his lips, otherworldly golden eyes glinting in the sunlight. “No one waits in Vassileo. Not even the nephilim. And Azrael might feel comfortable sending someone to quell a fiery riot in Malovada alone, but I don’t.”

A surprising swell of appreciation burned bright in my heart. I’d always fought alone, even if it was beside a whole company of soldiers. Survived a war alone. Served Zurie alone. Lived alone. My life in Atratus had been utterly bleak at best.

So, for this male to be concerned for me…

My throat caught on emotion.“Thank you.”

However, since seeing Malekai’s name on my arm, my mind had spun, trying to find memories that weren’t there. Still, every time my fingers brushed across that scar, I felt some sense of inner knowing that things weren’t quite as they appeared to be. The fact that I could feel the love radiating from that mark was a constant source of stability for my unravelling mind.

The question leapt from me without any prior thought.

“Do you trust Azrael?”

The male flying beside me snapped his gaze to mind as if surprised by the question. “Not even with a butter knife.”

More of my anxiety lifted as I chuckled as his gaze lingered on me. “My name is Asterion.”

Drenched in gore and caked in soot, Asterion and I took in the remains surrounding us. Malovada had been reduced to rubble, and my belly was full to the point of bursting.

“I think I drank too much…” I heaved a sigh, cut off by an abrupt belch. I clapped my hands over my mouth as embarrassment licked up my cheeks and neck like flames. “Oh, gods. I’m so sorry about that. I think it’s all the demon blood… Gives me indigestion.”

Asterion’s mouth twitched for a fleeting moment before splitting into a broad grin, and he laughed. Though I hardly knew him, I had a strong feeling it was a rare sight. It transformed his handsome but forbidding features into something divine .

And contagious.

My own laughter erupted, easing every muscle in my body and making affection blossom for him in my chest.

When was the last time I’d laughed like this?

Our eyes met through our shared laughter, and I felt a seedling of friendship planted firmly between us. Something inside my soul seemed to say, ‘ I know this person.’

Our laughter slowed, and Asterion opened his mouth to say something, but the presence of foreign magic cut it short. Our gazes snapped to the doorway behind me before we shared a knowing look. I had to stifle my groan as I turned to greet our enemy.

I desperately wanted a bath.

A male appeared in the doorway of the decrepit building we’d just raided. The same one I’d seen challenge Azrael in the street when I’d first arrived. Erius.

He grinned wide at the sight of me, his smile unnaturally bright against his dark skin. “Hello, not-consort.”

Thoroughly exasperated, I patted my belly. “Look. I’m stuffed. Gorged, in fact. So unless you feel like spending the rest of your days collared and in a dungeon already packed to the brim with the denizens of this Akash- forsaken place, I suggest you preoccupy yourself elsewhere.”

Erius burst into laughter. “A collar?” Another burst of dark, raspy laughter. His voice sounded as if the flames of his belly had permanently singed his vocal cords.

The building around us burst apart like an explosion as his form shifted into the epic beast of lore lurking beneath his skin. Staring down at us and grinning with razor-sharp teeth as long as my legs, the baritone of his voice echoed in our minds. “I’d fucking love to see you try and put a collar on me.”

Asterion growled from beside me, and I couldn’t help but be awed by his true form. Glinting, gold, twisted horns rose from his head, making me wonder if they were actually metal. Gold armored plating protruded from his skin. His golden, iris-less eyes, normally dark, began to glow as if lit within by a burning star. However, none of that is what had my jaw plummetting to the floor. A black void began to emanate from him. Broken chunks of plaster, wood, and cement slid across the floor towards him to then be reduced to ash before disappearing entirely.

I stumbled backwards against the gravitational pull tugging me towards him, my long braid streaming in front of me.

I gaped, the drakonati half-forgotten. I’d never witnessed such an astounding gift. I had only ever heard of it existing on one occasion… The primal of light. An entity so old and long forgotten that I couldn’t even recall her name.

“Very impressive, Asterion, but is killing me worth killing your only friend?”

Asterion’s scowl deepened, and his lack of response had realization washing over me. Erius chuckled, watching as I stumbled backwards again when the force of his gift had my feet sliding against the floor, dragging me towards him.

All at once, as if by the flick of a switch, the void around Asterion left, and his glowing and golden features dimmed.

Asterion gave me a heartbreakingly apologetic look.

“You can’t control it…” I breathed as my braid slapped back down against my body.

Asterion’s eyes fell to the floor in shame.

Erius hummed. “Such a pity. I almost feel guilty.”

My eyes snapped up to the drakonati’s. My magic writhed, seeping out of my skin in blood-red vapors, condensing into something corporeal. An oddly familiar ice-cold metal slid around my neck, and all at once, the connection to my magic cut off. It felt like losing a limb. The dragon’s clawed foot lashed out to curl his talons around me as a female appeared beside him, pressing a hand to the beast’s leg.

Asterion’s roar was the last thing I heard before the world around me disappeared in a flash of black and returned in the form of icy winds and barren mountaintops. Erius shifted back into his fae form. Something like genuine guilt shuddered his expression as he looked me up and down. The female beside him, with skin the color of the snow surrounding us and hair the color of blood, laid a hand on his shoulder. Something silent was communicated between them before she flashed me an unreadable look and slipped through a tall, narrow crevice in the stone wall of the mountain.

“Did Azrael hire you to kidnap me?”

Erius quirked a brow, grinning innocently. “Who’s Azrael?”

I fucking knew it!

“If you plan to kill me, you’re welcome to try, but do not lock me in a cage.”

The male had the audacity to pull off nonchalance.

“I plan to do neither.”

Erius turned and squeezed through the stone crevice, leaving me standing in the ice-fucking-cold. My heart squeezed painfully as I tugged in futility at the collar on my neck, taking in my surroundings to find that I had, without my wings, zero hope of escape. Sharp cliffs dropped off in every direction except the staggering mountain wall behind me. I stepped towards the edge to see how far the fall would be. Perhaps if I jumped, I could make a run for it after I healed… but that would still leave me wingless, weaponless, and with a magic-suppressing palladium collar around my throat.

Azrael, you wretched, filthy, conniving, slimy ? —

A shadow blotted out the five red suns, and I twisted to look up and find another dragon with scales of darkest green and black circling high above the peak just before it tucked its wings in tight and plummetted towards me. It shifted at the last minute to reveal a towering fae form. My heart stuttered at the sight of him.

Malekai.

The male from my dreams.

But not.

Unlike Malekai’s turquoise and gold, this male’s eyes were a green so dark they were nearly black, like his hair. A scar that looked like melted flesh crept up one side of his neck and jaw. And though I had merely dreamed of the male, I recalled with crystal clarity the elegant flow of his perfectly sculpted features.

Up close, I could see the dark-haired doppelganger’s features had replaced elegance and warmth with cold brutality. His features may as well have been hewn from the very stone of this mountain.

Even so, he was so similar to the male from my dream that simply staring at him knocked the fucking wind out of me. So stunned, I mindlessly stepped backwards—off the fucking cliff edge. His hand shot out, gripping the front of my fighting leathers, and bodily tugged me away from the edge and into the hard, muscled wall of his chest.

My heart seemed to split wide open and bleed at the sound of his voice—one so very similar to the male I’d been pining after in my dream. His dark eyes twinkled with affection and mirth. “Don’t try to die on me when I’ve only just found you.”

At my astounded silence, the male craned his neck towards me. My eyes slipped shut, and I remained still as he took in my scent. I swore I could hear an echo of Malekai’s voice, again whispering Aurealingan words I shouldn’t know the meaning to. ‘Katadamna kaza, tessari mú.’

His magic brushed against me as if attempting to introduce itself.

My eyes stung with that broken feeling in my chest increased to haemorrhaging. My hands gently wrapped around the forearm still gripping my fighting leathers.

Gods, what is this?

Not-Malekai pulled back, eyes widening slightly at the sight of my welling emotion. His brows furrowed, and he leaned to kiss away the liquid leaking from each corner of my eyes, licking his lips that tugged at a smile.

“Mmmm… You’re not at all who I was expecting. Truly, the fates must favor us.”

While there were many arguments I had to offer in reply to that statement, never in my life had I ever been made so speechless. When I gaped like a fish out of water, stuttering my reply, the male brushed his finger across the collar on my throat. Snow crunched as the metal landed heavily at our feet.

And despite the fact the male had just gifted me my freedom, all thoughts of escaping dove straight off the cliff’s edge behind me.

“Who are you?”

The male’s mouth split into a dazzling grin boasting white teeth, lethal fangs, and a pair of heart-melting dimples. “Ataraxus.”