Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

8. Arran

8

ARRAN

I did not stop to speak, no word of comfort nor royal decree. I carried my mate into the castle just as dawn lit the horizon, gilding the green mountainsides opposite Eilean Gayl in gold. For once, not a single cloud lingered in the sky. A clear and cold day was coming. Veyka may be too stunned by her grief to think and plot, but I was not. As Veyka slept, I met the rising sun, and I planned.

Two dueling priorities danced in my mind. Annwyn and Veyka.

We had to muster the terrestrial army encamped at Wolf Bay and arm them with amorite. Then find what remained of the elemental forces—if anything remained at all. Word must go out to every corner of Annwyn, warning commoners and lordlings alike of the succubus and how to fight them. Information was as powerful a weapon as steel now. I would do everything within my power to protect Annwyn—except sacrifice Veyka.

She was willing to give all, but I was not. There had to be another way to banish the succubus. We had both survived such torment, such torture together and apart. The succubus could not have her. Annwyn could not have her. If that made me every inch the villainous Brutal Prince the realms believed me to be, then so be it. I could bear their hate. But I could not bear a world without Veyka in it.

Maybe this new facet of her power would be of use. It would certainly change the calculus on a battlefield.

Behind me, Veyka shifted, rolling over in her sleep. She was so pale, her skin nearly translucent beneath the streaming morning sunlight. Ancestors, was this the cost demanded for opening that portal?

The price has already been paid , she’d said. Delirium? Or something worse.

Her words had the ring of prophecy. I’d heard enough of them over the last year to recognize. But I’d be damned if another prophecy was allowed to claw at the edges of the frayed happiness that Veyka and I had found together.

She’d kicked away the coverlet, despite the fact that her body had been cold as ice when I laid her in the bed. The raging fire might have something to do with it. Our room was now near sweltering, but still, I did not bank the fire or open the window. I’d shed most of my own clothing. What remained of the sheets tangled around Veyka’s body, leaving limbs haphazardly exposed.

My eyes traced the line of her long leg. Even relaxed in sleep, I could see the defined muscles of her thigh and calf. Those muscles had trembled beneath her and then given out completely when the rift she’d opened overpowered her.

If she could learn to sustain rifts like that, we could move units around a battlefield in seconds, rather than minutes. We would never be able to fully supply our armies with amorite weapons, but using the portal rifts I could create specialized amorite-wielding units and move them around at a moment’s notice to wherever the fighting was thickest.

As I watched, she shifted in her sleep, rolling away to face the door with one arm draped over the curve of her hip. Her newly inked Talisman extended from her cheek, down her neck, twining all the way around her arm to stop just above her wrist.

An elemental had never been inked with a Talisman. Never. Unlike mine, hidden on my chest most of the time, Veyka’s tattoo would be on display to every elemental and terrestrial she met for the rest of her life. It was the ultimate symbol of unity. Only a terrestrial could have inked the tattoo. She’d proven herself to the citizens of Eilean Gayl by fighting to the death to defend them from the succubus. She was truly the High Queen of Annwyn.

For three hundred years, I had not particularly cared if I lived or died. All that mattered was the next battle, the next war to be won. I did my duty, to prove to the world that I—and by extension, my family—was worthy. When I’d assumed the helm of Terrestrial Heir, I had not really comprehended what that meant. I’d accused Veyka of being selfish.

But maybe Veyka had been right all along. She’d retreated from her role as elemental queen and heir because she had understood the full gravity.

Had I forced her into this? Pushed her to become queen, to fully assume her role, and thereby assured her death to fulfill this one last prophecy? If she’d run after the Tower of Myda, like she’d always planned, we’d have never become mated. She would never have fulfilled the Void Prophecy. Her end would not be fated.

In loving her, I’d doomed her to death.

Fuck. It was my fault. All of it.

But my mate would not pay for my mistakes.

I stepped closer to the bed, close enough that I could see the callouses on her hand. She’d built them over years spent with a blade in her hand. She would be a formidable weapon on any battlefield, even without her void power. With it, she would fly around the enemy, stepping in and out of the void, dispatching the succubus faster than even I could. She would change the ratios of fae to succubus that I had committed to memory in the halls of the goldstone palace.

Her body was no longer glowing, but her pale skin still shone, revealing her for what she was—a beacon of hope in this dark war.

My hands ached for her, but I held them closed and backed toward the window once again. I would not disturb her rest. As my eyes traced her body, reassuring myself of her safety and her strength, I played through battle plan after plan in my mind.

Every scenario I considered had one motivation. If we could defeat the succubus with our armies, then maybe Veyka would not have to sacrifice herself.

Maybe is not an option, my beast growled.

I would find a way to save my mate and Annwyn both. Or I would take her and sail across the ocean to a distant continent. She could take us through the void to another world entirely. But I would never let Veyka die.

Annwyn be damned.

Arran.

Veyka’s voice slid through the mating bond, reaching out for me instinctively. My gaze snapped to her face, only to find her blue eyes wide and waiting. Glowing.

“You should still be sleeping.”

She stretched an arm overhead, lifting her breasts above the bedsheets. “Do you presume to tell me what to do?” The words were sharp, but her eyes were soft. She pulled sarcasm around her like a familiar cloak, shielding her from the torrent of emotion.

I did not miss the way she forced her lips to curve. But I also did not challenge her. She deserved to cope in whatever ways she could.

“Yes,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “And if you don’t listen, I will pin you to that bed until you exhaust yourself battling me and fall back asleep.”

The smile she’d forced began to fade. Without meaning to, I stepped closer to her, reaching out and cupping her face.

“What sort of battle are you suggesting?” she said quietly.

She arched her neck, tilting her chin so that her cheek pressed harder against the curve of my palm. All the while, her hand tugged the bed sheets down past her navel, exposing the rest of her glorious body.

“Not that sort,” I ground out, pulling my hand away, forcing myself back again even as my cock tightened. “Rest.”

“Stay.” Please .

Giving up my brooding by the window was easy when it was Veyka doing the asking.

I meant what I’d said. She needed sleep to replenish her strength after that enormous expenditure of power. She would need that strength to face the rest of this day and the war council to come. Our next meeting of the Knights of the Round table would be no less.

But when Veyka reached for me, I was powerless to resist her.

She hooked one arm around the back of my neck, pulling me down hard and fast. One knee landed on the bed beside her hip, the other leg stretching out to mold my body against hers.

Ancestors, she felt so fucking good. She arched her body into mine instantly, as greedy for the feel of me as I was for her. She didn’t go straight for my mouth, dragging her teeth over the line of my jaw instead.

She did not want tenderness.

She needed to know she was alive.

I could give her that.

I caught her wrists with my hands, pinning them down to the bed on either side of her head. Veyka’s eyes flared. I expected a saucy retort. Instead I got a feral mewl of frustration and fire.

With her hands pinned, I lowered my mouth to ravage her throat. Her skin was still cold; I’d warm it with my tongue. I licked the column of her throat where her lifeforce beat just below the skin, letting my sharpened canines drag just enough to send her hips thrusting up into mine. I caught those too, pausing only long enough to slide free my trousers before bracketing her hips with my knees.

My cock pushed urgently into the thick curls between her legs, but I did not thrust into her. While I held her hands, I let her control the pressure building between us.

Veyka seized that power readily. She circled her hips, each pass nestling my cock closer and closer to her entrance while my mouth moved down from her throat and began to worship her breasts.

With her arms pinned up overhead, the glorious white orbs lifted, her dusky pink nipples stark and firm against her pale flesh. I nuzzled each one, glorying in their heavy, fully weight before I sucked her peaked nipple into my mouth. Veyka groaned as I circled the sensitive bud with my tongue. When I nipped it between my teeth, she came off of the bed entirely.

The air between us heated with every passing second, thickening with the scent of arousal and silent demand. Veyka filled that space with moans, long and animalistic. She was no longer in her head, beyond grief or sadness or thought. Pure feeling, pure need, surged between us.

Surrounded by death, haunted by the promise of her own, Veyka needed to reaffirm that she was still among the living. Even if half her court was missing or dead or taken by the succubus, her oldest friend among them, we were still there. Together. Fighting.

I abandoned her breasts and slid lower, over her soft stomach, the need to taste her pussy on my tongue suddenly overwhelming.

“Arran,” she whimpered, thrusting up at me. “Now. I need you now.”

My needs could wait.

I surged up her body, burying my cock inside of her with one swift thrust.

Veyka cried out, locking her legs around my hips, and I let out a deep groan to match her.

Her eyes were closed, teeth sunk deep into her lower lip. She gave herself over to the punishing rhythm I set. But I could not tear my eyes away from her. She was so fucking beautiful. Tangles of white hair splayed out across the deep burgundy bedsheets that highlighted the flush rising over her pale skin; her breasts rose and fell with each breath, each thrust, a magnificent display just for me. I couldn’t last.

I drove into Veyka again and again, my cock already pulsing. I released her hands, reaching down between us to touch her clit. There was no way I could take my pleasure without giving her release.

But she swatted my hand away, eyes flying open. She arched her hips against mine, and I understood. Her pussy tightened around me, her climax ripping from her in a scream loud enough to shake Eilean Gayl to its ancient foundations.

She took me right over that edge with her. My cock spasmed inside of her, spurting rope after rope of searing hot come against the pulsing walls of her cunt. Veyka’s legs held me tight through each one, her hips milking me for every drop of pleasure.

When I collapsed against her, she was ready. Eyes closed again, she buried her face in the curve of my throat. I thought I heard a sob. But if she’d chosen to hide it against my skin, I would not force her to expose herself. I braced myself on one elbow, sinking the rest of my weight down on top of her, hoping she knew—here, she was safe. In my arms, with my body as a shield, no one could get to her. She could be as broken as she needed. I would always be there.

I lingered there on top of her, cock still buried deep inside, our bodies joined as one. My mind wrapped itself around the golden thread of our mating bond, more vibrant and strong than it had ever been, despite the horrors of the last few hours.

But the strength of the bond also gave me clearer access to her mind. As the euphoria of climax ebbed away, it left agony in its wake.

Once, more than a hundred years past, I’d been caught in a storm at sea. The terrestrials in Wolf Bay, largely ignored by Uther Pendragon, had sent me forward to raid the dredges of a once great kingdom across the ocean. It had taken less than five hundred terrestrials to sack the capital city. But on our return, ships heavy with gold and other treasures, we’d been caught in a storm.

Three of the five ships were swallowed by the waves. I stood on the bow, watching as solider after solider died. I was the most powerful fae alive, and there was nothing I could do. I possessed no elemental magic to calm the stormy sea or sky; nor did any of my soldiers. The storm raged from above and below, and there was nothing I could do but watch.

I felt every bit as helpless as I saw the grief and despair and anger crashing together in tumultuous waves within my mate’s soul.

I could not change the past any more than I could calm those waves. But I would be the shore that they crashed against. I would be her safe harbor, always.

I rolled to my side, tugging Veyka against me. My legs tangled with hers, one arm cradling her head and the other claiming her waist. She was no longer cold. Still, I pulled her tighter, until not even the cleverest wisp of wind could slip between us.

Sleep , my beast growled. This time, she did not challenge my command.