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

21. Evander

21

EVANDER

There was nothing but the swirling blue and turquoise around them. The light that shimmered overhead, casting the world around him in sharp relief, was made for this place alone. Tiny motes of life, so small that he could not see what they were, shimmered in suspended animation. She would know. She knew every creature that lived in her kingdom, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. If he asked, she’d go on for hours about the life she could feel just in this one corner of her world.

Their world, he reminded himself. He no longer belonged to that land of harsh red sand and elemental politicking. Here, he could be exactly what he wanted to be. What he was . Warrior. Protector. Consort. Husband.

He was all that and more. It was the most beautiful thing about this world she’d shown him—the ever-undulating ripples. He would never be stuck, never held to a single identity. This world moved. It changed with every wave, never the same from one moment to the next. For over a hundred years, he had tried to mold himself into what others wanted him to be. Only to discover this place—this female. To finally understand that he contained infinitely more than he’d ever been taught. He could be more than he’d ever imagined.

Here, in the depths of the sea.

But the world above would not leave them alone. And it was the worlds beyond, between, that had brought them together. Those same worlds made their demands now.

Evander turned in the water, dragging in a breath. The severweed wrapped around his torso allowed him to breathe indefinitely, giving his elemental lungs the ability to harvest what his body needed from the salty sea water rather than the air. Still, it had taken months for him to not notice the difference. Water was heavier, thicker, took more energy to breathe in and out. Less breaths were required, making the practical difference negligible. Maybe in another hundred years, breathing water would be as normal as breathing air.

It would take at least that long for him fully realize that the female swimming ahead of him was his.

She angled her body with the current, the soft blue-green of her skin catching the rays of sunlight that filtered down through the water. It reflected off of the amorite piercing in her navel and lingered in the sea glass bracelets and necklaces that adorned her wrists and throat. Evander picked up his pace to catch up. He could not protect her from this far away. But his wife was damned fast. Muscular though they were, his legs were no match for that tail of hers. His arm had regrown, but it was still not as strong as it had been before. Damn Arran Earthborn.

Three more lashes of her tail and she’d be at the surface. Evander had learned to measure her gait and how to match his. He clenched his jaw, kicked harder, faster, summoned every bit of speed and strength that his elemental fae heritage entitled him to—

She still broke through the water a half-second ahead of him.

She tossed back her head, spraying water across the crystalline surface of the Split Sea as she shook away the extra weight from her hair. Ancestors, she was just as beautiful above the surface as below. Her blue-black hair was already beginning to curl around her shoulders, free now of the water and speed that pulled it straight.

He knew if he reached out his leg, he’d find two of them in place of the tail that had been there moments before. The gift of her kind, halfway between elemental and terrestrial. She could shift between tail and legs at will, changing the parts of herself that adapted to land or sea as easily as blinking.

Evander, meanwhile, had to cut away the severweed before he could take a breath of air.

As he dragged in that first breath, tucking away the severweed for future use, he tried to catch her hand. Only to find one of those legs he’d been imagining moments ago lifting out of the water, the graceful curve appearing just long enough to cause his abdomen to tighten in appreciation—and to splash him in the face with seawater.

Evander blinked through the droplets.

“A rather ignoble entrance for a queen,” he said, catching her ankle in his grip.

He knew they had an audience. He did not care.

His wife grinned, her eyes flaring with a ring of desire when he lifted that ankle to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the insole of her foot.

“At least there was no earthquake this time,” she said, twisting her leg away.

He let her go. The glow in her eyes ebbed away, and he knew she did not need to touch his face to know what he was thinking.

The earthquake was a portent—and not a good one. Only harm would come to them above the surface of the Split Sea. Evander was certain of that. But he could no more hold his wife back than he could stop the lapping of the waves on the shore.

Beneath the waves, she slipped her hand into his. But it was her gaze that held his attention. He followed it away from the open sea behind them to where the shore rose up, a swath of black sand that was both barrier and bridge between land and sea.

On it stood two males, both of whom Evander recognized.

The temperature dropped several degrees, a cold wind swirling into the space between them and the party waiting on the shore. Below the surface of the water, Evander’s cold elemental wind was muted. But here he was powerful. Here, he could protect her.

As if she could not protect herself.

“Stop it. Gooseflesh is unbecoming for a queen,” she said, sending a little wave of water his way to enforce her point. She did not need to lift her foot to command the water.

Evander sighed heavily. “Mya—”

“What is the danger? If they have ill intentions, I will know it. If they try to hurt me, you will end them. Quite safe.” She nodded sharply to punctuate her point.

“Nothing about this is safe,” he growled. Though it was harder to sound menacing while treading water.

Of course, Mya made it look easy. He’d never tasted her blood, but he would not be surprised to find it laced with salt water.

“Nor is retreating back to the sea,” she responded. “We’ve already discussed this. At length. I have made my decision.” She did not wait for him to acquiesce—simply began kicking toward the beach.

It was perhaps the only part of his new life that Evander questioned. How had he managed to go from one domineering queen to another?

But the smile that Mya shot over her shoulder answered that question. The one he’d been foolish to even entertain.

The Queen of the Aquarian Fae may be a force unto herself, but she could not have been more different from her elemental counterpart, Veyka Pendragon. The counterpart who did not even know that she existed. Both the elementals and terrestrials had forgotten their water-dwelling sisters and brothers.

But the succubus was coming for them all.