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

55. Arran

55

ARRAN

Sleeping felt like a waste of time. Not for Veyka, whose white skin was marred by dark bruises beneath her eyes. Exhaustion that she could not hide and Isolde could not heal.

I had not told her about being trapped in my beast form. Nor about Mordred’s role in saving my life. I did not want to admit to myself that I had needed saving not just once, but twice. Arran Earthborn, Brutal Prince, was supposed to be the most powerful terrestrial in millennia. Until that power failed. Until I nearly drowned.

Only to be saved by… the Ethereal Queen? Who was also Queen of the Aquarian Fae, a third race of fae that had wiped themselves from memory after the Great War? It was too much to think about. No wonder Veyka was exhausted.

I was, too.

Isolde healed the wounds on my back. I’d managed to clear the salty sea water from my lungs all on my own. Usually, I never slept better than the night after a battle. But tonight, I just wanted to watch her.

There might not be enough nights left to savor the feeling of her in my arms, completely surrendered and unguarded. Not now that we’d found the Ethereal Queen. The other half of the prophecy.

I’d forced her to sleep before the argument could be made and vocalized. Introductions were all that was necessary for me to realize that the asking and answering of questions needed to wait. Gaheris and Agravayn, the males I’d met only once, whose own brother had helped orchestrate the massacre of the goldstone palace and the deaths of Cyara’s sisters. Evander, the wind-gifted male whose arm I’d cut off in anger when I first arrived in Baylaur, later deployed to assist Gawayn’s brothers on the shores of the Split Sea, and now married to the Aquarian queen?

It was too much after a battle we’d barely survived.

The fact that Veyka had not argued with me illustrated just how right I was. She’d curled into my arms and fallen asleep without hesitation. Without reaching for me in heat or even kissing me goodnight. I would give her whatever she needed, no matter how big or small. If she just wanted me to hold her every night for the rest of our lives, I would do it.

My cock twitched in a protest I chose to ignore.

What I could not ignore was the dread settling into my chest.

The Ethereal Queen was no longer a mystery. She was a female, complete with a sapphire blue tail that turned into muscular legs and a consort at her side. She had the allegiance not only of Evander and her own people, but of the force of elementals that Agravayn had assembled as well.

Evander had referred to her as the Ethereal Queen. While we’d not yet discussed the prophecy or seen any exhibition of her powers, the words said enough. They meant that Evander and his new wife were aware of the prophecy’s existence. Did they know the final line as well, the one that required the sacrifice?

A small ray of hope lit in the night.

Maybe she would not agree.

I already knew Veyka’s mind. I’d felt her terror while she fought the succubus horde in the village and then on the land bridge. I’d heard the gasp she tried to hide as we picked our way back across the Crossing to where the terrestrials were setting up camp on the eastern cliffs.

She would not wait.

She understood what I’d known all along—why I’d pushed so desperately for the amorite weapons. The war with the succubus was not just dangerous. It was deadly. Our kingdom would be decimated, even if we eventually emerged as the victors. Annwyn would suffer. Every being in Annwyn would be touched by the darkness in one way or another, whether it be the loss of their own soul to the succubus or those of their loved ones.

And Veyka could spare them all.

But only if the Ethereal Queen—Mya, that was her name—only if she agreed. The carvings on the standing stones depicted both queens. Together they must stand, to defeat what once thought dead. Together they must give, if any shall live to the end.

Accolon’s final words before he’d woken me from the enchanted sleep were clear. To banish the succubus required the sacrifice of both the Void and Ethereal Queens.

But maybe Mya would not agree.

Maybe Evander would not allow his new wife to make the sacrifice.

That thought tasted bitter in my mouth. If Mya was anything like my own wife, he would not be able to stop her. Even in sleep, Veyka made demands of me. She nestled her calf between my legs, held my fingers laced tight with her own.

I would go with Veyka gladly, abandoning this realm to fight for itself against the succubus. I would go anywhere if it meant that she would live. But she would not leave. The heart she’d tried so hard to protect, to ignore, had grown too much. She loved too deeply. She would die for those she’d sworn to protect.

It was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with her.