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

71. Veyka

71

VEYKA

Mya kept one hand on my arm, monitoring. I thought Evander hated me before. Now that I was a succubus—possessed by the succubus? Part succubus? Ancestors, it would have been easier to be dead.

Evander looked like he’d be more than happy to take care of that, standing in front of me with an amorite dagger ready and one hand on his wife’s shoulder, ready to shove her away.

“The humans need us now,” Mya said, somehow able to hold a conversation and use her ethereal powers to keep track of what remained of my soul. She was damn impressive.

Arran stood at my other side, no longer touching me. Afraid to? Fuck. There was not enough time in the world to analyze those feelings. Certainly not with a horde of succubus crawling across the valley toward Eldermist.

“Your forces are already nearly there. With the elementals under Agravayn’s command, it might be enough,” Arran said.

If what Gwen had told Cyara was true, it wouldn’t be. Arran knew it, and so did Mya.

“We need the terrestrial army,” Mya countered. I tried to feel her inside my mind, any sort of additional awareness or intrusion. But I felt like me… except for the darkness prowling at the edge of my consciousness, waiting like a predator for the scent of blood.

“It would be shortsighted to deploy all of our forces on the western half of the continent…” Arran’s eyes slid to me. “With Veyka here, and so…”

Unpredictable? Dangerous? Evil? I used the bond to speak to him for the first time since I’d sacrificed my soul. I was both relieved to find it intact and horrified that he did not answer me.

“Do you still have your void power?” he asked aloud instead.

“Yes,” I answered immediately. I could feel the void calling stronger than ever. “And a fun new one.” The shadows that the succubus inside of me had summoned did not appear.

No one laughed at my jest. Not even Lyrena.

“We cannot leave the humans to die,” Mya said again.

Arran’s fingers curled at his side. If we were alone, he’d have already scrubbed his hand up over his face and through his hair. But here, as the commander? His face was hard as stone.

He won’t want to be alone with me anymore.

The thought slid into my head, and even though I knew the darkness from whence it came, I could not push it away entirely. Arran had vowed to love me… but what if I wasn’t me any longer?

Arran and Mya were still talking, still debating. I lost track of the conversation.

If he doesn’t want me, then there is no need to hold on . The darkness was right there, calling to me. If I gave into the succubus, I would not have to feel this rising fear, this pain in my chest that told me again and again that Arran could not possibly love a succubus. I’d become a monster to protect my kingdom, sacrificed my soul to the very beings we were trying to destroy, and I’d lost my love because of it.

I am more than that, I tried to remind myself. I am a friend. A queen. A sister.

I shook my head hard, erratic enough that they all stopped talking and stared. They’d never stopped, really. How could they, when I was now a monster among them?

“We could draw them away,” I choked out. I coughed hard, but I refused to spit out the black bile that filled my mouth. If that was truly my soul being forced out by the succubus now occupying my body, I would not make it easy to expel.

“How?” Mya questioned, her sapphire eyes gentle. Her hand still lingered on my bare arm.

“Not far. Just to the Effren Valley.” I swallowed. “If I fight, they will come. They have wanted me from the beginning. I thought it was for my void power, but maybe… maybe it was because they recognized this darkness inside of me and saw me as one of their own.”

“You are not a succubus,” Arran grabbed my hand at the same time that he reached out along the golden connection of our bond, now reduced to meager threads.

That was precisely what I was. But I understood why he said it—he needed to. He needed to remind himself that I was still there, that the fragment of my soul that I’d given to him with our mating was enough.

Enough for what… that was not a question I wanted to hear the answer to.

“I’m not fully me , either.” I squeezed his hand back, thankful for that connection he’d given us. “I sacrificed my soul, let myself become this monster, to save Annwyn and the human realm. If we don’t use me, then it was all for nothing.”

I could feel the tension in him, his hand unmoving in mine, his mind trying to hold itself together by the force of his indominable will. “Fine.”