by Ella Fields
Her fingers had brushed over the yellow, stalling briefly. “Why not choose that one?”
Opal’s shoulders had stiffened. “My mother says yellow washes me out.”
I’d nearly choked on my tea. “How can a color cleanse you?”
She’d laughed, turning to look at me as though I’d told a joke, and she was waiting for me to deliver the punch line. When I’d waited, sipping more tea, she shook her head. “It means it does not suit my complexion.”
“Anything would look good on you,” I’d stated, setting the tea down and tugging her between my spread knees. “But nothing more than me.”
I’d managed to steal her into my lap as well as a kiss between her bouts of giggling before she’d wriggled off me, leaving me hard, aching, and with that damned feeling of soaring while not moving at all.
She’d settled on a midnight green gown that had no bodice, floating from her shoulders to her ankles with jeweled beading in the neckline and flowing sleeves. I approved. I’d have approved of a sack, nothing at all, really, but this gown made easy work of accessing those creamy legs.
And hopefully what waited and wanted for me between them.
The carriage lurched, and she snarled, the cutest fucking sound I’d ever heard—kissing me once hard on the lips and then pushing me away with adorable force. “Where are we going anyway?” she muttered, combing her fingers through her gentle curls.
Leaning back against the window, I watched her right herself, wondering if she knew the effect she had on others, on me, and raised my brows when she scowled.
“Dade.”
“Yes?”
Her face creased with displeasure. Again, adorable. “Did you hear me?”
“Couldn’t hear a thing thanks to that beautiful face of yours.”
She tried to appear miffed, but her lips wriggled. “Savage.”
“We’re visiting the art gallery,” I said, smirking and then straightening when we bounced over a boulder. An indicator that we were almost there.
“You have an art gallery?”
I fixed my sleeves and pushed my hair back. “You do not?”
“I, well,” she started, and I peered over to find her staring out the window to the warehouses beyond. “We make and sell art.” She looked at me then. “And now I suppose your lot are selling it for a higher price?”
I didn’t deign to answer. A poor thing to do, as it would surely ruffle her feathers, but I had to select my words carefully. “Some of your people, Opal…” I scratched at my cheek, my stomach coiling as the carriage rocked to a stop. “They don’t burn or get slain in battle.”
I made myself meet those fiery eyes when she hissed, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I nodded to the driver when he opened the door, climbing out first to ensure that I was the only one helping my swan down, “some surrender. They aren’t slaves, though they do live and work here now.”
Opal refused my help, and I half-thought she’d shrink back inside the carriage in one of her rages. We walked down the street in silence, and I forced myself to wait, to give her time to absorb what I’d said. Though I did steer her around muddied puddles from the storm, and down a narrow alleyway that cut through to the riverfront gallery on the other side.
“But you loathe us,” she said finally. “You loathe us and you kill us.”
“I kill those who resist and who are owed death for what they have taken from me.”
“You seek to conquer us all, to force us into lives we do not want. You burn our homes and our livestock and our people, and you care nothing for what you have done.” Her words grew harsher, lower, and twice I kept her from tripping. “Now you mean to tell me that is not true? That my people willingly leave us to create a life here with you and your fellow savages?”
I let her rant for a few minutes longer, then pulled her beneath the shade of a willow tree alongside the one-story cottage. “Finished?”
“No,” she said, her cheeks heated with ire. “I watched you.” Her eyes glossed with tears. “I watched you murder my father and his soldiers. I watched you tear into his heart with your teeth and end his existence.” She closed her eyes, and when they reopened, the tears were gone, but I knew what I’d done would forever remain. “I watched you,” she rasped.
“Opal,” I clipped when she turned on her heel and headed to the door of the gallery.
Inside, I nodded to the owner who was at the front desk. He tipped his head to a hall on his right, telling me she’d gone that way, then bowed.
I nodded, thankful I’d had him ensure the gallery was closed to the public until our visit was done with. I had a feeling it was going to end rather prematurely.
I found her at the end of the hall, admiring a painting of a burned out village. Weeds sprouted around a water well, grew in patches by collapsed doors, and charred earth birthed new wildflowers along the long-unused road.
Indulge her in the things she likes my fucking left testicle.
Fang was an asshole.
“If you say this is beautiful, I might actually stab you this time.”
Shit. Still mad then. I shifted on my feet, sighing. “I know you will never forgive me.”
Opal turned to glare fire at me. “Of course I’ll never forgive you.”
I looked behind us down the hall, the owner pretending to busy himself with menial tasks at his parchment-strewn desk, then stole Opal’s hand.
She cursed, tugging it free by an alcove around the corner. “You dare touch me? This building is riddled with the pain of my people.”
“While that may be so, it’s also healing for them—”
“Healing?” she spat. “Oh, right. You stole those creatures for your arsenal too.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” I said calmly, and was proud of myself for keeping my beast at bay. “They had the choice. Fight or leave.”
“Fight?” Opal’s eyes glimmered, wide pools of hatred that speared me in the chest. “They’d have lost. You know it and they know it and that’s why they are here and that’s why their talent hangs upon walls they’d rather see burn.”
She was wrong about that. For although there was resistance when newcomers first arrived in Vordane—of course there would be—we snuffed it by indulging and spoiling them until they’d all but forgotten about where they’d come from.
Though just like the female standing before me, some of these artworks said they’d never forget.
We also had close eyes on them, though they were not aware of it, and little problems had arisen. I wasn’t foolish enough to explain all of the above, and instead, offered, “They live good lives here. Fair lives, and perhaps one day, they may even return home.”
“Return?” she asked, staring at me as though I were the biggest fool alive. “Return to what exactly?” Her head shook, as did her hands as she dragged her fingers through her hair. “You honestly don’t get it, do you?”
I frowned, unsure what to do or what I should say. Opal’s eyes shuttered. “Stars, Dade. What did they do to you to make you believe that any of this is okay?”
I tilted my head, trying and failing to understand. “I don’t know what you mean. I am a king. I was raised as such.”
“That is the damned problem.” Opal licked her lips, and I longed to just pull her close and sniff her hair, run my fingers through it, slow her heartbeat under my touch. “You have been raised to be the problem, and so thoroughly that you do not even see what you are.”
“I know exactly what I am,” I said, keeping my tone smooth. “A king of wolves, a righter of wrongs, and now…” I took a daring step closer. “I am also your mate.”
My swan gave me that look again, her lashes beating hard over searching, stubborn eyes.
Panic gripped my voice, making it hoarse. “Tell me what I can do.” I clasped her cheeks, imploring, “Please. Tell me what I can do, and I’ll do it.”
“There is nothing you can do. He’s gone.”
“I know,” I said,
nodding once. “I know, but I want to try. You have to at least let me try.” And I would. Stars, if I could rid the hurt brimming her eyes, that stunted her heartbeat, by bringing her small-minded, dickhead of a father back from the dead, then I’d fucking do it.
Her eyes studied, her hands rising to remove mine from her face, but then she sniffed, and I felt her grow tense. “You would truly do anything?”
Fuck, didn’t she already know that? “Any fucking thing,” I said, vehemence deepening the vow.
“End this war,” she said instantly and without hesitation. “Put an end to the bloodshed, to the revenge, to the unnecessary heartbreak. End it now.”
I staggered back, my hands falling loose, my every reason, every plan, scattering like cards on the breeze as those golden eyes met mine with disgust. I wouldn’t. She’d known that yet she’d still asked. “I can’t do that.”
“You can.”
I caught her wrist when she brushed past me to leave. “Opal, I can’t. It’s not over yet.”
“It’s over when you find the fucking heart to say it’s over,” she hissed. Uncaring that the owner could hear, her eyes raked over me, and she laughed coldly. “But that’s just it, isn’t it, my king?” She backed up, leaving me with, “You don’t have one.”
She hurried down the statue lined hall, not one look given to the artwork upon the walls, her golden blond hair floating behind her.
Watching her leave, her scent clouding my mind and causing my hands to fist at my sides, an idea struck me so hard that I nearly shifted. I stalked after her down the hall and around the corner to another. “Marry me.”
Opal didn’t stop, didn’t so much as falter. She continued on as though I’d said nothing at all.
“Marry me and it will end.”
She stopped then, slippers catching on the oriental carpet as she whirled around, her hair flying over her cheek and settling over her shoulder. “Do you mean that?”
I took my time though I wanted to run to her, to throw myself at her feet and gaze up at her with nothing but honesty. I took my time and slipped my hand through my hair, forcing out a rough breath. “Of course, it will take time to arrange, and I cannot be ridiculed for plans that are already underway in the meantime, but…” I halted before her and met that golden gaze. “Yes, sunshine. I swear it will end once you are my wife.”
“Then we marry tomorrow. We do not need a giant celebration.”
I chuckled, unable to help it, and when she scowled, I did what I’d been longing to and brought her to me, even as she pushed weakly at my arms. She gave in, staring up at me with hope-filled eyes as I curled her hair behind her ear and whispered, “I will need to write your mother, of course, but once we have her permission…”
Since the moment I’d taken her from that human tower of filth, I’d hoped and tried to make plans for just this, to make her nothing but mine in every way, all the while knowing it might be impossible. I could force her hand, as I was now. Only now, I knew there was a large part of her that both hated and wanted me in equal measure, so it felt less like taking and more like coaxing.
I’d coax her for all eternity. She would be mine in this life and any that came after.
Opal melted into my touch, my hand cupping her cheek, and said on a resigned breath, “Then yes. If you make haste, I will marry you.”
“You could at least try to sound excited,” I said as irritation spiked without warning. “You would be queen, and together, we would unite the two kingdoms in a history-making—”
“Contract,” she said, pulling away and strutting over to a nearby portrait of a young girl with a braided crown and a one-eyed kitten on her lap. “What we’ll have is a contract, nothing more, but yes,” she said, moving on to the next image of a hillside village by the Night Sea, “we will do what you seem so fond of doing.”
“And that is?”
Her fingers lifted, the sway of them and her body hypnotizing as they hovered over a frothy wave. “Righting wrongs.”
I smirked, even as my heart both soared and sank, then moved in behind her to wrap my arms around that glorious waist. “Whatever you say, my swan.” I felt her hum in approval, and I kissed her bare shoulder. “Whatever you say.”
Dade
“The bird is just using you,” Fang declared from the corner of the war room as he dropped into a chair. “It’s a trap.”
Scythe rumbled his agreement and thrust his hand toward the door, the other at his hip as he circled the large table. “Wouldn’t surprise me if this was her plan all along.”
I said through my teeth, “To marry me?”
“To bring you to your fucking knees, moron, via her cunt.”
“Fucking watch it,” I growled at Scythe.
“No,” he snapped, and my hackles rose when he stopped and stabbed a finger at the map now spread over the wall. “First your uncle, now this?” His upper lip curled. “She’s hypnotized you.” His fingers flicked and fluttered at me. “Put some voodoo witch spell on you.”
“They’re mates,” Fang needlessly reminded him. “Of course he wants to please her.”
“You shut the fuck up. Since when does being someone’s mate mean handing over the keys to your fucking kingdom?”
Fang pressed his lips together.
I rubbed my brow. “Since I killed her father, and she will never forget it.”
“We know,” Scythe said, grinning as though the memory pleased him. For the young pup who’d been found in a puddle of blood by Fang’s family, it undoubtedly did. “We were there, helping you.”
“Enough,” Fang said, sensing my patience was at its end. “So this war ends.” He nodded. “Fine. Okay.” He shrugged. “Good. It grows dull anyway.”
“We’ve other potential problems to worry about now the humans appear to have made ties across the sea,” I reminded them. “War never ends, even when the battle stops.” I downed the ale in the tankard before me. “History says that best.”
Though our history suggested otherwise, tension had always brewed between the two ruling families of Nodoya. Hatred, greed, envy, and lust for power was a song in all of our veins, and given the right means—of which I’d been handed in the untimely death of my parents—no one was above destroying things to get what they wanted.
The difference between me and history was that I did not deceive and trust in shadows to veil my actions in the form of assassinating, bedding, robbing, and other less tasteful tasks of sabotage to have my revenge.
I trained, I waited, and then I openly declared war.
“What of the queen?” Scythe asked, staring at Castle Gracewood upon the map. “She will be an issue, no matter if you marry her daughter. We killed her mate.”
“We could kill her daughter too, yet we have not,” Fang added.
I gnashed my teeth at just hearing kill in the same sentence as Opal.
“Give her Serrin’s head,” Scythe suggested as he took a seat. “That should do it.”
My uncle rotted in the dungeon beyond the war room door. He’d been permitted one meal a day of bread and stew and was forced to clean up his own filth at the end of each day. I’d made sure he was given nothing to relieve himself in.
It wasn’t enough. His death would not be enough. But die he would. “Not yet,” I stated with heavy reluctance. “He needs more time with his demons first.” Not to mention my fist in his face until his eyeballs leaked through his nostrils.
“It is indeed a trap,” Fang said again, staring at the map on the wall.
“You think I do not know that?” I’d written Nikaya as soon as we’d arrived home from the gallery three days ago, and her response had been swift, her penmanship steady even though every word had indented the parchment with her longing to see me suffer and her daughter’s safe return.
I hadn’t been sure what to expect. I did not know the female. But I did know that she’d been presented with little choice wherever it concerned me for nearly four years.
She would give me he
r daughter. How remained to be seen until the letter had arrived this morning. Permission to wed, permission I did not necessarily need, had been granted. Her only request being that the wedding be a private ceremony.
A private ceremony at Castle Gracewood.
“We take two legions,” Scythe said. “Leave one to protect Vordane, hide two amongst the Gracewood forests, and legion three at the base of the Polinphe Mountains.” He nodded as though satisfied this could work. “They can fly across the Spring Forest at the first sign of trouble.”
Legion three, usually under my uncle’s command, was now split between Scythe and Fang if I were busy, but otherwise, it was under my command.
“Who would signal this trouble?” I asked, staring at the varnished wood of the table leg, not seeing anything but all the many ways in which this could go disastrously wrong.
“Release that mighty roar.” Scythe laced his hands behind his head. “As per dramatically usual.”
I gave him a bland look that Fang caught. He swung his legs up onto the table, dried mud crusting the bottom of his boots. “We can also collect some trusted golden Fae, have them ready to send up a flare.”
“It’s a private ceremony,” I reminded them through gritted teeth, an opportune time to leash and slay a beast.
I knew, though, that I was too far gone to turn down this opportunity. I would make my mate my queen—no matter the cost. We would make it work.
We discussed it until we hit yet more snags, and then I shelved it. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow. I’ve a swan to find.”
Scythe scoffed but said, “Sure, allow her to continuously lead you to your doom.” Yet the tail end of his sentence lost its bite, and he slumped back in the chair against the wall. “Does she know of her mother’s response?”
“Not yet,” I said, and waded to the door.
Fang’s laughter stiffened my spine. “May we come and gauge her expression, then? You know, just to let you know if we think she is truly wishing for your demise.”
“Follow me and die.”
Their howling laughter had me itching to turn back and thump their heads together, but I pressed on.