by Ella Fields
“They were friends,” I guessed, then frowned when I remembered the head cook and our conversation. “But Dade, she wouldn’t have told you those stories to hurt you, to incite a need for revenge.”
“I know that, but it doesn’t matter.” His voice lowered, deepened, his eyes like ice as they met mine. “It didn’t matter when from every angle, at every available opportunity, I was reminded of them. Vern and Maya Volkahn are breathing ghosts in this palace. They still roam the halls in the hearts of many, and they’ll never forget.”
“Love makes things impossible to forget,” I whispered, not meaning to.
Dade hummed, then dragged his finger over his bottom lip. “I couldn’t love them. Not like they do. I never had that chance, and so they made sure I would never forget something I’ll never know.”
Silence crawled in, not unwelcome but cold all the same, as we both absorbed all he’d said.
As I’d grown to fear and suspect, my mate had been raised as a pawn. A weapon made from the many broken hearts of a fractured kingdom.
A tool used for retribution.
It was all he’d known. He’d known nothing else in order to know better or otherwise. This land, his people, and their memories were all he had.
Until now.
I stood, unaware of my intentions but knowing I had to give in to the tug on those chains. They pulled, and I followed until I was standing before him and his leg slid to the floor, eyes sharp as they stared up at me. “Do not pity me, swan,” he warned with a roughened edge.
“Never.” I tried to smile, felt it wobble as I wondered of all that could have been if things were different. If we’d met under the circumstances our parents had met their mates and their parents before them.
As two royal brats who’d spend their days mating and making plans for the day they’d take over the throne, thinking it exciting rather than a responsibility that could both save and destroy lives if not taken seriously enough or taken far too seriously.
I fell into his lap with the realization that if this had been the case, if we’d met without blood on our souls and scars on our hearts, then we wouldn’t be permitted to marry. You could not stop a mating bond, but never in the entire history of Nodoya had a Gracewood and Volkahn tried to wed.
It would never have been allowed.
In mere hours, we would change history.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him tight, so tight I could feel our hearts thunder together. Dade’s arms slowly came around me, his nose nuzzling into my neck, mine tickled by his hair. “What are we doing?” His voice was muffled by my skin.
“Hugging.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding a little baffled but not relinquishing his hold in the slightest. After a minute, his body hard as steel beneath my thigh, he whispered, “You make me forget.”
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Those words were all I could think of as I forced myself away from the pouting king and returned to my rooms for a restless night’s sleep.
Dade
Sleep eluded me, and though I longed to, I didn’t dare step into Opal’s rooms to watch her dream. Not only would it likely frighten her to find me there, but I would be tempted to crawl into that bed next to her and pull her close.
Too close and we’d do as she’d said—lose ourselves in one another, time dripping away like the waters in that ravine until it coasted into a racing river eaten whole by the ocean.
I did not mind the idea of that at all, but I could understand her hesitancy. She was scared, terrified of what was to come. Most of all, the conflicting feelings that being with me aroused.
Dawn leaked through the windows of my rooms, her scent a stain I never wanted cleaned, when sleep finally took me. Lunch was awaiting me in the war room when I arrived, still shaking water from my hair after bathing in haste.
I snatched a leg of chicken, tearing into it as I unspooled the plans Fang and Scythe had come up with in my absence.
“Get enough beauty sleep, sire?” the latter asked, entering the room and taking a leg of chicken from the tray before propping himself in the chair on the other side of the table. “That swan of yours must have quite the appetite.”
The leg of chicken smacked into his face before he saw it coming. He snarled, then grinned when I peeled my lip back. “You’d be wise to never mention her in a sentence like that again, you one-eyed fuck.”
A whistle. “Oh, a one-eye insult.” He feigned a pout. “No goods were delivered to your rooms overnight, then.” He tossed the bones onto the tray, one missing and rolling grease onto the map of Gracewood taken from the wall and spread over the table. “Poor beastly king. Has she rejected you?”
“You know she hasn’t,” I grumbled, though it sometimes felt as though she still could, and I loathed how much that terrified me.
Scythe was silent for a moment, then kicked his feet under the chair and leaned forward. “She won’t. I saw the way those weird eyes watched you while you showed off those ghastly horns and wings in her rooms while she healed.”
I didn’t allow him to see what those words did to me, and instead, kept my attention fixed to the map, the markers placed where the warrior camps would wait in the mountain range, The Spring Forest and Gracewood Forest. “We’ll see.”
He wrapped his knuckles over the table, nodding. “Make it back alive, and yeah,” he knocked some markers aside, replacing them with a dagger that cut straight through the map and the wood beneath. “We will.”
“Those spies we haven’t heard from this past week?” Fang arrived with parchment in hand, his expression grim. “They’re dead.”
I gestured for the parchment, but the lettering was thick, wrong—as though whoever had written the message did not want their identity traced. I lifted it to my nose and scented sun and some type of berry. A female’s scent.
“Ballsy move on their part.” Scythe whistled. “Makes one wonder where they found such courage.”
We knew all too well of the human royals attempts to gather more forces. “We send more spies, two flyers only,” I said. “Just to check in.”
“Then what?” Fang asked.
Rubbing a finger over my chin, I eyed the map, the kingdom of Errin by the sea. “That depends on what they find, but I vowed to end the attacks, remember?” I closed my eyes and cursed. “Those were Opal’s conditions for marriage. No more violence.”
Both males said nothing, then Scythe exhaled out, “Fuck.”
I sighed. “Indeed.” I’d already deceived her, and to do so again was akin to poisoning myself and then waiting for the damage to be unveiled, but I still said, “When they return—”
“If they return,” Fang muttered.
I glared but nodded. “Have word sent to me. They have two days.”
Fang guffawed. “What if they can’t find shit in two days?”
“If there is something to find, find it they will before returning well within that time,” I said, cold and matter-of-factly. “Otherwise, we assume them dead and make other… arrangements. There is no time to waste.”
Apprehension swarmed, tension brewing inside the drafty room. For the first time since I was a child, I hoped not to head into battle.
Shadows coalesced and separated as I warped into the middle of the foyer right after dinner, of which I’d eaten in the war room after leaving Scythe with a list of instructions a mile long.
He would oversee the running of the Keep—a task he wasn’t entirely thrilled to be given. Fang and the warriors were already gone, journeying across the river to their given hideouts, deputy generals assigned and ready.
Opal rounded the corner from the library. “Where have you been? I’ve been searching for you for hours.”
“Busy,” I said, readjusting the sleeves of my shirt.
“Busy with what?”
My eyes shot to hers, which were simmering with suspicion as they dipped over my face. I swallowed the urge to snap. My blood was pressing at my skin, my inner bea
st prowling, unsettled and anxious over the many looming yet hidden threats headed my way.
That wasn’t her fault. It was my own, and though I didn’t deserve her and had all but forced her into this tenuous alliance, the last thing I ever wanted was for her to fear me.
“First of all,” I said. “I had trouble sleeping being that yet again, you made me do so alone and aching, so I woke late with my fist around my extremely angry cock.” Her eyes flared, lashes fluttering slowly, and I smirked when she pinched her smile between those pearly teeth. “Secondly, there are a great many details that go into running a kingdom, as I’m sure you are aware.” I stepped closer, her scent calming some of the tension. “Though I hope we return as soon as possible, I do not know how long we will be.”
Not mollified in the least, my swan lifted her chin, exposing that long, delicate neck. “You reek of deceit.”
I had to touch her, couldn’t not, and so I closed the gap between us and gently clasped her cheeks. My eyes swam into hers, even as something weighted tried to hold the lie between my teeth. “Sunshine, I’ve finally got you.” At her raised brows, I grinned. “We both know I do, and so I would be a fool to jeopardize this.” I kissed her forehead, then her cheek, her whispering sigh sinking inside me and turning my stomach. “Us.”
I was burning in the deepest pits of the underworld while standing on perfectly solid ground when her hands closed over mine, and those gold eyes stared up at me, hopeful, trusting, relieved.
Erasing any emotion from my features, I ignored the guilt gnawing at my chest and waited for her nod.
I slid her fingers through mine, lowering them between us. “Ready?” The room began to fog, shadows returning and gathering force.
“No,” she said, followed by a nervous laugh. “But let’s go.”
Within moments, we arrived under the cover of growing darkness, my feet planted on an unfamiliar stone floor.
And nearly stumbled into a bed as Opal raced away from me through the shadows.
I didn’t dare send flame to any of the sconces or candles, my eyes adjusting with each passing second until I could make out where Opal stood by a large wooden door. I smirked as she turned one of two locks. “That won’t keep anyone out.”
So quiet it was barely a sound, she turned the last lock. “It might give us time should we need it.”
I let her believe what she felt she needed to and set my sights on the large room. Her scent flooded the space, even after many weeks without her presence. The bed, half-veiled in blue netting and dressed in cream and lavender, was constructed from white stained oak and perched in the center of the far wall.
Along that wall, passed a nightstand riddled with dust-sprinkled books and a glimmering tiara, was a door to the bathing room and another that likely led to her dressing room.
I turned to the long row of shelving behind me and a dressing table cluttered in spools of material and piles of half-mended clothes. Upon the shelves, I discovered more books, notebooks, perfume bottles, and feathered quills by a cluster of inkpots.
I plucked up a perfume bottle and uncorked it. Opal was quick to snatch it from my hand. “Careful, that’s my favorite.”
“Vanilla rose and…” I sniffed the remnants lingering in the chilled air. “Like a brown sugar. Caramel?”
Opal hid her smile behind the crystal bottle, then recorked it and gently set it back on the shelf next to the many others. “You cheat with a nose like that. Though it would be handy next time I…” She trailed off with a slight puckering of her brows.
“Next time you what?”
“I was going to say next time I make some.” She threw her hand in the air, forcing a quick smile before strutting away. “But who knows if that will happen or when. It’s stupid.”
I followed her, not liking her tone, the hint of sadness within. “It’s not stupid. You make it yourself?” I turned back to the shelves. “All of those?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding farther away.
I found her inside the doorway of her dressing room, frozen solid before a frilled gown.
A wedding gown.
Her disappointment bled into the room, made me long to tear the dress from its hanger and rip it to pieces.
“So it’s not what you would have chosen,” I said for her and moved in to place my hands upon her hips. “But you will do that gown a favor, make it all the more beautiful by allowing it to grace this body.”
I heard her swallow, and she leaned back into me slightly with a tremulous sigh.
“Come.” I turned her into the room and toward the bed. “We should sleep before someone hears and discovers us.” When she hesitated, I offered, “Or we could go find your mother and let her know of our arrival. It would be the courteous thing to do, would it not?”
Opal spun around then, grinning. “Do not remember your manners now, savage.” Her smile fell, and she sat upon the bed, quietly removing her slippers. “It will just lead to trouble.”
“So we hide until we marry,” I said, finding that humorously unattainable.
“Basically, yes.”
Stubborn, clever swan.
I kept my boots on and walked to the window seat to view what laid beyond. Mountains rippled through the dark veil of night, my brethren slumbering but on guard, not a tiny glow of campfire in sight.
The reek of too many different flowers and plants perfumed the breeze, dragging my eyes to the gardens beneath the window that stretched toward the fields and forest in the distance.
How many nights, I wondered, taking a seat upon the cushioned bench, had my swan sat right here, mending garments, reading, bottling perfume, and daydreaming while I’d been out there. While I’d been across the ravine, miles away from her castle, plotting and plundering and plucking their people off. In death or surrender, it did not matter. I’d taken and taken, and I’d felt nothing for it save for a sense of righteousness because justice was never served.
It was delivered in the dead of night by a horde of beasts and their vengeful king.
“I’ve been a king since before I learned how to say the word,” I said quietly to the window I gently pulled closed. “Yet I’ve never actually felt like one.”
I wasn’t sure she’d say anything when a minute of silence passed, but then Opal whispered, “You had no time to wrap your head around the idea of it.” The bedding rustled, and I looked that way, her golden hair spilling over the pillows. “A king is what you’ve always been.”
But was it all I’d be, and what I’d continue to be? Only the stars knew.
“I’m not fond of the idea of becoming a queen,” she shocked me by saying. “I don’t hate the thought of it, but I don’t know…”
“You’re not sold on it,” I said, smiling a little. “A ruthless queen you will make, though, my gentle swan.”
She stifled her laughter, then sighed and asked, “You think so?”
“I know so,” I said instantly. Forcing my eyes from her shifting form beneath those blankets, I looked back out the window. “Those not in power would set fire to our souls to hear us talk of such things.”
“They don’t understand.”
“No,” I agreed, watching the moon spray light over swaying sunflowers. “I don’t suppose anyone understands much of anything they’ve yet to experience for themselves.”
Opal shifted again. “Come lay with me.”
“Next to you or inside you?” I hoped for the latter all the while hoping she’d say no because I wouldn’t be able to, and it could give our presence here away.
Opal just giggled, smothering it with her hand as I rose from the window and gently kicked off my boots at the side of her bed.
Her smile drooped, teeth taking her bottom lip when I removed my vest and loosened my tunic. She lifted the bedding, and though I knew I’d overheat, I didn’t tell her not to bother.
I’d be closer to her under it.
Her hand snuck beneath her cheek, lashes shadowing them both while she surveyed me getti
ng settled, my head upon the pillow next to hers. “You seem nervous.”
I pushed up on an elbow to better see her. “Would it make me less kingly to admit that I am?”
Her free hand tapped my nose, her eyes smiling. “It would make you honest.”
I took the opportunity to ask, “Honest answer?”
“Always,” she whispered.
“Were you afraid? Living here while I was out there…” I swallowed, unable to say the rest.
“Taking your vengeance,” she finished for me, and I could only keep my eyes locked on hers. “Yes,” she said. “Though it was more a fear from feeling helpless, my gift not really a gift at all yet still something I had to hide, and no one really knew why.”
I wondered over that for a moment, but I didn’t need to wonder long. “Because you will be my end.”
Horror engulfed those eyes, gold turning a liquid orange. “You know I cannot harm you.”
I bit my lip and smoothed a rogue curl from her forehead. “I do adore seeing you try.” She smacked my hand away, and we both laughed silently. I sobered, wanting to know more. An odd sense of urgency to know everything erupted, ridding me of patience. “So you were trapped in here, protected at all costs, bottling your perfumes and writing journal entries about evil young kings.”
Her flat expression said I had her pegged, and then she said, “I did not write journal entries. I sometimes draw and write stories. Fictional,” she said, and though it was dark, I saw her cheeks color, “but yes, they were fun in keeping me entertained.”
“What type of stories?” I wriggled a little closer, the bed groaning, and felt the heat rising from her face. “Oh, my. Filthy swan.”
“Not like that,” she said, laughing again. “But there was some uh, kissing and the like, I suppose.” At my amused expression, she harrumphed. “I was young, okay?”
“And extremely sheltered,” I added, to which she nodded. “Bored, too.”
Her head tilted a fraction. “Don’t you humor me, savage. I still won’t let you read them.”
I would read them. Better than that, I would convince her to let me read them. “Whatever you say.”