by Ella Fields
I kissed him. Gently, reverently, murmuring pleads trapped upon still lips. “I forgive you, okay? I forgive you, you vile, wonderful, merciless, incredible creature. I fucking forgive you.” I sniffed. “Okay, Daden? I forgive you.”
Footsteps crunched but never neared. I cared nothing for them, for whatever battle still raged around us. If he was gone, I wouldn’t leave. I would stay.
I would stay wherever he was.
More wet washed over my cheeks, the salty taste of tears mingling with the coppery tang of blood.
“Opal,” a male’s voice said. Scythe maybe. I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
He came closer, and I rose, hands slipping in the muddied and bloodied grass either side of Dade’s head, to gnash my teeth.
He paused, then raised his hands, and though I warned him not to, the one-eyed warrior still pressed forward.
A stillness roared through me, so complete, so violent in its silence that he finally retreated—bounced back.
When he tried again, his mouth fell open, his hand hitting a wall he could not see. He wouldn’t be coming any closer.
Relieved, I turned back to Dade, sniffing as I whispered, “I love you, too.” I laughed then, brushing dirt and blood from his cheek. “Though I suspect you already knew that. But you,” my lips wobbled, my body trembled with a regret so huge, I couldn’t breathe as I pushed out, “you left before I could tell you that I forgive you. So come back.”
“Stars,” I heard someone say.
I smoothed his hair, insisting, “You have to come back.”
“What the fuck?” came another.
“Opal,” my mother called, breathless. “Opal, stop.” Her rapid footsteps came closer, then halted as they reached that invisible barrier. She cursed, then softened her voice. I didn’t look. I wouldn’t move.
“Listen to me,” she urged. “I know, believe me I know how much it hurts, how much it feels like the end, but you must stop.”
The stars made you just for me.
I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I didn’t care. I was certain I would care about nothing for a long, long time.
I do love you, Opal Gracewood.
“She’s burning, fuck. Brim,” I heard Scythe roar. “Is Fang here yet? Someone get him and a damned healer.”
“No,” I heard Silver snap. “You will do nothing.”
Then there was only light.
It surrounded me and my king—untouchable, impenetrable, and blinding. It tickled my skin, hummed in a comforting rhythm that matched my slow-beating heart.
Tears raced anew as I shielded Dade, leaking onto his face, dripping to the dirt. That ravine had finally broken, the roiling current too strong to be contained. It crashed through me.
It exploded.
“Not burning,” my mother said, and it sounded as though she were talking inside a deep cave, her voice and others growing more and more muted. “She’s glowing.”
Strength evaded me with each ragged breath, and I curled over Dade, too weak to move even if I’d wanted to. I didn’t. I knew I would eventually have to, but I couldn’t fathom it. Not yet.
“Never,” I croaked, my nose skimming over the stubble on his jaw, inhaling the faint cedar and smoky scent in his neck.
A thud sounded, something crawling beneath my arm.
I startled, rising but only to my elbow, everything too dark, too bright, too much effort—just a dream.
He groaned, and I dragged my eyes from his chest, from the blood that’d stopped flowing under my arm, from the skin that had begun to re-stitch. “Dade,” I gasped, forcing heavy eyes to his face.
“Swan.” His lips smacked together. He swallowed, groaned again, then cursed. “I heard you, and I…” he coughed out, voice hoarse, “I will hold you to that. To all of it.”
I smiled, breath gone and long forgotten as relief slammed into me. I smiled, reaching for that face, my hand too heavy, flopping to his shoulder instead.
I smiled, and then everything went dark as I let myself fall inside the dream.
Opal
Featherlight, fingers danced across my brow, smoothing back my hair, gliding down and over my cheek.
I curled closer to that touch, knowing whose it was, wanting more—needing more.
Warmth engulfed me, a strong arm at my back pulling me into a firm chest. When I woke, he was still there, waiting, eyes bruised but faint, sleep lining his mouth and lingering upon his mussed hair.
My relief was instant, profound, as I reached for that face, that hair, then paused when my arm slid over something rough on his chest. A bandage. I blinked hard, bloodstained memories arising.
The battle.
Reading my panic, Dade cupped my cheek, his voice gentle but not reassuring. “It’s over.”
But for how long, I wondered, and knew he was aware by the dimming of his blue eyes. “We worry about that later.”
Later. A bland word had never sounded so sweet. A promise I’d taken for granted my entire life.
Looking into those eyes, feeling his touch, so real, so warm, so blessedly alive upon my skin… “Dade—”
The doors crashed open, and I twisted to them with a wince.
“Opal,” my mother cried, hurrying into the king’s chambers as though she had every right. “Stars.” Stopping beside the bed, she lowered and reached for me, stole me from the king and hauled my body to hers. “It’s been days,” she whispered in strangled explanation.
“How many?” I mumbled against her sweet-scented shoulder.
Her hand rubbed down my back, fingers carefully untangling some of my hair. “Four. I thought, I feared…” She pushed me away and clutched my shoulders, tears cloaking her eyes. “You’ve never done that before.”
The glowing. The ancient healing that, up until now, many had thought only a rumor spun into fiction with the black swan.
“It has been said that such a thing has ended your ancestor’s existence,” she whispered. “They would fall just like the honey bee after using all of themselves.”
“One of them,” Dade supplied curtly, as though annoyed she was scaring me. “One of them passed on.”
Father knew I could do that, I didn’t dare say, as it no doubt began to dawn for her too. The way he would evade me and make plans for me as though I were a waiting bomb, the nickname…
I swallowed thickly, not remembering much, but enough of the tingling desperation that had radiated from me, the flood from that broken organ inside me, to know I never wanted to do so again.
My mother eyed Dade distastefully. “And how would you know?”
I didn’t need to look at the king to know he was smiling. That dry humor soaked his voice. “I know a great deal of things I’ll wager you wish I did not.”
Mother’s eyes narrowed, then she looked back at me and brushed her hands down my cheeks. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” A quick glare at the king as she muttered, “You may leave.”
He did no such thing as the last creature I expected to see entered the room with a small pile of cloths and a clean nightgown.
Linka. Gwenn followed with a smile and pail of warm, perfumed water.
“Is there something wrong with your hearing?” My mother stood and tugged the bedding from my body.
I wanted the warmth back but refrained from reaching for it when Dade said, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
I snorted and turned to smack him, then remembered his wound and stopped.
He caught my hand on the bed, bringing it to his mouth. Endless turquoise stole my eyes, my breath, the beating of my heart as those silken lips glossed over each scratched knuckle.
My stomach flipped and heated, the sensation of wildfire spreading throughout each limb too fast to stop. Still, I mouthed to him, “Go, please.”
His nostrils flared with displeasure, then his eyes grew and hooded as he no doubt scented something else.
I flushed and looked down at the crumpled bedding as he chuckled and
rose. “Fine. I’ll go.” Rounding the huge bed, my mother chattering away with the pixies in hushed tones, he then smirked and readjusted the band of his low-hanging pants at his toned waist. “After I’ve washed my mate.”
The pixies froze, stilling entirely.
My mother’s spine turned to steel. “You will do no such thing.”
“I’m sure it will boil your blood to know that I’ve done far wonderfully worse.”
“Dade,” I hissed, embarrassment scoring through me.
He ignored me as though he hadn’t said anything incredibly untoward. I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t aware it was. Until now, my glare said when he glanced my way.
He winced a little, but my mother’s fuse had been lit, and she was three seconds away from blowing. “You repulsive beast, how dare you—”
Linka surprised us all by stepping between them and lifting her hands. “Both of you, out.”
The king and my mother sent withering looks her way. I wanted to clap when she did not cower. “The princess has only just woken up. She does not need the stress of your bickering, nor does she need either of you present for a task I’ve been employed to do.”
Dade’s brows rose, his smile twitching with both anger and humor. “Queen. She is the queen of Vordane.”
My mother opened her mouth, but Gwenn dipped low before her, and said, “Majesty, Merelda and I were wondering if you could assist us with the menu now that Opal is awake?” Linking her arm through hers, she began to lead my shocked mother out of the doors, her voice trailing after them.
Linka gave Dade an impatient look.
He squinted, eyeing her a moment, then moved back to the bed. I was torn between pulling him over me and reprimanding him for his disobedience, but then he kissed me. Soft and breathing me in, his lips lingered upon my forehead, and before I could reach for him, he was sauntering through the closing doors.
Linka busied herself with soaking some cloths, then gestured for my hand. Removing my unfocused gaze from the doors, I gave it to her, her touch cool and reassuring. “He worships you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing as she squeezed out a cloth and laid it over the rim of the pail upon the floor. She helped me stand, and though my knees quaked, each step was a little easier as we headed to the table between the windows. The heavy black drapes were half-drawn, remnants of daylight splashing in slivers across the room.
I carefully lowered my stiff limbs to the chair and unbuttoned my nightgown. “Never,” she said, as though worried someone might overhear. It would not surprise me if Dade was right outside the doors. “Never have I seen a male so frightened, so ready to claw at anyone who so much as neared these rooms.”
I contained a snort. “I’m surprised he was a male and not his beast.”
“Oh, he was,” she laughed, gathering my hair from my neck to begin washing me. “For the first three days. After that, your mother demanded he shift back or she’d take you home.” Another soft laugh, the warm cloth against my skin so welcomed that I nearly purred. “So, of course he shifted back in a rage just to argue with her.”
A knot lodged in my throat as I imagined it, the two of them at odds, as they would be forevermore, yet… perhaps that would not be so bad.
“Then,” Linka went on, offering the cloth for me to wipe my face. “Your breathing changed, as though you’d left the healing dark and had entered the realm of dreams, and I wondered if he would allow the tears in his eyes to fall.”
I handed her back the cloth, gazing up at her own wet eyes in question.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, and lowered to her knees. “I didn’t understand how…” her head shook, lips wobbling. “How anyone could love a creature, a monster like him, until I saw the way he loved you.”
My heart softened, warmed, and I clasped her hand in mine over my knees. “It’s okay. If it helps, I tried not to.”
She laughed then, loud and wet, and I pulled her to me, hugging her tight. “He wouldn’t like it,” she whispered to my stomach. “Of course, he wouldn’t. But he would love that you are happy.”
A tear slipped down my cheek, and a buzzing drew my gaze to the window. “I know.” A bee hovered and then continued on.
Some minutes later, Linka filling me in on how what remained of our army had come to help close out the battle—which did not officially end until an entire day after Dade and I had fallen and were taken to the Keep—there was a knock on the doors.
“Your king is likely to break down the doors.”
Another followed Linka’s words. A warning veiled as a request.
He was coming in any second now.
I smiled, shifting my arms into the straps of the clean blue nightgown. “Better let him in.”
As though he’d heard, the doors opened, and Linka bowed before hurrying out with the pail and cloths in hand.
The doors closed after her, and I heard a click. “Did you just lock my mother out?”
“Of course,” he said, prowling toward me with a grace that defied his injuries. Even with a bandage around his torso, his skin and muscles gleamed—radiant in the remaining sunlight that streaked across the room as though in search of him.
Taking my hands, he helped me to my feet, then lowered the nightgown with two careful tugs and shifted it into place. The brushing of his roughened fingers over my skin, the heat of him at my back, circling and caging me, had me nearly pleading for him to rip it off.
His mouth hovered over my shoulder, lips pressing soft. “Later.”
“That word again,” I said without meaning to.
He hummed as though understanding, then directed me back to the bed with a hand at my waist. As I slid onto the mattress, and he pulled the blankets over my bare legs, guilt overran me. “Dade, I need to apologize,” I started, steady yet my breath quaked. “What I said to you outside that shop…”
“It was true, was it not?” He gestured for me to lie down.
I leaned back on my elbows instead, my neck cricking so I could read his tight expression. “Yes, but you need to understand that—”
“Stop,” he said, and a rough exhale left him as he scrubbed his hands over his face, then carefully folded his large frame onto the bed beside my knees. “You think I wasn’t aware that there were times you were toying with me?” I blinked, falling onto the pillows. “Your every deception was known and welcomed if it brought you closer to being where I needed you.” His mouth curved. “Completely and irrevocably mine.”
Torn between wanting to smother him with the pillow and with kisses, I just laid there, speechless.
“You love me.” His lips curled higher, exposing a dimple and a flash of teeth.
I melted even while trying to resist doing so. “You forced my hand.”
“You forgive me, and you love me.”
“Again, you gave me no choice,” I rasped, my smile shaking. “There was no other choice.”
He sprawled himself beside me, head propped on his hand and that maddening grin still in place. “You love me.”
I absorbed that face, the golden brows residing over eyes that contained an ocean reflected sky, and then that bandaged chest. A chest that contained a rapidly increasing heartbeat. A heart. A heart and soul that had been slow to warm, to learn, and to love. Absorbing everything, I declared vehemently, “Yes, I love you.”
The king of wolves spread his lips into a smile so dazzling, so sincere, the largest I’d ever seen him wear, that I found myself saying so again just to keep it there. “I am in complete, utterly stupid love with you, Daden Volkahn.”
That smile stretched, then fell a little with a breathy laugh. “I suppose I did force you.” He frowned then, but it didn’t detract from the magic in his gaze. Happiness.
Unfettered, undiluted, unprecedented happiness.
I gestured for him to move closer so I could smooth the creases from between his brows. His eyes shuttered. “You forced me, yes, but only by showing me who you truly are,” I whispered,
“who you could have always been, and who you are capable of becoming.”
Taking my hand, he brought it to his mouth, lips brushing over my skin. “You showed me that.” Another dazzling smile. “So I suppose it is you who forced me, my lovely swan.”
I laughed, rolling into his arms. He caught me, held me close, fingers rubbing over my back, into my hair, and his mouth upon my forehead.
Within minutes, I drifted back to sleep, lulled by the comforting cadence of the beat within the unearthed heart of my sweet, savage king.
Three weeks later…
Dade
Fang’s fist slammed onto the table, his annoyance arousing more of my own. “What part of not good enough don’t you fucking comprehend?”
I wanted out of this fucking room and inside my mate. We’d made plans.
Well, I’d made plans for us, but I was certain she wouldn’t mind.
Unperturbed by Fang’s outburst, Scythe rubbed his chin and threw his knee over his leg. “I don’t know what you want me to say. The captive won’t talk.”
We’d kept a collection of soldiers from the war waged by the humans. A war, we’d come to learn, that had indeed come about with the help of Sinshell. My brothers, though not thrilled about it, had agreed with me when I’d stated our time tormenting them was done—despite their duped plans of revenge.
For they had been duped, and in a huge way. Not only was my swan taken and forced to weave gold for the cretins under the guise of saving her family, but her mother was fooled into thinking those royal shits would actually lend them a helping hand in defeating me.
No. Their mission had been simple if planned right. A death sentence for all if not.
Now, they were curiously silent. What remained of their fleeing forces gone. Either they’d traveled back to Errin to heal and recoup before striking again, or they’d sailed across the Night Sea to return to their own countries.
Regardless, there was a good chance they’d be back.
Not only was that confirmed with the death of Prince Bron, and the volume of retreating numbers, but we’d also gleaned as much from our captives. A guard rotation was now enforced upon the Royal Cove, and more spies under my employ to keep tabs on the nobility, trade, and seas.