by Alisa Woods
The queen. It could be none other.
Her violet eyes were pale and angry, and she slowly circled Erelah in her cage, examining her. Erelah twisted to turn, continuing to face the queen in her inspection. Irritation flashed across the queen’s face, and Erelah felt a flicker of satisfaction at having foiled her.
But it was short-lived.
The queen swept her hand around in a wave, and Erelah’s cage suddenly tipped sideways, then upside down, then quickly right again. But she bashed against the bars with her wings and hands, the sizzling burn making her grunt deep in her throat while she clenched her teeth against the scream. Once upright again, she could keep afloat with magic and away from the bars, but the cruel smirk on the queen’s face said she’d made her point.
She could hurt Erelah.
Only Erelah had no understanding of why. That the fae were evil by nature was given. But even evil had purpose behind it. Or did they simply take pleasure from torturing other beings? Disturbingly, that was possible.
Erelah shuddered but held as still as she could. This was not the glorious ending she had envisioned for her Penance, but submitting to this torture could suffice. If the charring of her feathers and her flesh helped her pay for her Sins, then it would be a true Penance. Surely even Markos would agree with that. And she couldn’t help thinking there was poetry in this, a capture and torture by the summer fae, the very bloodline to which Leksander belonged, and whom she had wronged through her inaction and tormented through her actions.
The shaking of her wings stilled, and she faced this Penance as she should—with acceptance and welcoming for its absolution.
“So you are Erelah,” the queen said, raking her gaze over Erelah’s floating body.
“Yes.” How did the queen know her?
“I don’t see the attraction.”
What? Erelah just frowned and watched as the queen circled the cage. This time, Erelah closed her eyes and tipped her head back, letting the queen have her inspection as she waited for the strikes against her body. The shuffle of the queen’s feet along the grass reached Erelah’s ears, but the cage remained still, as far as she could tell with her eyes closed.
“What does Leksander see in you?”
Erelah popped open her eyes and looked down.
The queen’s violet gaze locked with hers.
Erelah waited a heartbeat, then two. What had this to do with Leksander? “I don’t know what you…” She stalled out at the queen’s look of disgust.
The queen waved a hand, and Erelah’s cage was cut loose. It crashed to the grass below, landing with a jarring thunk that threw Erelah against the magical burning of the floor. She screeched this time—it was out before she could stop it—then she flung herself up by reflex, panting and grimacing with the pain, but keeping aloft, away from the bars and the roof and the floor.
The red-headed male fae stood behind the queen, a smirk on his face. The air smelled of her own burnt feathers mixed in with the fresh scent of the grass, the vines, and the flowers that carpeted the floor and the walls. The queen stalked up to the cage, only a foot away, and glared at Erelah. Even though she floated, Erelah was at the same height as the tall queen, only her feet were tucked up, knees crooked to the side, to avoid the floor.
“He says you do not love him,” the queen said, her gaze intense on Erelah’s face. “Is this true?”
Was it true? “I have love of him as a friend,” she said, resolutely. And she supposed it was true. What did she know about loving any other way? And only Tajael and Leksander could even rightly be called her friends. All others in her faction were friendly, but they had not the bond of years and demon slaying and trials they shared together. Even in that, Leksander stood alone, for had she not helped with the birthing of his nephews? Were they not in common cause to renew the treaty? He was unique in all she knew.
The queen’s disgust was back. “A friend.”
“Yes.” Erelah wondered if that would occasion more torture. She almost hoped it would, rather than continue this torture-by-words.
The queen raised her hand. “I should kill you.” She said it softly as if speaking to herself.
Erelah braced herself for the blow. If the queen simply ended it, that would be Penance enough.
“Why don’t you plead for your life?” the queen suddenly shrieked, the power of her voice booming. It wasn’t angelsong, but an echo of what that could be.
Erelah jolted from the shock but said nothing.
The queen turned to the male fae behind her. “Leave us.” She waved him away. He snarled then disappeared. The queen stepped closer to Erelah’s cage. “Is it the wings? It can’t be your beauty,” she said, disdainfully. “You wear it like armor.”
Erelah just stared at her, confused. That sounded strangely like a compliment, but she knew that wasn’t possible.
The queen leaned even closer and hissed, “Is it because he cannot have you? Is that it? All this pristine loveliness just out of reach.” And with the last word, the queen shoved back, and Erelah’s cage went tumbling across the grass, crashing through vines, battering her with rapid-fire burns across her wings and back and hands as she braced against the worst of it. Then she crashed to a stop, and the side of her face momentarily was flung against the bars. She screamed again then jerked back, forcing herself to magick away from the walls of the cage, which was now canted to one side, propped up against a throne chair made of roots. The sizzling of the bars didn’t seem to harm the chair, but each contact sapped Erelah of more angel power. She needed to rest. Recharge. Normally, Penance would take you to your limits, let you rest, then come back for more. This… much more of this, and she truly might not survive it. Not once she lost the ability to remain aloft.
She curled up, wings tucked, eyes closed, keeping as far from the walls as possible.
Even so, she listed to the side a little, struggling.
A tromping of feet through the grass announced the queen was back at her side. When Erelah opened her eyes, she saw the queen had bent down to peer at her. “He doesn’t need the likes of you,” she hissed.
Erelah just nodded. What could she say? Her mind was tiring, dulled by the pain, but this wasn’t idle torture. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you out of the way!” the queen shrieked, that booming voice again.
Erelah flinched but managed to stay clear of the bars.
“Let Leksander go. Tell him he needs to move on. Tell him you’re not worthy of him.”
All of it was true, but Erelah’s dulled mind couldn’t quite piece it together. Why was this of such concern to the Queen of the Summer Court? Was it that he bore her blood? Did she want so terribly for the treaty to renew? “I have tried,” Erelah gasped out. And it was the truth. But Leksander never listened to her. Never paid her heed. Her eyes were drifting closed. She just needed to rest… a jolt of pain from one tip of her wing brought her awake.
The queen was still staring at her, fury on her face. “I will let you go, if you spurn him. Send him away. Break his heart into a million pieces. I’ll put them back together again. I will make him my prince. My consort. My True Love. I will give him a child, and he will be mine.”
Her True Love? Erelah stared at the queen in horror. The queen had love of Leksander? And wished him for a mate? A struggle inside her felt like two angelings sparring, each striking with deadly intent with their blades. Because, on the one hand, this made perfect sense. A queen for a mate. A renewal of the treaty. The summer fae would protect the House of Smoke. Even if they were the sworn and loathsome enemies of angelkind, the Summer Court formed the treaty to begin with. They could strengthen and protect the House of Smoke once again.
How could she deny Leksander this?
And yet… and yet a deep and primal scream inside her was crying out, No!
“Then I shall have your blood on my floor,” the queen hissed.
Erelah blinked, just now realizing she must have uttered that No! aloud.
The queen raised her hand, but before she could strike whatever blow she had planned, she stiffened, as if hearing a distant scream. Only Erelah wasn’t screaming, and neither was anything else in the flowery and strange wonderland of the queen’s throne room.
A moment later, the red-haired fae appeared behind the queen. “My lady,” he said, voice strained. “Allow me. Please.”
The queen’s gaze whipped between her minion and Erelah in the cage. She seemed torn. Finally, she said to the red-haired fae, “Buy me a little time, Kalen. Then bring my beloved here.”
The fae—Kalen—winced as though she had struck him, but then he turned and disappeared from the throne room.
The queen pointed a long finger at her. “You will not stand in my way.”
Erelah pulled in a full breath and prepared herself to die.
When Kalen appeared, Leksander was certain he’d strike first, ask questions later.
Leksander tensed and prepared to fight on the narrow rocky ledge of the weigh station—or take to the air if that gave him and the angeling at his back an advantage—but Kalen just demanded to know his business with the queen. When Leksander only told him he needed to speak to her, Kalen disappeared again, and Leksander couldn’t be sure what would happen next.
He turned to Tajael. “What do you make of that?”
“I believe this Kalen has love of the queen that goes beyond the loyalty of a servant,” Tajael observed dryly.
“He’s her lover.” Leksander brushed that aside. “But do you think he’ll deliver the message? Or should I call the queen again?” The tension was riding him hard—Erelah could already be dead. He couldn’t read that evil glint in Kalen’s eyes.
“Wait.” Tajael squinted at the space the fae had just occupied. “Kalen’s turmoil was a thick soup of emotion on his face.” He looked to Leksander. “He considers you a rival.”
“Well, I did promise to mate with the queen.” Leksander grimaced. “Not that it should matter. She already consorts with Kalen, and the king doesn’t care. I’m not sure normal rules apply in the Summer Court.”
Tajael’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, they definitely have rules. You should know that, prince of the House of Smoke. Your ancestor helped the prior queen break one of the most important ones.”
Leksander’s eyes narrowed. “She had a child outside the royal lineage.”
“She loved outside the royal lineage,” Tajael said, pointedly. “The child was simply a product of it. As you know, there was no accident in the birth of that child—it was an intentional slap in the face of the king.”
“And now Nyssa wants to do the same with me.” Leksander frowned. “Is this some kind of trap, Tajael? Is Nyssa just trying to provoke the king into killing me? And along with me, all of the House of Smoke?” His gut hollowed out with that thought. Not that he wanted to mate with Nyssa, but if it came to that… was it all a mistake?
“The fae are liars and deceitful, through-and-through,” Tajael said. “But it’s a rather elaborate deception if that’s what it is. And Kalen’s reaction to you… it’s more than just a concern that the queen will take another lover.”
Leksander eyes widened. “He loves her.”
“A rather unrequited love,” Tajael agreed. “His hatred of you would be unbounded if you actually mated with the queen. I would watch your back in this, Leksander.”
He shook his head. “My only concern is for Erelah and getting her free.”
A slow smile spread on Tajael’s face. “Spoken like True Love.”
Then a pop in the air announced Kalen’s return. Before Leksander could even turn to face him, the queen’s lover grabbed hold of his shoulder from behind and wrenched him through time and space. When the world stopped shifting, Leksander glimpsed the hanging vines of the queen’s throne room, but then Kalen shoved him face-first in the grass carpet.
“Kalen!” the queen’s voice boomed admonishment.
He backed off as Leksander climbed to his feet. The red-haired servant of the queen was nothing if not obedient, but his face seethed with a fury that would melt Leksander into a pile of dragon goo if Nyssa let him off the leash. That, more than anything else, convinced him that Kalen was madly in love with the queen—which would be a serious problem if they mated. One more reason for Leksander not to let it get that far.
He brushed grass from his pants and turned to Nyssa, who was across the room, next to the throne and a strange golden cage that looked like it had crash-landed. “Nyssa, I need to know if—” But the words stopped dead in his throat when he saw the body lying at Nyssa’s feet.
A body with white wings.
He lurched across the throne room, shoving vines out of his way and nearly tripping over some cluster of flowers. “What have you done?” he roared, but then he was too busy falling to his knees next to Erelah’s body to listen to the queen’s excuses for the horror of this. Erelah’s beautiful white wings were branded with stripes of black char. Her feet were swollen and angry red, and the number of red welts across her body… Leksander sobbed and cupped his hand to her cheek, where a burn mark had disfigured her face. Tears glassed his eyes. “No, no, no.” But then he choked on his own horror.
“She is not dead, dragon prince.” Nyssa’s voice was cool behind him, and the words had to fight through a haze in his brain before he could hear them.
When he did, he just blinked then reached out with his own fae senses to check—the queen was right. Erelah was alive, only… sleeping. Horribly burned and broken and abused, but not irreparably so. He lurched up from the floor and whirled on Nyssa.
“Why would you do this?” he demanded. The urge to strangle her or blast her with dragonfire or something was almost impossible to contain… but he did. Because there was no other way to get Erelah out of the queen’s clutches, healed, and safely away.
“I will let her go if you stay, Leksander.” Her even tone of voice, as if this were just some business transaction, was driving him mad.
“I told you two days—”
“You had no intention of honoring that.” The queen’s voice hiked up. “We both know that.”
Erelah’s broken body on the floor drew his gaze like a horror he couldn’t look away from. “You did this to force my hand.” Guilt and sickness twisted his stomach.
Nyssa eased closer to him and cupped his cheek with her palm. Pleasure rushed through him, a nauseating mix with the horror stringing his body tight. He wrenched his face away and glared at her.
The queen dropped her hand, left hovering in the air. “She does not love you,” she cried out, her voice suddenly bitter and angry.
Kalen appeared by her side. “My lady—”
She held a hand up to stop him without looking at him. He slunk back, stepping away from the queen and falling silent.
Nyssa’s violet eyes were still trained on Leksander. “I tormented her. Asked her if she could love you. If she would ever love you, and do you know what she said, Leksander?”
He shook his head. It didn’t matter what Erelah said, but he still didn’t want to hear it.
“I have love of him as a friend.” Nyssa’s voice arched high, an imitation of Erelah’s innocence, but the sneer in it tore into him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. He knew this already. It hurt, but it wouldn’t stop him from getting Erelah free.
“Of course, it matters,” Nyssa said angrily. “Love is all that matters.”
Leksander squinted at her. “What will it take for you to let her go?”
“I told you already.”
“You can’t force me to love you, Nyssa.”
“I don’t need you to love me!” Her voice hiked up again, and it was a lie. Leksander could hear her neediness.
“You think if we mate that I’ll love you,” Leksander said, each word wrenching his stomach a little tighter. “That’s not going to happen.” Despite all his cool calculations, despite his lofty ideals of loving any woman who might give him a son to fulfill the tr
eaty, by sheer dint that that woman would have True Love for him… he knew now that he could never love someone else. He loved Erelah. He had loved her from nearly the moment they met, all those decades ago, and that was an immutable fact of his heart. It wouldn’t change even if he had found Erelah dead on the queen’s throne room floor. It was an essential part of him now.
“Your love is not necessary for us to mate,” Nyssa said. There was a torment in her violet eyes that Leksander had not seen before. “The king of the court has no love of me and never will. And I cannot love him in return. And that loveless queendom is not enough! I’ve suffered it, all these long millennium, all in a Court bound by the torrid love of my mother and the treaty she forged with it. But I deserve more. I deserve a love of my own!” Her voice was booming painfully loud now. “I may be bound by law and tradition to a loveless king, but I will have a consort of my own to love, even if you do not love me back, prince of the House of Smoke. And you know you can never fulfill the treaty with her!” She flung an accusatory finger at Erelah’s limp body. “She is an angeling, and thus stupid and vain for her own perfection. She can never love you. But I can. You need me!” She had stepped closer again, the passion alight in her eyes making it clear she meant every word.
And she wasn’t wrong, not really. For the first time, Leksander believed he understood why the queen was willing to mate with him. It was sad and wrong and completely fucked up, but he understood. He wouldn’t give up the love he had for Erelah for anything, even though she didn’t love him in return… and the queen only wanted that, and the possibility of more. After ten thousand years of a life empty of love, he could understand her desperation.
She edged closer and gripped his arm, keeping away from the flesh-on-flesh contact. “You need me, Leksander,” she said, low and tight. “We need each other. I’ll let the angeling go if you just come to me and let me give you everything you need. I promise my love will be True. I will give you a child, and we will fulfill the treaty together.” Her hand kneaded the muscles on his arm, as if to remind him of the pleasures that awaited him, if only he said yes.