Page 28 of The Fallen Fae King

I blink. “You must be even more exhausted than I am. Didn’t you see it?”

Daire’s expression shutters. “Being a sacrifice takes it out of you. I was still the most stunning offering the Bloods have ever had.”

“More like the cockiest.”

“Of course, when will they have a feathered god in chains?”

“Never again,” I mutter, darkly.

Daire grins, tumbling off the bed with a flap of his wings.

He crouches in front of the wooden box that stands at the end of the bed, which is carved with scarab beetles.

He sniffs it like he’s a cat. “Hmm, incense. It smells like our Bat King.”

Happiness surges through me. “He left it for us. Open it.”

Lanlin is thinking of us even now.

Ever since we were sent to this white bedroom, banished from the royal nest (which hurts more than I thought it could), I half-expected Lanlin to appear in a fog of shadows. Then he would yell, cuss at us, or sink his fangs into my neck.

Anything would be better than this silence.

I stroke over the Ankh bond mark compulsively, desperate to feel connected to my Alpha.

I need to explain. I intended to tonight at the Blood Moon, but there is a saying in the Fang Kingdom that a secret kept too long will bite deeper than an enemy’s fangs.

In this case, they’ve bitten me in the ass.

Daire eagerly opens the incense-scented box’s lid.

“Our wedding breakfast.” Daire’s expression softens, as he lifts out a wooden tray and passes it to me. “Sin noticed. These are our favorites, love.”

I place the tray on the bed, studying the platters of figs, dates, grapes, piles of golden loaves, and sticky honey and bat cakes.

The cakes are a mess.

I’m sure that Lanlin has taken the time to make them himself.

Suddenly, my throat is tight with tears.

When he first made those cakes for me, it’d been Lanlin’s clumsy way of courting me.

How can he still gift me them, after finding out the truth about Daire and me?

How can I admit the rest of our schemes? That we came to his court to capture him?

“He cares.” I stroke over the scrap of papyrus, which is propped on the tray. Lanlin has drawn the only hieroglyph that he knows I can so far read, the Ankh: my bond mark. I smile, reaching for the slender blue lotus that he has placed in front of it, which looks like a blue star. I slip it into my hair behind my ear on the other side to the pinion feather. It feels like I now have something special from both my Alphas in my hair. “He’s trying to show that he still loves us.”

Daire gives me a dubious glance, although he eyes the lotus. “That flower means a lot to him. The blue lotus doesn’t just symbolize this palace; it also means rebirth like Sin explained on the journey. Brides wear them on their wedding day.”

Self-consciously, I trace over the petals.

Then I kiss over the Ankh bond mark in thanks.

To my surprise, I feel the soft, wary press of lips on it in response.

My shoulders slump in relief.