Page 64 of The Fallen Fae King

I can pretend that the time hasn’t come that I have dreaded for the last three years…the time for me to throw myself in and sacrifice myself to save the world.

Save my Omega.

“I guessed.” I stare up at the sky, mapping it with my gaze.

This will be the last time that I can.

After all, this is my last night alive.

In my harsh training in the desert, when I was thrown out amongst traps, ambushes, and wild animals when I was younger by the Chief Priestess, Nebet, I learned to survive by reading the night sky.

Now, I simply want to revel in its beauty one final time.

“When did you work out who I was?” Freya demands.

“When you allowed me to use my Power to let out your shifter side. Your shifter side had been cruelly bound by someone powerful. Why would someone suppress your ability? Your wolf is glorious. Noble. I realized then that nobody would do that to a servant, the only orphan survivor of the massacre, unless they had something to hide. You are the same age as the princess who was supposedly killed.”

“By vampires,” Freya snarls.

“Possibly,” I concede. “I was not raised in the Blood Court to know and was only a baby myself when the slaughter took place. From what Heka told me when I asked him, however, the Orm Massacre may not have been the wiping out of one court by another in a straightforward way.”

“How can you talk about it that coldly?”

“Do I sound cold? I am just trying to be clear with facts.”

“What do you mean?”

“Heka has little interest in state affairs, and I do not trust the word of anyone else in the Blood Court. Perhaps, it was the same as the dragons burning the Winter Court or poisoning my dynasty, or maybe there’s more to it than we know.”

“Your parents killed mine. You simply don’t want to admit it.” She glares at me. “Yet you’d hold onto your grudge against Daire. That’s what I know.”

I narrow my eyes. “If my ancestors committed such acts, then I will atone any way that you wish, my dear.”

“I don’t want your atonement.” Freya hurls a cushion at me in frustration, which hits my chest. “The sins of your parents aren’t yours. We have been fighting our families’ wars for fucking generations. I want our kingdoms to make peace. I want us to unite in a pack and ensure that happens. If you intend to give me any more gifts for the rest of my life, then give me that.”

I stare at Freya in shock.

If she’d demanded my head on a silver platter then I would have given it.

My head, my heart, my eternal soul.

Instead, she asks for peace.

“Does Relius agree?” I wonder, confused. “He’s the one who is trying to conquer the kingdoms and force the rest of the world to kneel.”

Freya’s gaze slides away from mine. “He will do, eventually.”

“Eventually,” I repeat. “And what does he feel about me?”

I feel raw and vulnerable.

I shouldn’t want my best friend back who saw me talking to my rats and thought my Power was amazing, rather than freakish.

Yet I do.

Freya’s expression becomes closed-off. “Let’s say that I’m working on that too. You’re more similar than either of you will admit. Both of you are too focused on revenge, blood, and betrayal, rather than what you have right in front of you.”

Freya wraps her arms around herself.