Page 83 of The Fallen Fae King

“And I’ve seen more respect from a donkey. What’s your point?”

War is my bodyguard who has protected me since I was a prince. She is the most loyal person I know. Also, as we’ve fought campaigns for years together, the bluntest.

Lucius chuckles, rounding the chair to War’s side. War is his devoted Alpha.

War slings her arm around his shoulders, yanking him hard against her chest. He melts, nuzzling her.

Lucius is lean and small. He has pretty, silver eyes and honey curls, which tumble to his cheekbones.

As we planned together in my bedroom, he is wearing battle armor. There are only three of us remaining in the Golden Family after Vicious’ death, and we need to appear like we’re running not only this court, but what happens tonight.

“My point,” War’s hazel eyes blaze, “is that when it comes to the wolf bitch, your brain turns to shit. Why aren’t they here yet? Did the feather fucker fail his mission? Or did he never intend to follow through in the first place? Don’t they understand what your uncle will do to you if they don’t return with a king in chains tonight? Don’t they care about their dragon Alpha? Fuck it, Relius, I spend half my life fighting wars alongside you and the other half…?”

“What?” My amber eyes darken.

War boldly meets my gaze, and her hand slides to the hilt of her sword. “The other half, making sure that nobody tricks you into joining the wrong side.”

I stare back at her coldly.

“Freya isn’t on any side but her pack’s,” Lucius insists. “And that includes Relius. She loves our King as much as…she just loves him, all right? I could tell before she was ready to admit it. She won’t harm him.”

I can’t help my lips tugging into a slight smile.

Lucius has never had an Omega friend before, and he’s as protective of Freya as he is of me.

“Enough, Omega.” War winds her hand into Lucius’ hair, forcing him to bare his neck. “She’s already harmed him. Also, she’s not just any wolf. She’s a Queen, and she’s just waiting to sink her fangs into the hand that fed her. I’ve plunged my sword into the chests of enough of the furred fuckers to know. You can see the look in their eyes, as the heathens die to know⁠—”

“Don’t complete that sentence, unless you want to join their spirits over the moon,” I growl. “They’ll be here. And you’ll see that my wolf and fae are loyal.”

I hope.

War snorts, before making a low crowing sound like a rooster at me.

I pointedly ignore her, staring at the center of the banquet hall to the space that my uncle has sworn the cursed shackles will draw my mates and worst enemy through the portal, as if I can make them appear through force of will alone. “They won’t let me down.”

Shouldn’t the fake marriage have already taken place?

The light from the Blood Moon dances across the room, as if we’re swimming in blood.

Daire must have slapped the shackles on Lanlin’s wrists by now.

My lips curl up at the sides at the thought of the look on Lanlin’s face.

He believed that he was taking his mates into his nest, only to realize that he’d been played from the start.

It must have hurt his Alpha pride.

I may have promised not to kill my enemy, but Freya doesn’t understand my friend in the way that I do. We were two lonely boys, clinging to each other because we had no one else.

My Wolf Goddess makes me feel like I am worthy of love when I was taught that I was a wicked beast who didn’t deserve to bond.

Can I become more than death on shadowed wings? More than a destroyer of kingdoms? She makes me believe it.

She has awoken feelings inside me that I had thought long beaten out of me. I can barely breathe when we are apart.

For Lanlin, who was even lonelier and more touch starved than I was, to have been given a taste of what that feels like, then to let him discover on the night of his greatest joy that it was all a lie, will hurt him more than the greatest torture meted out in the Guild of Assassins.

If I lock him up away from his Omega, I won’t be granting him mercy. I will be condemning him to a slow death.