“You mated me,” he said. “Accepted me.”
My heart lurched. “Mating you was a mistake?” I repeated, my voice trembling and weak. I fought back the tears. I hadn’t honestly thought he would leave me. Didn’t our bond mean anything to him? “You don’t need to say it again, Thorn. I know… I know you did it to save my life. If you think that was a mistake, well—” His hand landed over my mouth, and he pushed his hood back so I could see his face in full.
Shit. I had never seen him so angry. Furious. Rage and anguish boiled in his eyes, and disappointment. I shrank back.
“When we have the time, I’m going to spank your pretty ass for that, Roya. For even imagining that I would… that after we…” He stopped, his jaw working.
“What?” I panted, hope beginning to blossom. “What do you mean?”
He reached behind me with one hand, grabbing hold of my hair in an almost painful grip, and slanted his face to mine. “Your mistake wasn’t giving yourself to me. It was not understanding who I am. A good man might leave you, Roya. But I am not, nor have I ever been, a good man.” His lips consumed mine in a punishing kiss. When he finally drew back, I tasted the tang of blood. “I am death, little queen. I will leave this island, I will kill every single member of the Guild if I must, to keep you safe. And then I will come home and fuck some sense into you. You tied yourself to a very bad man, Roya. And now that’s the bed you’ll sleep in for the rest of your very long life.”
“Promise?” I managed to say through the knot that had lodged in my throat. He only growled and kissed me again.
“I fucking do, little queen.”
ALTAIR
The scene on the beach between Roya and Kavin was heartbreaking and healing. I was overjoyed for my friend, that with Thorn’s intervention they had overcome the obstacles threatening to keep them apart physically. That with Kavin’s willingness to fight for her, for her freedom and his, he had been able to prove the purity of his feelings for her. I stared at my love, wrapped up in Thorn’s arms, and knew I had to do what I had planned, if I wanted to be a part of her circle. If I wanted to deserve a place beside these men, with her.
No matter the cost.
“My people,” I shouted, moving away from the ocean, and stepping up onto the large, flat boulder that had marked this spot as sacred for centuries. It was where new rulers were crowned, and where former ones lay in state before they were sent out to the waters on a raft of flames. It was where my mother had crowned my father, where the royalty of Havira had celebrated every major turning point and ceremony for over a thousand years.
Roya and Thorn broke apart and stepped close, but Talon, along with his guards, moved quickly to forestall their intervention as I had requested.
“People of Havira,” I shouted, my gaze passing over the gathered crowd that stretched back as far as I could see. They had come quickly, so many of them. With only a signal blown on the conch horns and runners scattering to alert the villages too far to hear, there should have been a paltry few. But at least half the island had to have answered with only an hour’s notice, and my heart ached with gratitude and regret. “Most of you know where I have been these past years. Kept as a drugged prisoner by my own uncle, unable to lead you. Unable to bring the justice so many of you deserved, to lead us into a better future, when the lives of your own children would be the ones taken if and when I resisted.” My eyes fell on some of my mother’s surviving retinue, whose children had been brutally murdered by Gullen before I stopped fighting. “Capable only of protecting you by slowly dying myself, which allowed Gullen to gain even more power.
“I was woken by my mate, the Omega Roya, when the Goddess sent her to this island weeks ago. The very hour I saw her face, I begged her to kill me, so my people could rise up and elect a new leader, and overthrow my uncle’s cruel regime.” The crowd gasped, and I smiled as Roya glared. “She refused, and offered instead to slaughter Gullen and his men, and take our island back. She has done exactly that, and is the reason Gullen was given into your hands for final justice. The reason we are all free from his tyranny.”
The crowd cheered, only quieting when I raised my hands for silence. “She saved my life,” I repeated, “but the laws of our island require that if I am the heir, as my mate, she must serve as queen.” I let my stare fall on her, hoping she understood what I was saying. “The very things I love most about Roya are her strength, her resilience, her ferocity. Her passion. The world thinks women, especially Omegas, are to be kept in one place, forced to serve their Alphas.
“I would not quench my love’s fire for anything. Not even my crown.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a dainty circlet of gold and pearls that had been my mother’s. I had been shocked Gullen hadn’t found it and sold it off as he had all the male consorts’ crowns. Mother’s lady’s maid had secreted it away after her death, and Naari had only given it to me this morning.
“This was my mother’s crown, and was to be my mate’s.” I met her eyes. “But you are not a butterfly to be pinned down, my love. You are not an Omega born to serve; you are my heart. And I won’t make you choose.”
Her eyes were as blue as the deep ocean, and as treacherous. I could drown in them, and I wanted to try. But I had one more thing to say before I swam out to meet my future with this woman.
“So today, in the presence of my people and the Goddess, I will abdicate my throne. I will relinquish all power to you, the people, to select a new line to rule Havira.” I lifted the crown over my head and prepared to cast it into the sea.
It felt like even the ocean went quiet in that instant, holding its breath. There was no sound, not a single one, until—
“Maybe Ishouldhave killed you.” Roya’s voice was filled with laughter, and something else. “If you would make such a decision without consulting your mate, the presumptive queen of Havira who also happens to be a trained assassin, you obviously have a death wish. Or maybe your uncle’s drugs addled your brain permanently, Altair.” She climbed up on the rock, her assassin’s cloak swirling around a robe I recognized as one my mother had put aside decades ago for my future bride. The wind whipped it open, though, and more of my Omega was flashed to the crowd than I would allow.
I pulled her close and muttered. “Wear more clothes,larkial. Only your mates should see all of you.”
She rolled her eyes, and nimbly plucked the crown out of my hand, examining it. “Can I have this?”
“I already announced my plan to abdicate. I don’t need to be the king, Roya.” I pulled her close. “You’ll be free. I’ll follow you wherever you go. Not to Starlak, now, but if you want to travel with Thorn to avenge the Guild’s evils, or to Wyngel with Icarus, or—” I couldn’t continue, as her hand was covering my mouth.
“Or we could all stay here, on the most beautiful island I’ve ever known, with the people who helped us free this place. You could teach me the laws. I could make poisons with Kavin, go on the occasional Guild-eradicating trip with Thorn, probably get knocked up with some half-dragon baby at some point… and have a home?” She turned, her hands on the hilts of the knives sticking up from her belt. “What do you say, people of Havira? Can I stay, and be your queen, with Altair at my side? I promise to lead with everything I have—the powers I was born with and the skills I learned in my training under two very fine instructors.” She nodded to Thorn and Valerie. “What say you, Havira? Will you have us?”
The crowd burst into a roar of amusement and acclamation that didn’t die down until I kissed my queen, placed the crown on her head, and declared the day a national holiday.
It was the best day I could remember, the first time in years I had felt the future shining brightly on Havira. On my people, and on me and my mate, and the men who were beginning to feel like the brothers I had never had. The Goddess answered prayers in surprising ways, it seemed… but I had a feeling She had some bigger surprises in store for us.
Thorn sidled up to us, kissing the top of Roya’s head and staring out at the horizon. “Queen of Havira, Princess of Verdan and Wyngel, daughter-in-law of Starlak’s feared warlord, daughter of the Queen of Death, and stepdaughter of Queen Vali of Rimholt.” Roya choked a little at the word stepdaughter, and Thorn smirked. “We’ll need even more allies to keep you safe, Roya. But it’s a start.”
I could almost see the plans unfolding in his mind of how to safeguard the island. Which countries’ leaders he would need to kill, and which ones he could find leverage on. Which debts he would call in, and how much he would pay to protect her, to keep her safe now that her secret was known.
