My gaze hardens. His softens, pleading. I shake my head, his betrayal stabbing me in the heart over and over. He’s a fucking liar, and he stole my life from me.
My gaze slides to Kellan. He’s pale, visibly shaken. I wish I could tell him I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t know the truth to tell him. I’m sorry that I broke his heart, because now I know what it feels like.
“How am I your wife?” I grate through clenched teeth. “I think I’d remember that.” I remember almost everything.
Rannigan sniffs my neck again. His fangs scrape my skin but don’t penetrate. I shudder in revulsion. “You were floundering in the remains of your family. I picked you up, drank your blood, and declared you my wife. You didn’t have teeth or fangs and couldn’t drink from me yet, so we took your wail as a yes, and the Bloodwold scribe wrote it into the royal books. It’s law, and it cannot be undone.”
My eyes widen. My breath saws in and out. “I didn’t give my consent!” I wrench against him.
He laughs darkly, strengthening his grip to keep me still. “That doesn’t matter in Bloodwold.”
I stop thrashing and take a measured breath, forcing myself to calm down, to think. To be stronger, smarter. “I’m the starborn ruler of Fanghaven and the legitimate queen of Bloodwold.”
“That’s right, precious,” he confirms loudly enough for everyone to hear. He nods against my head, rubbing our cheeks together. “Welcome to the family.”
My hard swallow bumps painfully against Rannigan’s tight arm around my neck. “So how did I end up here?” My eyes find Bale’s, the question for him.
Bale takes a cautious step forward, his expression still begging me to understand. “I learned of the coming massacre before it happened. I tried to get there in time to stop it, but I was too late. Everyone was dead. Soldiers. Staff. Advisors. The royal family.”
Bale inches closer. Rim sticks to his side, and my eyes drop to my bird. The look I give him screams at him to go, to get out of here. My heart pounds like phoenix wings on a flight to war, and Rim clicks his beak at me, his amber gaze flicking to Fyrestar and Sol. I look at them, too, then back at Rim. I don’t know how, but I’ll save them. I silently promise with every drop of blood still inside me that they’ll make it out of here alive, and so will Rim.
“I was in scales. I charged Rannigan, ready to bite him in half for murdering a family I called friends, and do you know what he dragged out of his cloak to shield himself with?” Bale’s gaze holds mine. “You. A tiny, limp, bleeding you. I pulled up short so I wouldn’t swallow you along with half of him. I had to throw my head up to keep my fangs and fire from hitting you.”
Dizziness strikes me again. I see it in my darkest, faintest, most confusing memories and piece the rest together. Nightmares about black-nailed hands and blood against scales that look just like Bale’s. “That’s how he sliced through your chest and nearly killed you?”
Bale nods. It was because of me. He almost died for me, the infant daughter of his Fanghaven friends. “I swiped you from him and gripped you in my talons while he sliced into me and ripped a scale from my chest. The injury slowed me down. He ran, and I had you to protect. There were Bloodwold soldiers everywhere. Instead of chasing him down, I flew you out of there as fast as I could.”
“So there was a fourteenth scale,” I murmur. “He ripped it off.”
It’s Rannigan who answers. “Very useful. My sorcerers used its protective magic to discover a way to shield us from firebreath. Raiding became so much easier after that.”
Sickness washes over me. Because of me. Torridaigans and Ruthinock humans hunted more easily for two hundred years because of me.
I straighten my spine, hatred and disgust an iron spike keeping me ramrod straight and hiding the tremors trying to shake me. “What do you want, Rannigan? What happens now?”
“Drink from me. This arm, right here.” He lifts the forearm he’d had banded around my neck, shoving the softer underside right against my mouth and under my nose. With his other hand, he quickly cuts a line with his own sharp, blood-dark fingernail, then grips me tightly around the middle again.
The scent of blood hits me hard and fast, but revulsion doesn’t follow. My mouth starts to water. My fangs grow.
“Once you’re a real vampire, you’ll come back to Bloodwold with me. The Council and its useless votes won’t even exist after this, so all I really need now is an heir to both kingdoms.”
My stomach heaves in disgust. “Never.” I angle my face away from his blood.
“Never?” He nods to the vampires holding swords to my birds’ necks. “Drink, or they die.”
“No!” I thrash wildly. His blood smears my chin. He’s strong, stronger than I am, and reels me back in.
“We’ll collect their blood in goblets and toast to how marvelous they taste. We’ll drain them straight down to their everlife. There’ll be nothing but bones and feathers left.”
“You sick bastard,” I hiss in rage. “If you harm them, I will kill you. You won’t get an heir from me. You’ll get fucking torn in half.”
Rannigan rubs his face against the side of my head again. His chuckle raises goose bumps on my neck. “You’re a delight.”
“Idallia!” Fyrestar speaks to me urgently, not moving a muscle to give himself away. “Let them kill us and fight your way out. He doesn’t want to kill you, and once he can’t use us against you, the Elite Wing can take them down. They won’t have time to steal our everlife. We’ll be reborn, right here in the mountain. We’ll be together again.”
I shake my head so little I barely move. My eyes swim. My love burns brighter than a phoenix, and I will never sacrifice them for me. Cealastra is gone, an empty light fading from the night sky, and everything Bale has said over the course of the week confirms it. If Fyrestar and Embersol die, they won’t come back. Rebirth is done.
Sol chitters in fear. “Love you. Love you,” she chants over and over. It’s her goodbye. She knows there’s no spark that can bring her back to me. Fyrestar knows it, too, but he’d still die for me.
