I did all that.
How can Daire be my dragon rider, consort, and future King, while I wish to take everything from Lanlin?
My world feels like it has been torn up from the roots.
Aurelius, Aurelius, Aurelius…
Freya is calling me, but I can’t answer her. I am too lost in my own dark, shattered thoughts.
“You were working against me all along,” I whisper. “You must hate me.”
The silence is too long.
My throat feels like sandpaper.
I won’t cry. I don’t cry.
Then why are my eyes smarting?
Daire and Freya are both kneeling on the other side of the skeleton wing to me.
Freya grabs my hand, squeezing.
“We love you,” Daire’s eyes glow in the dark of the cave, “you blind idiot. But we hate the oppressive, power hungry Draca Kingdom. We hate how it conquers other kingdoms like it’s a game, using people as pawns. Plus, in case you forgot, I’m arebel. I was never tamed.”
“And I’m a wild wolf,” Freya adds. “No one can tame me. I told you that when we first met. I won’t spy on the Bloods, if it’s only to break them too.”
“If you want to prove that you’re inourpack,” Daire adds, “then you need to show it in actions more than words, and I’m talking about more than courting us with severed heads, although that was a bloody good start. We are all in cages. But you must decide what you’re prepared to sacrifice to break out of yours.”
“Everything,” I breathe.
I scrape my claws along the bone, struggling not to close my eyes and give in to the rut.
I feel the phantom lash of the whip across my back, uncle’s too soft touch, and the death cries of my cadets on the battlefield.
I have plotted for years…and I know now.
I would give up…everything.
Daire’s gaze gentles. “Then you must decide if your revenge against Lanlin means more than your love for Spark. You can’t hold onto both.”
My gaze shoots to my beautiful Omega. “Nothing means more than you, my Vesta.”
To my surprise, she doesn’t lean and kiss me like I hope or reward me by purring.
Instead, she tilts up her chin. “Then let me decide how I want to handle Lanlin. Take down Maximinus.Then give me back my kingdomand Daire his. We aren’t onlyyourKing and Queen, but royalty in our own right. Stop thinking thatpeacemeans empire, and that empire is the only way to peace. Be our undercover rebel within your own kingdom and then burn it fucking down.”
I stare at her in shock.
She has just lit the spark that could burn down my entire empire.
She’s a strong Queen already.
Pride fills me.
“Did you just commandmeto burn my own world down for you?” I murmur.
She nods.
