She pursed her lips and took the seat herself. “King Arthur was murdered, and his twin sister Veyka Pendragon ascended to the elemental throne. You were appointed the terrestrial heir and sent to Baylaur—”
“What about Gwen?” I cut in.
Guinevere was the terrestrial heir. She had fought in the pits, killing every other contender in order to achieve the title. I’d witnessed it myself.
“She went with you,” my mother continued, her voice sharper. Reprimanding me for interrupting. Ancestors. Why did it feel like I was twelve years old again? “It is my understanding that she became a guard of sorts, and that she remains in Baylaur at this time.”
I actually laughed at that. “No. Gwen would never debase herself into being a mere guard. She was supposed to be the High Queen of fucking Annwyn.”
This was all a joke. It had to be. I must have taken some sort of head wound in battle… though I could not recall which battle… and this was the result.
“Guinevere has always done her duty. As have you, my son,” my mother said. Pride rang in her voice. Pride… because I was the High King of Annwyn?
Ancestors… Could it be true?
Another detail of what my mother had said clicked into place in my mind. “Veyka Pendragon… the female who looked at me like…”
My mother did not finish that sentence for me.
Like I belonged to her.
And my beast… recognized her.Wantedher. A female I had never met.
“The High Queen of Annwyn,” I said slowly. “My wife.”
“Your mate.”
The beast inside of me surged. I yanked back on the restraints I always kept around it, keeping that side of me tethered. Even as pressure contracted in my chest, around my heart. What the fuck was that?
Another possibility occurred to me. Not a joke, but a plot. I’d been targeted my entire life. I had been stolen away from this very castle when I was a mere child, locked in a dungeon, and tortured for the prophesied power in my veins. This was another attempt, and I would kill all of those involved, like I had every time before. I loosened the hold on my beast…
“I don’t know who has convinced you to do this, or to what purpose, but I will slaughter them for you, Mother. Tell me what is really going on—”
“It does seem more the sort of jape I would orchestrate,” my father interjected. Rarely, so rarely, did he step in. He’d always been the beta to my mother’s alpha. Which gave his words more gravitas as he said, “Your mother speaks the truth.”
This was madness. I was the commander of the terrestrial armies. I had earned the title of Brutal Prince by killing my way across battlefields for the last three hundred years. I was aweapon of terror and death, not a king. Certainly nottheKing. Nor a husband. Least of all the mate of a female who had simply vanished in the middle of a conversation.
“And she can just disappear? What cursed elemental magic is that?” I’d drawn my axe at the quick flash of movement, ready to fling it against whatever magic she—Veyka—had rallied against me. But she was justgone. As if she’d never been there at all.
My mother stiffened. “That is for your mate to explain.”
“Mates do not exist,” I growled back.
“They have not existed for seven thousand years,” she said. “But they do now.”
I bit back the snarl that rose in my chest, the need to gnash my teeth. I needed to shift, to run, to claw something apart. The fell creatures of the lake would be a good place to start. Blood. Blood would clear my mind.
Blood—her blood. I’d scented it and known she was different. My beast had wanted to lick it off of her lips, and then lick the rest of her as well. But a mate… no.
My mother rose, smoothing the folds of her silk skirts by habit, as I’d seen her do thousands of times. “Look inside of yourself, Arran. The bond between mates… it is the stuff of legend. You must feel it.”
The pressure in my chest. The unexplained urges of the beast inside of me.
“Why did you wake from an enchanted sleep and come here? Why not Cayltay? Why not go to the war camps? You were drawn here, becausesheis here.”
Even now, that feeling in my chest was painfully intense. It had driven me to Eilean Gayl, bound by bound, softening fractionally with every mile. But I thought it satisfied, it had eased—
In her presence.
