I could not have imagined any of it.
Which was the best justification I’d yet found that this might all be real.
“No one summons the High Queen of Annwyn,” I repeated under my breath. I could just imagine the words leaving her full,lush lips. Lips that begged to be bitten. Lips that were far too clear in my mind for someone I had only met once.
Who was my mate.
Fuck.
The most grating part was that she was right.
As High King and Queen, we were co-rulers. Equals. It was how the balance between our two kingdoms was kept, generation after generation, for seven thousand years. I hadn’t been an attentive student of history, but I knew that much.
That was bullshit.
I’d lost my Ancestors-damned memory. The least she could do was meet with me and explain… something. Everything.
“Fuck!” I slammed my other fist down.
The guard in front of me shivered. Little use he would be in a fight. I’d speak to my mother about having him reassigned. I would not have trusted him to guard my breakfast, let alone my home.
My fists clenched tighter.
Eilean Gayl had not been my home for many years. The Brutal Prince’s only home was a war camp, a battlefield, with my battle axe in my hand.
The ever-present ache in my chest intensified.Home. I pressed my fist into my chest, rubbing in vain. I’d learned on my bounding trek to Eilean Gayl that nothing would soften it.
Someone would.
The beast inside of me yanked at his restraints.
It took more energy than it should have to shove my beast back down. When I looked back out of my fae eyes, I found the guard framed in the doorway, back pressed flush against the wood, as if he hoped he could melt through the ancient cracks.
“Where is she now?”
I could taste his fear. So could my beast.
“Her Majesty was going to the training yard, I believe,” he mumbled. More coherent than I’d expected.
I walked to the window. It faced the wrong direction for me to be able to see her. But even through the leaded glass, my fae ears could hear the clash of metal.
I fingered the head of my axe, then the jeweled scabbard that had been on my belt since I’d awoken on the misty isle.
The queen wanted a fight?
I’d bring one to her.
The ache in my chest eased with every step. I wanted to resent that pull she had on me, but my beast would not allow it. As soon as the feeling rose in my chest, my beast devoured it. I tightened the restraints I held, ever present, to keep him in place.
I was so preoccupied trying to master myself that I did not realize where I was, how quickly I was walking. I was in the courtyard before I meant to be, quicker than should have been possible. Had I run through the hallways of Eilean Gayl without realizing it?
Then I saw her, and everything else ceased to matter.
The thread around my heart was so bright, so hot inside of me that it burned. My fingers tingled, my muscles tightened. I was burning from the inside out. Burning for her. Veyka.
No one had told me what to expect from my queen. But as I watched her move around the courtyard, I reassessed every presumption I’d made in the last twelve hours.
Last night, she’d worn a revealing gown that highlighted a luscious body meant for one thing. But in the gray light of morning, she’d put it to a different purpose entirely.
