“Why do you think I like spending time with you in the greenhouse?”
I shrugged, cheeks warming. “I thought you just liked stealing all the dragon fruit honestly.”
Xerxes chuckled, arm tightening around my shoulders. “That, too.”
“So…” I shifted in his arms, hooking my leg over his, feeling his cock twitch. It was almost tempting, since the ache I expected to feel was dim now. “Why were you a warrior if you wanted to be a farmer?”
For a moment, he was quiet, hand stilling. “There was athraxattack at a nearby clan. It was right before my education was supposed to start, but they wanted anyone with capable hands to go and help the survivors. So, I went with the few other young my age. We saw it firsthand—the devastation, the death. Thethraxdevour. They are ravenous.” He stopped, his words thick with emotion, and this time he didn’t stop me from shifting so I could meet his eyes.
There were tears in his thick lashes, a sadness that made my heart ache for him. “You saw what they could do, and it changed your mind,” I whispered.
“Not just that,” he said with a gentle shake of his head. He wouldn’t look at me as he sighed. “One of the other young, a boy my age, decided he would track them down and set fire to their nest. We could not stop him, and so we followed. We refused to go into the burrow with him, so he went in alone, and he did not return. He did what he set out to do. He burned them all. But it was only his sacrifice that did it.” Finally, Xerxes looked at me, full lips pressed together. “I wanted to be as brave as him.”
I pulled my hand off his chest and cupped his cheek, wiping away a stray tear. “You are so brave,” I whispered. “Notmany would survive an enemy like Dante. Even less would break out like you did. And you’re here, in a new world.”
Xerxes pulled me into him for a slow, gentle kiss. He tasted like peppermint toothpaste as he explored my mouth with his own. Kissing him was exactly that: an exploration. With how new it all was for both of us, it was nice to discover one another.
When he pulled back, there was a twinkle in his eye that made me think about his Primal. “What about you, fated? What were you before you became Queen?”
I couldn’t help the flood of nostalgia that hit me when I explained what my life looked like before magic entered it. I told him about my job, my family, my dreams. Explained my world without creatures and what growing up like that had been like.
And it was peaceful, even though we had a ticking bomb hanging over us.
For a moment, I found contentment with my mate.
I knew it wouldn’t last long, though.
Not with Dante waiting for us.
87
Ivy
“The countdown is on,” Rowan said, standing over the map. “We have four days to rally our army.”
I rested my chin in my hands as I looked between him and the map. “Do we even have an army? One that could take on Dante’s? We still don’t know the extent of his ranks. He could have an entire second compound that we don’t know about with more creatures in his control. He wasn’t around every day. He was doingsomething.”
“We have an army, wife,” Damon said, arms crossed. “House Wrath has been building their ranks for centuries. Their forces are five thousand alone.”
A shiver rolled down my spine as I considered that number—what it could look like. Dante didn’t havethatmany. He’d had maybe a hundred shifters in the cages that I could remember, maybe three times as many soldiers throughout the compound—but that was being generous.
Maybe he didn’t have as big an army as he’d led us to believe.
Maybe he wasn’t prepared for war at all.
“Let’s not underestimate him,” Maeve said, voice tight, drawing me out of my thoughts. “He has the palace, which is—was—the most fortified place in this realm. The most well protected fortress outside of the academy.”
“Right,” I murmured, eyes dropping to the map. “And he’ll have the surrounding forests prepared for us. He’ll be utilising the previous defences, right?”
Maeve nodded, but it was Adrian who shifted the map, blowing it up so we could see the palace and the surrounding forest and mountain. It hadn’t been as obvious when driving up to it, but the castle and the grounds sat nestled in the crescent of the mountain range, like it curled around the palace. The mountain itself was almost a snake in shape; on the map, the old headquarters for Phoenix were marked—not quite behind the palace, but further down the ridge and within the mountain itself.
“The entire forest from here—” Adrian pointed to one side of the mountain, passing his finger over the Queen’s Road, towards the other side, “—to here is full of different magical charms. They’re technically meant to be linked to the next Queen.”
“Me?” I glanced up at him, brows furrowed. “You didn’t say that last time.”
“It felt like an overwhelming piece of information,” he replied, shrugging. “But they were set up by Queen Daphne to resemble wards Queen Aura designed during the war when the palace and surrounding area was flooded with survivors of the war. They were meant to alert when the enemy was coming.”
“So, what he means is,” Rowan said, cutting Adrian a glance, “there’s a chance these wards are down. Dante will have soldiers in the forest, probably have his own wards set up.”
