Glaring, I dispel the thoughts of my hands around my future queen’s neck and focus on my magic again. It reacts too slowly. It’s been a long time since my magic has been this unresponsive. It feels like a cool embrace, rarely rousing, an empty void of absence.
It’s taken me years to force it into action, but now, it seems to want to spite me.
Oslo’s eyebrow raises. “On edge this morning.”
Coming to his side, I look to the gathered brown papers. All of them are written in a code of broken words and ancient languages—one only he and I understand.
Luckily for us, my father is too preoccupied withlookinglike a royal to bother noticing what his heir and general have been planning for decades.
“I’m always on edge,” I snap, crossing my arms.
“Because of your mate.” He sighs, nodding.
My body shudders, the bond flaring with the word.Mate. It’s so rare to have one, to lay a claiming on another soul.
Dark Fae do not share. Asking them to part with their soul and give someone else the power to destroy them? Unlikely.
Yet, I’ve done it. I found a woman who could handle my darkness, understand it, live within it. And she’s ready to claw my eyes out for it. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so frustrated.
“She’s refusing to eat. I’ve spent the morning trying to convince her differently. I spendeverydaytrying to convince her differently.”
“Convincing?” Oslo narrows his eyes. “Or forcing?”
“Does it matter?” I ask, crossing my arms. “She needs to eat. What else am I to do?”
It might be to keep me alive, but this isforher. She needs her strength. And starving herself to spite me will do us no favors.
“You could not drug the poor woman.” Oslo rubs the bridge of his nose. “Think of it from her perspective, nephew.”
Her perspective? I’d rather not. There is notimeand certainly no room for guilt. Not with everything else I must handle.
“I don’t need a lecture,” I bite out, grabbing a few parchments. “We both know it’s for her own good.”
My future queen would soon rather kill everyone in the castle to gain her freedom—me included. That would put a serious target on her back from my father and the court which would make our lives forfeit.
I would not risk losing her because of atantrum.
“I support you, Kaden, but…” He trails off, large shoulders dropping. He’s a massive mountain of a man, built for war. “It is a bit much. Perhaps she can be reasoned with?”
I snort. “You don’t know my mate.” Her stubbornness would outlast another Great War. “She’d soon rather starve if she thought it would hurt me. And unfortunately, itwill. So if I have to shove food down her tiny throat, restrain her in a dungeon until she sees reason, or drug her so she doesn’t massacre the entire palace, I will. I will do everything I can to keep herbreathing.”
Nodding, my uncle remains silent. He knows my choices are limited. Soon, my father will demand his prize. My claiming, her docile state, will not be enough to keep him from seeking her out.
That’s why we’re here, clandestine meetings in the bowels of the palace, in broad daylight when most of my kind is asleep. We’ve moved up our schedule, forced everything to come together, thrown carefully laid plans aside for urgency.
For Max, my mate. Forhersafety.
“How do we fair?” The parchments crinkle under my touch, words of promises to fight. To stand by us in our cause.
Our coup.It’s been years in the making, as I played the role of subservient dog to my father’s tyranny. Just to get thisfar.
My uncle smiles tiredly. “We fair. It is a slow-going process, my nephew. As you know, to keep suspicion low. We have guards to vet, lords to sway. But I’ve recently gained a few to our cause, so it’s moving in the right direction.”
“Is it enough, though?” My eyes scan the table, the dark walls. The shadows jump, reacting to my mood.
Grabbing my shoulder, my uncle forces me to look at him. We’re of equal height, but his shoulders are heavy with previous battles—mine with the future of a kingdom.
Something I never wanted, never dreamed I’d get this far in life. And here I am, preparing for a throne that was never meant to be mine, with a queen I never thought I’d get.Max.
