Still, I didn’t give up. I spent years, more years than your human mind could comprehend, researching for some way to gain power, and I found it. A ritual that would give me unthinkable power, only second to the Queen herself. I only needed a bit of her blood on the blade.” He looked at me. “Do you know how difficult it is to cut a Queen of the Fae?”
I shook my head despite knowing full well he wasn’t seeking an answer.
“Impossible!” He laughed, exposing his fangs once more. “But I did it! I actually cut her,”—he scrunched his nose—“-only not enough. Enough to obtain a bit of her godly power, but not enough to defend myself against her little lapdog Jyuri. And do you know what he did to me?”
I shook my head again.
“He threw me into your mortal realm half dead, knowing I couldn’t survive there without the magic of the Faewilds, not with my injuries and my new power. Maybe I only scraped a bit off the surface of the Queen’s power, but it still made me a god. I was withering away already when I found your people.” Zaelos rolled his shoulders, letting out a sigh. “I was on the brink of death with only one chance for survival—finding a vessel.”
“Me.”
“You.” He smiled. “A threat or several, a brief show of my power, and a curse was all it took for your people to betray you. So you see, you and I are one and the same. We have no one but each other.”
“I am nothing like you.”
“Keep telling yourself that, little monster. If I remember correctly, you agreed to be mine.”
“I—”
“Ah ah ah. We’ve been playing this game for far too long for you to say you regret it now.”
A throbbing ache in my head woke me from the dream. I propped myself up on my elbows, scanning the room, but each slight movement made my head pound harder. Was he trying to take control?
“Alandris?” I called out.
Within moments, he was at my side, a blur in my fuzzy vision. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to speak with Jyuri.”
I hadn’t fully prepared myself to meet Jyuri face to face again so soon. My body had an instinctual reaction to seeing him standing there in the middle of Alandris’ room, Zorinna at his side. The hair on my arms stood on end, and a tightness spread through my limbs. My magic rose to meet the sudden wave of panic—to protect.
“Calm down,” Jyuri snickered. “It’s not my intention to spar with you again today. I’ve been dealing with enough of your mortal kind lately. I am quite exhausted.”
Zorinna rubbed the sides of her temple. “Can you try to be slightly nicer?”
He looked at her with a pout. “I don’t believe I’ve said anything untoward.”
“That’s kind of the problem.”
Alandris beckoned for us to take a seat on the couches. “I am not in the interest of splitting the two of you up either, so let’s keep things light. Nairu wanted to speak with you, Jyuri. About a dream of hers.”
Jyuri and Zorinna exchanged a look.
I cleared my throat. “It was about Zaelos.”
This time, all three of them exchanged that look.
Zorinna held up her hand to stop me. “What exactly did you tell Nairu, Alandris?” She raised her eyebrows, pressing her lips together. “Because I was under the impression that we were keeping our distance, trying not to overwhelm her.”
“It—uh—came up.”
“It came up?”
I spoke up, interrupting them. “You know I’m right here, right?”
They clearly didn’t care. Zorinna continued, “Things were already progressing far too quickly for her to be safe. Amorphael warned us about what could happen to her mind, Alandris. I’ve been—I’ve been doing it, why are you not?”
His jaw tightened. “You know it is not the same. I am doing my best.”
