Page 90 of The Fallen Fae King

I imagined flying to his kingdom and then carrying him on my back as the first Alpha dragon rider to live with me, far from the High Priestess who hurt him, forcing him to wear gloves and branding him monster.

I believed then that he was my best friend. But now I know that the High Priestess was right.

He is a monster.

“Sin…” Daire desperately reaches for Lanlin, but Lanlin recoils. “Let me help.”

Lanlin holds up his wrists, which are reddened beneath the silver shackles. “Have you not done enough, Little Raven?”

Daire pales, staggering back a step.

Freya wraps her arms around Daire’s shoulders. Her eyes are red-rimmed.

Lanlin is saving them…and he’s trusting me.

Lanlin studies them both. “So, this was the plan all along.”

“I’m sorry,” Freya chokes out.

Her devastation through the bond is like a weeping wound.

“Don’t be. I understand. You’re alive, and we’ve escaped the hell beyond hells. I never expected to see…” Lanlin glances through the window in surprise. “A dawn. Although, it will be both my first and last, I suppose.”

“No.” Freya shakes her head frantically, moving to stand in front of the path of the fingers of the dawn, which are trailing through the window. “Fucking no.”

Lanlin struggles to his knees, grimacing at the pull on his broken ribs. He meets my gaze through swollen eyes.

I swallow.

How can he kneel there calmly like his wrists aren’t burning, and he isn’t my prisoner?

Like I’m not taking everything from him?

Fury rushes through me.

Lanlin is no longer my friend.

I’m only saving him because my Omega wants him and he’s bound to me by the golden threads of fate.

How dare he still understand me better than anyone else?

It’s not fucking fair, when he’s the one who took Tarquin from me, abandoning me to the care of my uncle.

My expression hardens. “Don’t worry. Where you’re going there is no light.”

“You were always my light, Relius.”

He is looking at me like I am his savior, rather than his enemy who is about to destroy him.

My expression tightens. “Monsters don’t deserve the light.”

Maximinus laughs.

Something shatters in Lanlin’s eyes, which become dead and flat. “Of course they don’t.”

He sits back on his heels. He rests his chained wrists in his lap.

“Don’t call him that.” Freya reaches for the dagger at her side.