Page 57

Most assumed water. It was her mother’s power. And she had those mesmerizing blue eyes.

Perhaps she was weak. It would have been considered an embarrassment. The High King and Queen were traditionally powerful. The elemental bloodline was kept pure for that very reason. The terrestrial heir was always selected for their strength. But I knew enough history to know that there had been less gifted rulers. By only using her powers minimally, she could keep the illusion and mystery alive.

But when I closed my eyes, the female that clouded my mind was anything but weak. She was cunning and dynamic. Frustratingly headstrong, she had seemingly no regard for her own well-being. I could not say what motivated her. But when that passion entered her eyes, when it overtook the despondent façade she tried to wear… No. Whatever Veyka was, she was not weak.

Good.

When I finally got her under me, when she begged for my touch, I wanted to fuck her hard enough to shake the walls of the blasted goldstone palace. I wanted her strong thighs wrapped around my waist and her chest heaving those gorgeous breasts up and down for my own sole enjoyment.

The beast within me roared.

Veyka was not the only one who needed a route out of the palace. By revisiting the entrance to the monumental staircase, I’d found my own.

It was trickier to sneak out during the day without the darkness to shade the way. But until we were joined, and I was officially High King, the Royal Council of the Elemental Court was more than happy to exclude me from their daily dealings. I’d decided to grant them a reprieve—for now.

Only because I needed to keep an eye on Veyka. I trusted her judgment even less than the royal council.

The strange, shallow-rooted trees that populated the mountains surrounding the Effren Valley were easy enough to pull together, to hide me from airborne eyes as I slipped from the goldstone palace under the sweltering Annwyn sun. Once I was out of earshot of the sensitive ears of the terrestrials Osheen had patrolling the perimeter, I shifted.

My strides lengthened, the wind whipping at the layers of pale fur that covered my beastly body. I’d never seen myself in this form, but I had read a few descriptions written of my battlefield terrors. The eyes black as death. The fangs as long as a child’s forearm.

I was a giant in my fae form, towering at seven feet tall when most fae males never reached six and a half. But as a beast, my eyes were level with where the spiky fronds started to branch off from the thick trunks. The deeper I ran into the mountains, the taller the trees and the better the cover.

I was so much faster in this form. So much freer.

My mother had once told me that she felt most herself soaring in the skies as a hawk—more than she ever had as the lady of Eilean Gayl.

I could understand what she meant. When I ripped an enemy’s head from their body… felt their lifeblood drain away… in my beast form, the guilt left me. All that mattered was the beast’s need to kill.

The wisp of a scent filled my nostrils as I bounded over the next rise. I’d have missed it in my fae form, even as powerful as I was. Perhaps the beast knew—this was his fight, not mine.

I lifted my head to the sky, the burning orb of fire hovering at exactly high noon, and howled. It echoed through the red canyon bellow, over the hills from where I’d come… perhaps all the way back to the goldstone palace.

But those worries were, for the moment, behind me.

Now to find the skoupumas.

28

VEYKA

I wanted to kill and maim. After nights of fitful sleep, I’d woken that morning with bloodlust on my tongue. I donned the twin scabbards that Arthur had gifted me on our twentieth birthday and stalked to the training courtyard with only a mouthful of eggs and a sip of tea for nourishment.

My rage was enough to fuel me.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Lyrena clucked her tongue, easily dodging the swipe of my dagger. “You’re fast, Veyka, but never feint unless you’re ready for it to become a true attack,” she advised.

I let her think that I was taking her lessons in stride.

She was a fine warrior, there was no argument from me. When she sparred with Arthur, they’d both coated their blades in flame. But my first rule of the ring had always been no magic.

Actually, Arthur had made that decree. When he freed me from the water gardens, he’d told his Goldstones that he wished to measure the extent of my skill without magic. After that, no one had dared question why I never wanted to test my powers in the ring as well.

They assumed my power was over the element of water, like my mother.

I would rather have my organs extracted from my body through my throat one by one than share something with the Dowager.

Besides, magic had a cost. The greater the use of magic, the greater the cost. If I was a powerful water wielder as they all believed, having grown up in the water gardens would have given me plenty of practice. What need did a queen have to show off when there were servants to attend to my every need and bear any unfortunate consequences?