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But still the rage did not come.

I closed my eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep.

38

ARRAN

If I didn’t tear myself away from her, I would never leave. I’d carry her to that massive bed of hers and spend the next week taking her in every way I knew how. We’d be sore and aching, and more satisfied than either of us had any right to be.

I would be caught in her spell, her mysterious magic that she managed to keep hidden, even from me.

Maybe her powers were ethereal.

I dismissed the thought with a hard shake of my head. Those gifted with ethereal magic had the ability to read minds; to look inside the heads of those around them and see their most private thoughts. It was a lost power—like void magic, its twin. Both had disappeared seven thousand years ago, around the time the Ancestors had forged the treaty that united the Elemental and Terrestrial Fae Kingdoms under the singular crown of Annwyn.

As a younger male, laying alone in my bedroll the eve before battle, I’d questioned whether those powers had ever truly existed. It seemed just as likely to be part of the fairytale mythos surrounding the Great War.

Whether those lost powers had ever existed did not matter, I scolded myself. They did not exist now. If Veyka could read the thoughts in others’ minds, she’d have extracted her revenge already.

What revenge would she seek for what had just happened between us? She’d been more than willing. But when her mind cleared, the rage would return. The burn of Veyka’s rage on my skin was becoming a familiar, comforting pain. I’d never imagined myself a masochist. But she’d crawled inside my consciousness and now refused to leave.

Even if I could not get her out of my mind, I could distance myself physically. At least as far as the antechamber, where I found Gwen.

How long had she been here?

Was my mind so fucking lust-addled I could not even detect footsteps?

She lounged on a gold velvet chaise, legs crossed in front of her, using a tiny, child-sized dagger to clean her nails. I’d known her long enough to recognize the ruse. Gwen was never truly relaxed. She was always calculating the best moment to strike her prey.

“Get out,” I snarled. I was in no mood for whatever conversation she’d positioned herself here to have.

Her mouth curved into a feline smile, even as she continued nonchalantly picking at her claws. “I expected you to be in a better mood after finally slaking the lust that has been burning in your eyes since we arrived in Baylaur.”

My beast roared within me. He was so close to the surface after fucking Veyka, clawing to get to her. It had taken every bit of my control to keep him leashed inside as she sucked my cock.

I clamped down on that memory, frustration replacing the memory of lust.

“Get out, Gwen, before I—”

“Before what?” Gwen cut in. She rolled her shoulders and her feigned nonchalance vanished.

Her challenge was clear. If my beast wanted to fight, her dark lioness would oblige.

Not wanted—needed, I realized.

Gwen was waiting in this room—and has probably sent all others away—to forestall me, to give me the chance to shake off the latent magical energy peeling off of me in waves. Better she bear the weight of my brutal magic than an unsuspecting servant.

I’d killed dozens in those early decades, when my gifts surged beyond my control. But I’d never lost it around Gwen or any of the armies I’d commanded over the last three centuries. But that proof of my mastery of my powers did not matter. The stories persisted, whispered over fires. Gwen had no doubt heard them. Maybe she’d told a few herself in the years since our first acquaintance.

My magic cooled, spooling up inside of me. I willed control through my limbs, then my veins. When I flicked my gaze back to Gwen, her posture had softened. She judged the danger to be past.

Her deep gold eyes, set against her matching chocolate skin, were clear when they met mine.

“Where did you put the human?” she asked.

I was suddenly so fucking tired.

I turned away and kicked loose my bedroll from its spot before the doors to Veyka’s bedroom.