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Sadness hit me hard, square in the gut, more painful than bones knitting together could ever be. I remembered then, what I’d been stupid to forget in my wallowing over the last hours. There was pain so much worse than physical suffering.

I couldn’t fall back into the darkness. I wouldn’t let myself.

But the sadness…

No. There was no room for sadness or weakness.

I was the High Queen of Annwyn now. My kingdom needed me to be present, not spiraling in my own sorrow.

And while I might no longer be powerless, I had no control over that burning ember inside of me. No more than I did over the tug in my chest, the male I knew waited for me just beyond the bedroom doors.

“Fine,” I sighed, holding out a hand to allow Cyara to help me into the bathing room. “Do you worst, Knight.”

I’d let her coddle me, if it helped her feel better. And if it helped me feel better too… well, I had a sense that even though I was now High Queen, my life was no less dangerous than it had been when I’d been the powerless Princess of Peace.

13

ARRAN

I forced myself to go back in.

Veyka had ripped out my heart and stomped on it. Honestly, I shouldn’t have expected anything different.

I understood how carefully a battle sequence must be executed—moves and countermoves that took place slowly, even though the heat of battle was fast and punishing. Armies moved by inches, not miles.

But the beast within me and the mating bond tethering us together wasn’t something I’d ever faced before. It felt right to me, to be near her, to claim my mate. Maybe it was because my beast form was a wolf, a species that mated for life.

Thewhyof it all did not really matter—only that I’d done a terrible job of managing it. And now Veyka wanted nothing to do with me.

Too bad she was my wife and queen, as well as mate.

Once the healers left for the second time, looking frazzled in a way that only Veyka was able to achieve in her attendants, I knew I could delay no longer.

And walked in to see Veyka trying to rise from the bed, hanging on to the bedpost at the foot, legs trembling.

“Have you lost your mind?” I grabbed her without thinking. The way she jerked told me enough—she’d felt that same jolt of heat between us where our bodies touched. But she didn’t try to twist out of my grasp.

Maybe she just didn’t have the energy.

“It is possible,” Veyka said with a sigh, allowing me to ease her back down to the bed.

I took a step back. Then another.

My beast growled. I ignored it.

“Where did you think you were going?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, framing the swell of her breasts. I barely kept in the groan. She looked a hundred times better than she had the day before, and with her breasts straining against the pale lavender of her silk nightgown, my cock couldn’t help but notice.

Her mouth tightened—she knew. But she didn’t say anything, or lick her lips in invitation.

“I was coming to look for you,” she said instead.

I raised one eyebrow and waited.

She gave me a mocking lift of hers in return. “To discuss the running of our kingdom and all that.”

“How uncharacteristic.”