Page 40 of A Bond in Blood (Blood Bound Duet #1)

Epilogue

Ulrich

T here was a whisper in the air, words my conflicted heart hoped to hear. Words I was too much of a coward to utter myself. Fuck, words I was still unsure if I believed were true within me.

Her words—a proclamation.

Then pain, searing pain and my eyes snapped open.

Brenna’s blue eyes stared back at me, full of fear. Fear I had caused her. My eyes went to the red-flame candle.

How the fuck did she get one of those?

“What have you done?” I shouted, jumping to my feet, panic gripping my heart and soul. “What have you done?”

She was all around the room. Her laugh, sickening. A memory I had tried to ignore. A pull my body had fought for millennia.

Brenna heard it. She stepped back, possibly from the fear and rage in my gaze. I lunged for her, but my hand snapped back, the curse taking control. She continued to stumble back, slipping on the wax that should not have fallen from the candle, slamming her head against the floor of the small cottage we’d secluded ourselves in.

“Come to me, my pet ,” my tormentor whispered in my mind, calling upon her curse.

“No!” I shouted while my voice turned to a roar.

“ Come for me ,” Titania coaxed again.

I shifted, without my control, my body changing to the beast I hated. My hands turned to clawed paws while my back arched as fur grew over my body.

My shout of rage rattled the cottage, but Brenna did not move. Was she dead? Oh fuck, was she dead?

A breath, a low breath, lifted her chest and my beastly body relaxed with relief.

“ Ulrich, come to me .”

Titania’s pull tugged at me, forcing me to leave the cottage. My eyes landed on the mare. The animal stared in fear, and I lunged, ripping into its neck.

My attack destroyed the rope Brenna had tied it with and it took off, bleeding from its new gaping wound.

My own predatory instincts begged for me to follow my prey, but I could not. Not with her calling to me.

I bounded down the road, with my shadows covering my tracks. I couldn’t fight it. Fuck I hated her. I hated this.

Everything was ruined.

I had ruined it all.

My body followed Titania’s call, and I growled when I found it leading me to Brenna’s family home. The small palace—her place of safety—the place I had stolen her from.

My shoulders slammed into the door, hitting a guard in the process.

“There he is,” Titania purred.

My eyes went up, meeting her brown gaze.

“It has been so long.” She put emphasis on her words. “You have never come for me, Ulrich. Even when you were cursed during these long blood moons. I have heard you fucked yourself silly. Was that to ignore the desire to warm my bed? To fight the urge to take that black ship across our waters and ravage me like you once did?”

I snarled and moved to lunge, but her hand went up and my body froze.

“I smelled you on her.” Titania’s eyes went dark. “Gods, Ulrich you were burying yourself in a child. She is nothing compared to the millennia we have lived. Her? That obedient little miscreation?”

I snarled again.

Titania laughed again. That annoying, shrill sound these irritating creatures all made.

“I smelled your little pet on her as well.” Titania frowned, the expression was like a child’s pout. “Why did you never offer him to play with us ? That is rather rude, Ulrich.”

“Olen doesn’t hump trash,” I growled. “His standards were always higher than mine used to be.”

A spear rammed into my side, forcing an echoing shout from my lungs.

“Behave, Ulrich. I could force you to destroy this entire little village.”

I met her eyes. “You wouldn’t,” I warned.

Her eyes went past my head to the palace door behind me. “Oberon and Mab are on that ship. Likely lost in their disgusting lust. Gods, somedays I wonder why I stay. Why I sit on the side allowing them to live their little bubble of love and family with all of their disgusting offspring.”

“It’s because you’re too much of a coward,” I replied. “You couldn’t even end the man yourself. You had to beg the new monster that entered your world to do it.”

Titania was before me in an instant, her hand gripping the fur on my neck.

And I could do nothing. Could not fight this curse she held me in.

“I am a queen , Ulrich. I do not get my hands dirty.”

“You just have him do it for you,” I growled. “Did he enjoy removing my peoples’ heads?”

She laughed again. “Gods, yes he did. After the bloodshed was the first time he and I enjoyed each other’s beds in decades. It gave him a thrill that I had begged him to put you in your place.”

She held her grip tighter while her finger dug into my open wound.

“It’s time to actually put you in your place, Ulrich. Once and for all.”

I struggled in her grasp, biting my snarls and growls from the pain of her attack.

“Wake them all,” Titania ordered, standing and eyeing her guards. “Gather them in the great hall.”

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“She’ll never forgive you after this. She’ll never come for you.” Titania laughed. “Gods, she’ll hate you even more than I believe she already does.”

I was ordered by my newly claimed master to remain in place while her guards gathered Brenna’s father and his staff. Innocents in mourning, rubbing their sleep from their eyes.

“What is this?” King Enok demanded from the throne her guards forced him upon.

Titania laughed and stroked my fur.

“Beast!” Enok yelled. “Where is my daughter? Have you claimed her once more?”

“Do not answer that,” Titania whispered.

The words were like a lock on my throat, preventing my words from forming.

I would kill her for this. I would burn her kingdom to the ground.

“King Enok,” Titania breathed out. “Your daughter took something from me.”

Enok’s eyes went wide, and he moved to lift himself from the throne, but her guards held him in place with their spears.

He shook his head in disbelief. “My queen, I can promise she has not.”

Titania’s laugh echoed in the room while the morning light of the sun began to shine through the windows.

“Oh, she did, Enok. She’s warmed his bed for months. She’s been his little whore at his side.”

Enok’s rage was unmistakable. His hands trembled and my head went down in shame, unable to stare the man in the eyes.

But the king surprised me with his response.

“My daughter is a woman who can do as she wishes with her body. You will not speak of her that way when the entire court is aware of your constant humping of your own whores, queen .”

Titania’s rage unleashed and she snapped her fingers. The guards dragged Enok’s staff forward, forcing them to their knees.

“Do you want them to die, Enok?” she demanded. “Do you want to be responsible for their deaths?”

Enok struggled against the guards. “Where is Oberon?”

Titania laughed. “Poisoned on his faerie wine and likely fucking Mab. Why does it matter?”

“He won’t let you do this,” Enok spat.

“He lets me do whatever I wish to avoid me leaving him, Enok. Those whores I hump? Those are given to me by Oberon. To keep me happy.”

Her hand gripped at my fur, forcing me to look into her eyes. “Watch this, Ulrich. Watch the power I have.”

Her hand shoved between my shoulder blades, forcing me to lower and watch her bloodshed. Screams echoed around the grand hall while her guards started their slicing. Knives across necks, spears into sides.

A massacre.

Of everyone Brenna loved.

Enok shouted on his throne, screaming out his rage, unable to fight while her guards held him in place. Forcing him to watch the bloodshed.

And when I thought it was done. When I thought she had her fill of horror, she bent to my level.

“Shift, Ulrich.”

My body moved again, my bones cracking inside of me. I fell, my paws turning back to hands, gripping the floor of the hall. My hair fell over my face while I heaved from the pain.

“Silence him, Ulrich,” Titania ordered. “Keep his disrespectful tongue quiet.”

My eyes went up and I met Enok’s eyes. My body began to shake, trying to fight her words.

“Now!” she demanded.

I stalked forward and my shadows came out, going straight for the king. I glanced down, watching my skin turn translucent, my ancient power hoping to claim its next meal—the lives that keep me living.

I fought her, the entire walk toward the throne. Watching Enok’s eyes burn with hate. He was unmoving, determined.

Fuck, he was exactly like his daughter.

“I thought you would have protected her,” Enok snapped at me. “You will break her. You will ruin her.”

I nodded once.

“Kill me, beast,” he demanded. “And send your soul into the darkest depths of torment.”

I knew my face had shifted to one of pale bones by the fear in Enok’s eyes. It was there, the soul, swimming in his body, reaching toward my power.

“My soul has resided in Hel for eternity,” I whispered. “What else do you expect from its king?”

My shadows went down the king’s throat, choking his ability to speak, but not taking his breath. Despite the begging in my body for me to do so.

“My good little pet,” Titania said behind me, running her hand down my bare back. “Now we wait for her.

Her hand slapped my skin.

“Shield them, Ulrich. Do not let that whore see this until I am ready to reveal it.”

I pounced, wrapping my hands around Titania’s neck, throttling her into the floor. The crack of her head hitting the ground filled my body with glee.

My power bit inside of me, begging for her soul. Relishing the smell of her fear.

“Unhand me!” she choked.

My stupid, fucking hands released her in an instant.

“Shift, you animal!” she shouted.

My shout echoed again, and my body changed once more, sending me on all fours like the beast that I was.

“Let’s wait for her, Ulrich. Let’s watch the woman you love fall to her knees and realize what a horrible creature you really are. Doesn’t that sound great for such a vile being like yourself?”

My chest heaved while I watched Titania’s guards lift the people they’d murdered, staging them behind the king staring at me with hate in his eyes.

My shadows came from me, masking them all. Only showing their faces. Not revealing their wounds or blood. Leaving the king surrounded by the gore of those he likely loved.

Titania’s hand went to my fur again.

“I can’t wait to take you home with me, my pet.” She gripped me. “You do nothing when that whore appears. You do not speak. You do not move. You do not fight.”

My breaths went slow, my rage shaking inside of me.

“I own you now. Do not forget that,” she whispered.

My head dipped in shame at her words. But my hate went darker.

I imagined Brenna’s appearance. The rage that would burn in her eyes. The hate she would throw my way.

Fuck all the Fate created; I hated her as well.

Because she had broken through my walls. She had created soft cracks within the unrelenting Unseelie King. She had made me totally at her mercy. Stirring a new emotion within me that I had never felt in my long life.

I stared out the grand-hall doors. Knowing that wild woman would do all that she could, even if she were fueled by the hate I had beaten into her, she would come for me. It may be to end me, to take my life for what she was about to witness, but I would gladly fall by her hands.

No death would be greater than my life being claimed by the woman I loved. Fitting, for a king whose soul had been damned for eternity.