Page 30 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter twenty-three

Within two weeks, crops speckled the barren lands surrounding Rael’s dense capital.

The coven had three hedge witches, and together, with Cyrus lending the power through his blood, they were able to increase harvest speed fivefold.

Still, it would take time to build a yield that could sustain an entire kingdom.

The coven kept to themselves in the west wing of the palace.

However, the more time Cyrus spent with Essandra, the more he learned about them: Each witch held their own unique power, and as leader of the coven, Essandra was able to wield each of their powers as her own.

Their abilities were beyond what he’d already seen, and what he could have ever imagined.

In addition to the hedge witches, the geomancer, and the fire witch, the coven also had an illusionist, a forge witch, and a pain witch, among several others.

Cyrus had remembered seeing the pain witch in the fight against the nobles, and she was a little too obliging when he’d asked about the power, dropping him to his knees.

However, despite what the witches shared, they were guarded with him, no doubt protecting their own agenda.

Cyrus was guarded with them as well, because who could really trust a witch?

Beyond the power of his blood, Cyrus felt useless.

He didn’t know how to tap into his power, what it even was, how to use it, what it could do, what he could do.

If it weren’t for the draw that he felt when Essandra used his blood and his ability to travel to the minds of others when his blood touched their skin, he’d have thought he didn’t have any power at all.

He couldn’t just freely wield it. And while Essandra was certainly more knowledgeable about magic, she didn’t have all the answers. And she was a woman full of secrets.

Her coven had limits too. There was only one geomancer, a witch who could move earth and stone, and he was needed to assist with infrastructure as well, which slowed both their speed in establishing irrigation for the new crops and their ability to rebuild essential parts of the city that had been damaged during the rebellion.

Cyrus was hesitant to issue orders requiring the labor of men, but where he called, people came.

They used their backs to lift stone, worked their hands to move raw earth, but this time, they did so of their own accord.

Within a few weeks, all roads had been cleared and public buildings made ready to be reoccupied, all except the arena.

Cyrus left it as it was—the bodies had been burned and cleared but the commemorative statues remained toppled, the wooden spectator seating burned to ash, the gates of the fighters’ holding chambers ripped from their hinges.

He wasn’t sure what to do with the arena—a place he hated but a place that now stood as a reminder of what he’d accomplished and had overcome.

He felt he should keep it, like he’d kept his manacles, although they were tucked away privately in his chamber.

The manacles were different. They didn’t bring with them a sense of accomplishment but rather a reminder of what had been done to him.

Where the arena gave him confidence, the manacles gave him fuel.

They were painful to look at, but he would sit and hold them almost every day.

He’d run his fingers over the edges that used to cut into his skin, and he’d remember—what it was to wear them, how they felt, not just on his arms but inside himself.

He’d let the anger and hate fill him all over again until he thought he’d catch fire.

And then he’d think about what he still had left to do, those he still had left to face.

His father.

His brother.

That time was coming.

He just needed to wait for an opportunity.

Within another few weeks, the council had reappropriated the crown’s assets and had transitioned all those working on infrastructure and public services to paid labor.

Cyrus gave land to those committed to managing it, and two months post rebellion, Rael was a drastically different kingdom than it was before.

But it still looked the same. Cyrus hated it. He wanted to rip down everything and start fresh. How could anyone begin a new life here when everything old still remained? It was the same palace of the old king, the same temples where King Orrid had paid homage to the gods of blood.

And it was in just such a temple where he found himself now.

He wasn’t sure what had brought him here.

His eyes traveled the expanse of golden marble that spanned wall to wall under his feet and swept upward in massive columns to a ceiling so intricately carved that it looked like the lace of a gown.

How many men had it taken to build this? How many men had died for it?

Cyrus wasn’t unfamiliar with temples, especially temples of the Northern religion, which Orrid had proclaimed as Rael’s state religion.

But as a child of Mercia, Cyrus found Rael’s translation nothing like the North’s.

Mercia didn’t own slaves or hold bloodsport games.

Cyrus had seen priestesses of Rael’s temples when they blessed the arena and the fighters at each New Year’s celebration, their gowns draped from their shoulders in a way that exposed their left breasts.

Mercia had neither priestesses nor an affinity for exposing women’s flesh.

This was a perversion of the Northern religion, but it had gained Orrid tithings from the people, and the arena games had flooded him with gold.

But Cyrus saw religion for what it was—a way to manipulate the masses, bend them to the depraved will of the power hungry, all under the guise of glory.

And the gods—the gods were just as broken as the men who built their temples.

This temple was a mess. Cyrus stepped over the embroidered silk that had been pulled from the altar, through the treasures scattered across the floor—golden goblets inset with jewels, bracelets and necklaces left as offerings by worshippers.

Tithing bowls were overturned with their coin now spilled across the marble. Strange these things hadn’t been taken.

A rustle behind him caught his ear, and he spun.

It was Essandra. With her dagger at his neck. Her green eyes held a dark ferocity. Was she angry? Frustrated, maybe. Had the mess in the temple been her doing?

“Redecorating?” he asked.

She needled the point of the dagger against his skin.

His eyes dropped to her hand wrapped around the hilt. “Do you not use that on me enough?”

Essandra put more pressure on the blade, and he felt a trickle of blood down his neck. She wasn’t in the mood for his teasing.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“What are you doing here?” she quipped back.

What was he doing here? He didn’t even know.

“I came to pray,” he said, not bothering to hide the flippancy in his voice.

He glanced at the disarray around them. “Which doesn’t appear to be what you’re doing.

” He titled his head. She’d left several rooms of the palace in a similar way.

“I take it you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for. ”

Her lips thinned.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

And they thinned even more.

He glanced around the destroyed temple. “Do you not fear angering the gods?” he asked.

Her fiery eyes narrowed. “The gods should fear angering me .”

Then the corner of her mouth twitched, and an expression flickered across her face that he couldn’t read. She drew the tip of the knife down his chest to his stomach and stopped just above his belt. Her eyes met his again, still full of fire. Did she want his body? Here? Now?

She hadn’t taken him since their encounter in the palace almost two months ago. He’d assumed she’d lost interest in him. Perhaps she had, but maybe with this opportunity to desecrate a holy place of an unholy land… He could understand the appeal.

It was more than that, though. She was angry, and her angry eyes flashed as her angry hands pushed the blade more firmly against his stomach and ripped at his belt. She wasn’t asking. He didn’t need to be asked; he held out his open hands at his sides in reply.

She pivoted and turned them so her back was against the altar now.

Without thinking, he grasped her waist and lifted her up onto it, but then he caught himself and quickly released her.

He was surprised she’d let him do that. He knew his role in this arrangement, and it wasn’t one of freedom with her body. Again, this wasn’t for him.

He let her pull his cock free and waited for her to ruffle up her skirts and guide him before sinking inside her.

The pleasure swept through him, and it was all he could do to not wrap his arms around her and pull her close, to not drop his head in the curve of her neck and breathe her in.

To not touch his lips to her skin. To her mouth.

Her body called to him, but he reminded himself it was just the desires of the flesh.

He gave himself a moment to gain control. Then he started to move.

Cyrus was cautious with his hands, not particularly wanting to be bound by the witch’s magic again, and although he didn’t see the dagger now, she still had it, and she wasn’t shy about using it.

He kept himself from gripping her hips and instead reached over her shoulder to grasp the edge of the altar, using it to pull himself deeper.

She reached down between her thighs, up under her skirts, rubbing herself as he moved, and her breaths quickened. He wished he could see her. The ruffle of her gown covered her, even where they were joined.

It wasn’t a wide altar, and her head hung back over the edge, elongating her neck.

He wanted to wrap his hand around it—not to hurt her but to feel her pulse under his palm.

Surely it was beating quickly, as his was now.

But he didn’t touch her; he only watched.

There was something seductive about not being able to see her body—to have to imagine her skin underneath her dress and what her fingers were doing.

He pushed deeper, and deeper still. Her breaths came faster. Cyrus felt his control slipping.

“If you don’t want me to finish inside you, I need to stop,” he warned.

“If you stop, I’ll set you on fire.” Her words came between panting breaths.

He focused on the cold marble altar underneath them.

On the stitching of her gown. On the cadence of his own breaths.

But he couldn’t keep his eyes from moving back to her heaving breasts.

As she tightened around him in climax, he couldn’t hold himself any longer, and his own release came—deep and feverish, with a primal ferocity.

Raw and consuming, pulling everything from him.

Cyrus caught himself before he collapsed on top of her, hovering over her, his hands splayed on the altar. They lay still joined, their breaths heaving in unison.

Suddenly, she stopped breathing, and her body stiffened. Cyrus glanced down and found her head still hanging over the edge of the altar, but her attention focused on the wall. He followed her gaze to a small trunk on an alcove shelf behind the altar.

Pushing him off, she rolled onto her stomach, her eyes still on the trunk.

“Is that what you’re looking for?” he asked as he stowed himself and refastened his leathers.

She slipped down off the altar.

“What is it?” he pressed.

Essandra looked back at him. Her eyes held a warning as her body coiled. She was going to spring for it.

But not if he got it first. He darted around the altar as she scrambled after him.

“Don’t you dare!” she snapped, and she flicked out her hand. A searing pain spiked through him.

He bellowed and dropped to his knee, and she tore past him. She ripped the trunk from the inset shelf, clawing at the clasp.

The pain that had dropped him abated, but Cyrus still struggled for breath. He staggered to his feet, his eagerness to see what this trunk held pushing him up.

But as the witch opened it, her face slacked, and she puffed out a breath. “No,” she whispered. She stood, staring at it.

“No!” Her voice held an unearthly thunder, and her eyes flashed black. She slammed it onto the center of the altar, and a crack split through the stone to the floor, sending out a burst that knocked him back with a large plume of dust.

Apparently, whatever she was looking for wasn’t there.

Her face turned from anger to despair. She closed her eyes and pursed her lips tight. He knew defeat when he saw it. Whatever this thing was, she was desperate for it… and she would hurt him over it, no matter what was between them.

“Are you ever going to tell me what you’re looking for?” he asked.

She turned away, wiping her face and crossing her arms as her eyes swept over the temple again.

Cyrus eyed the small trunk. It didn’t have what she was searching for, but he was curious as to what it did have.

He stepped up to the cracked altar and pushed open the lid to find it full of jewels and gold, rings and…

bones? Hand bones, from the looks of them.

In a temple? Religion was so strange sometimes.

“Cyrus,” a voice called him from the entry of the temple. He looked up to see Ram.

The young fighter’s eyes drifted over Cyrus and the blood on his neck, to Essandra, who stood with her back still turned, then over the mess strewn across the floor, before moving back to Cyrus. “Is everything all right?” Ram asked.

Cyrus snapped the trunk closed. “Everything’s fine,” he said. “What do you need?”

“The council is asking you to come. It’s about the nobles. And there’s news from Mercia.”

Cyrus stilled. “What about Mercia?”

Ram shook his head. “I don’t know yet. They just asked that you come. Quickly.”