Page 25

DRAKE

I stepped out of the meeting room, my back straight and head lifted proudly. As soon as the guards closed the doors behind me, I allowed my muscles to unfurl, my shoulders slumping.

“Stars damn, those pompous pricks are a pain in my ass,” I growled, rubbing at the bridge of my nose.

Bristell, my advisor, chuckled beside me. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He said, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Those royals are…um…sometimes a hard pill to swallow.”

I growled and swept away from the room and the raucous sounds of arguing beyond the doors.

The twelve royals I called to the meeting today to discuss the territory borders between the dukes couldn’t agree on where to split the new property line so that it would be more fair for the royals as a whole.

Each bastard wanted the lion’s share and wasn’t willing to yield.

I would’ve liked to cave all their skulls in, but Bristell had advised against that.

Being the king of the shadow fae, came with perks,s but I soon learned there were checks and balanced. I had been crowned four years ago after my father had decided to retire and step aside to allow for my reign. He’d felt I was ready.

Four years ago, I felt as if my world had fallen apart.

The corners of my lips pinched when I thought of the one female in my life who had managed to steal my heart, who still held a piece of it. Ember Vaughan. Both my kingdom and the werewolf kingdom had never found her. Rumors had quickly spread that she was dead, but I vehemently denied such rumors.

I’d know if she were dead. The bond that rested within my core would’ve snapped.

Yet it burned brilliantly within my mind’s eye, though still incomplete.

Not a full circle because we had not consummated our mating with willing hearts.

I had never taken a wife or lain with another woman since meeting Ember.

As long as I felt the bond was alive and vibrant, I would remain alone.

I couldn’t give my heart to another—it wasn’t even possible when Ember held it so completely—the one time I had lain with Ember had been under the spell of a forbidden aphrodisiac that was given to me by Rosalana.

My upper lip trembled in the beginning of a snarl as I thought back to my former friend and the one I’d promised to marry. She had been banished to the human realm. I hoped she’d rot there.

Just upheld, two guards had rounded the corner, approaching. I paused, my advisor drawing up beside me.

“What is it?” I asked my tone hard. I had enough shit to deal with today, and by the wary looks in their eyes, I wouldn’t like whatever they were about to say .

“Uh,” one of the guards said. He rubbed at the nape of his neck. “There is someone here who wishes to have an audience with you.”

I waved him off. “Send them away.” I moved to walk past them when I caught the stark expressions on their face. I narrowed an eye.

The second guard spoke up. “You’ll...want to see this person, Your Majesty.”

I sighed, raking a hand through my hair. “This person is that important.”

Both guards nodded with vigor.

I clenched my jaw. “Fine,” I snarled. “Where is this person?”

“The throne room.”

Incisors bared, I stalked past them. My advisor hurried to keep up, his shorter legs working twice as hard to keep up with my lengthy strides.

“Wait,” he stammered, pushing his round spectacles up his nose. He blinked gray eyes at me in astonishment. “You’re going to listen to what they say? You? The king who bends his will to no one and nothing?”

“Shut the hell up,” I growled, irritation lashing through my insides.

Bristell fought down a laugh, trying to disguise it with a cough.

“I hope you choke,” I said as I descended the stairs.

“I don’t think you do, Sire. Then what would become of all your plans so carefully considered by me?”

“They’d survive,” I said.

Then I caught a faint whiff of a familiar scent. One I had not smelled in forever.

The scent of honeysuckle and vanilla.

I paused mid-stride. “It can’t be,” I breathed. My muscles coiling. I picked up my pace, then broke into a flat-out run.

“Your Majesty,” Bristell called after me, racing to catch up.

“Where are you going at such a pace?” I reached the throne room doors, guarded by two soldiers in battle armor, swords sheathed at their hips.

At sighting me racing toward them, they placed their hands on their weapons, their eyes roving about the corridor for signs of danger.

“Open the doors!”

Their eyes popped wide, but they obeyed my word and pulled back the doors to allow me entrance. I burst inside the throne room. My gaze flitted about before locking on the sole person in the room, standing by the thrones atop the dais.

It was a feminine figure. Her back was turned to me as she faced the thrones. But I would never fail to recognize the flare of those hips nor the brilliant shade of auburn hair that cascaded down her shoulders to her waist.

Bristell trotted up to my side, panting. “Your Majesty,” he gasped out. “Who…is this?”

But I paid him no mind; my attention was only on the female standing before me.

At hearing my entrance, the figure turned and faced me. Dazzling sapphire eyes collided with mine.

My chest heaved with ragged breaths. “Ember… ”

“Ember?” My advisor echoed, shock coloring his voice. He had heard of my long-lost fated mate when he’d first taken the job four years prior.

Ember was even more breathtaking than the last time I saw her.

Her body had matured, her breasts more full, her thighs more shapely beneath the strange blue pants that she wore.

Her cheekbones had sharpened, and the girlish youth of her face faded to reveal the feminine elegance that belonged solely to her.

The tendons in her neck grew distended as she swallowed, then said, “Hello, Drake.”

A myriad of emotions roiled inside me. Joy clashing with anger—hurt warring with confusion. She had been gone for five years and suddenly sprang back into my life with a simple ‘Hello’?

She must have seen the emotions that played out on my face, for Ember licked her lips, her gaze skating away. She rubbed at her arm before squaring her shoulders and striding toward me.

Pausing just before me, she shot a furtive glance at Bristell, then turned to me. “May we talk somewhere, in private?”

My first instinctual reaction was to tell her no. To tear into her verbally, make her hurt as she had made me all these years. Yet, the bleak despair that shadowed her gaze gave me pause.

She must have a dire need to come into my life again after all these years…I should hear her out.

Setting my jaw, I nodded. “Follow me.” Then I pivoted and strode out of the throne room.

Ember followed after me, leaving Bristell sputtering, “S-sire, you’re just going to let her come into the palace?”

I ignored Bristell, feeling the back of my neck flame at the heat of Ember’s gaze on me. I led her upstairs to the bedrooms. Ember began to slow as we neared my old room, yet I kept walking, striding past it. Ember picked up her strides.

“Where are we going?” She asked.

Not bothering to give her a response, I stopped at my current room.

Opening the door, I stood aside, allowing her entrance.

She blinked at me, but I didn’t meet her gaze, choosing to look through her.

Ember’s head fell a little, and she strode inside, my advisor glaring at her as he entered hot on her tail.

I stepped in behind the pair and closed the door.

Ember looked around my room to the massive king-sized bed in the center with the luxurious eggplant-purple sheets—the large oak dresser to the far right, the bathroom adjacent, and the two glass doors that led to the spacious balcony beyond.

“This used to be your parents' quarters,” Ember whispered. As she slowly turned in a circle taking it all in. Her age then rested on me. “Now it's yours…you’re the king.”

I gave a stiff nod. “Why—” my voice cut off as my throat closed in. I cleared my throat and said. “Why are you here?”

Apparently, my words held a venomous edge to them, for Ember flinched. Her lips thinned, and she sighed. “I wouldn’t be here, bothering you, if it were up to me. But it's not. I…I need your help.”

Anger flared within me like volcanic heat.

I bared my incisors at her and strode forward until we were a hair’s breadth apart.

Glaring down at her, I said in a low, dark voice, “You dare come here calling on a favor?” I sneered at her.

“Do you think because of what once was, you have any sway over me?”

She bravely met my livid glare, her own brow hardening. “I thought—” she broke off, her mouth twisting. “I thought you would help me. Once you know the truth.”

I scoffed. “What truth?”

“There’s a little girl that has been abducted. She’s shadow fae,” Ember said. “I need your help to save her.”

I whirled, stalking to the end of the room. Peering out at the moon that hung in the inky expanse above, I hissed, “And why should I save this girl? Because you ask it of me?” My tone was mocking.

“No,” Ember said behind me. “Because she’s your daughter.”

The world around me slammed to a stop. My hand shot out, gripping the doorframe to steady myself as my knees almost buckled.

“Your Majesty!” Bristell cried, running over to my side. He gripped my forearm in an attempt to steady me.

“I-I,” I swallowed, my mouth dry of all moisture. “I’m fine.” I croaked.

A big-ass lie. My whole existence was upended. And by none other than my fated mate. I slowly straightened to my full height.

“How?”

Ember’s fingers twisted over each other. She let out a long sigh. “The night of…the club. She…Melodina was conceived there.”

I started at the name. “Melodina…? ”

It was a beautiful name. Angelic sounding. Then the awe was rinsed away to be replaced by righteous anger. I let out a roar and raked my claws down the length of the wall to my right. Ember jumped back, her claws immediately unsheathing, her hair bristling.

“You’ve hid her from me for all these years,” I snarled, whirling on her. “Five years…I’ve missed five years of my daughter’s life. You had no right!”

“I had every right, as her mother,” Ember spat.

She sliced a hand through the air. “I knew if you knew of her existence, you’d keep her with you, and I could never be by your side again—but I would never leave my daughter.

So I had to keep her away from this world, from you.

” Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. “I knew after leaving here that I could never be with you again. Not after what you did.”

I flinched. “You—you regret our lovemaking?” The thought that she despised being intimate with me slashed ribbons in my heart.

Ember paused, her eyes snapping wide. “N-not that,” she said, her cheeks flushing. “I am referring to when you rejected me in the gardens. You chose Rosalana over me!”

I could hear the sharp bite in her words, the deep-seated pain that laced her voice. Even after all these years, Ember was still wounded by my actions. I clenched my hands and bowed my head.

“Ember,” I sighed. “If…if I could go back to that night and change it…I would give my life to do so.” I lifted my head to peer into her eyes. “But I can’t change the past.” I lifted my chin and rolled my shoulders back. “But I can change the future. ”

A glimmer of hope sparked within her blue eyes. “Does…does that mean…?”

“I will help you find our daughter.” I frowned. “But there is one stipulation you must abide by.”

Wariness crept into her gaze. “What would that be?”

“You must stay in the palace.”

By my side.

A muscle feathered along Ember’s jaw. Her lips thinned as she weighed my words. Closing her eyes as if praying for self-control, Ember growled. “I don’t wish to stay anywhere near you. But I will do so for my daughter’s sake.”

“You should be thanking His Majesty for even helping you after you fled and shirked your duties,” Bristell snarled at Ember from where he stood at my side.

Ember opened her eyes, and they glowed like twin golden nuggets. An animalistic growl erupted from her throat, her wolf skimming the surface.

Bristell flinched, ducking behind me. I rolled my eyes.

Holy hell, what is happening to my life?