Page 39 of Faeling (Monstrous World #4)

His relief was palpable, and he took infinite care lifting her to set on his lap. Propped on her better side against her azai ’s chest rather than with her back to the cave was an immediate improvement, and she couldn’t help how she sighed and melted into his warmth.

That purr hummed against her, and fates if it wasn’t soothing. The tension in her shoulders loosened a little, and Ravenna’s heavy eyes fluttered shut.

“When were you going to tell me about your wings?” he asked softly.

Never . “Eventually.” She wished she could fold them up against her back as she usually held them, but with one definitely broken, there was nothing for it right now. Her wing had to wait its turn. Until then, she sat exposed, the delicate iridescent purple membranes out for all to see.

His curious gaze weighed as heavily on them as his hand on her knee.

“They’re beautiful, sprite. Why do you hide them?”

“They’re vulnerable. Only for mates,” she muttered.

“Then I intend to see them much more.”

Already back to issuing demands.

“We’ll see,” was all she could think to say before sleep dragged her down into its embrace.

She woke sometime later to a darkened, cooler cave. The rain hadn’t abated with the night, and she couldn’t help a shiver in her still-damp clothes. Although, the tremors had seemed to stop.

Tipping back her head enough to see Vallek’s face, she found him staring silently into the darkness.

Following his line of sight, she found that with the light from their little fire, the lump that had once been Ulrich could just be seen.

A formless, shadowy lump, it was a dark omen against the rain-spattered ground.

She averted her gaze, not wanting to think any more about him.

Although unsure whether it was the utter exhaustion or the bond to her azai or just her imagination, Ravenna thought she could hear how the heart beneath her cheek was breaking.

“Rest,” he murmured. “They’ll find us by morning.”

Nuzzling against the patch of exposed skin at his throat, Ravenna sighed. “Your heart is heavy.”

Vallek’s exhale ruffled the hair at her crown. “I killed my friend.”

It was a brutally simple statement, but four words carried enough weight that Ravenna could almost see it pressing on his shoulders.

“You did.”

He didn’t look at her, but the arms he had banded loosely around her tightened. Ravenna winced, not quite in pain, and he immediately relaxed his grip.

“I’ve known him since we were orclings. We served together, fought together. I considered him my brother. He stood beside me when no one else would.”

Ravenna listened quietly, easily imagining the person Ulrich had been. She could see youthful Vallek and Ulrich, cocksure and angry, ready to remake the world.

What they had accomplished was nothing short of astounding.

But somewhere along the way, something darker had developed inside Ulrich.

She’d never questioned his loyalty to Vallek.

If anything, his devotion was fanatical.

He guarded Vallek almost jealously, blind to how his king and friend had changed, too.

“I’ll admit—I won’t mourn him nor miss him. But it brings me no pleasure to see how heavily it weighs on your heart.”

“Going soft on me, sprite?”

“Hardly. But I have a heart, cold and dark as it may be.”

They lapsed back into silence, Vallek’s gaze never wavering from the motionless form of Ulrich.

More than once, she thought to ask him why, but as the night lengthened, she began to suspect he watched over his lord commander as much as he did her.

If nothing else, no scavengers would pick at Ulrich tonight.

It was a long while before Vallek spoke again, and the words he did finally say made Ravenna’s cold, dark heart ache. “I regret having to kill him—but I don’t regret that I did. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” It did. And it shouldn’t have pleased her so much, but it did, too.

Perhaps it was ugly of her to be happy that Vallek would kill for her—even his own friend and second. Perhaps it wasn’t right to be pleased he’d choose her over all others. Especially when she herself had avoided their mating and been begrudging all along the way.

She never wanted to have the choice put to him, but now that it’d come to pass, she couldn’t help the prideful pleasure tucked beneath her heart.

He came for her. He defended her. He killed for her.

Fates, how could she deny him now?

As if he could read her thoughts, Vallek said, “You’ll have your way, skala .”

That cold, dark heart of hers dropped to the cave floor. “What do you mean?” she asked through cold lips.

After all this, was his heart so heavy he meant to give her up?

Her denial was ferocious and desperate, her fingers digging into the material of his tunic.

But before she could argue, he continued. “You are my mate, and I will take you for my wife. And my queen. There’s no other way.”

Ravenna blinked out into the rainy night, not sure if she’d heard him right.

“I don’t want to be queen,” she blurted. “I’ve never wanted any of this.”

When he might have grumbled or argued, Vallek instead purred louder. He ran a hand gently down the length of her tangled hair, kissing the top of her head before telling her, “And that is why you’ll be a queen for the ages.”

“ No. I won’t. I can’t.”

Her heart, still on the floor, fluttered with dread. Fates, it was one thing to be his mate, a carefully guarded secret. Perhaps she could have gotten used to the arrangement, helping him from the shadows as she had before but also sharing his bed and private life.

But to place her beside him on the throne? To declare her— a fae–human halfling—queen of orcs? Preposterous. Impossible.

“You can and you will,” he said, still in that gentle tone that she was beginning to find infuriating. “The gods don’t make mistakes.”

Ravenna laid her palm on his forehead to check for a temperature. “Did you hit your head coming down the cliff?”

Vallek snorted, taking her hand in his and kissing it. “No. I’m thinking quite clearly. Perhaps for the first time in months.”

“I don’t—”

“Is it that you don’t want me, sprite?”

Ravenna choked on whatever she’d been about to say. She tilted her head back again to glare at him. “You know that’s not it.”

Although it didn’t reach his eyes, his smug grin was still insufferable. “Then we will be as all other mates. I will take you to wife. I cannot give up my throne and the unification of my people. But I cannot give you up, either. So you will just have to be my queen.”

All she could do was splutter and stare in horror at his wild jumps in logic.

Denial clamored up her throat, but nothing more than sounds of shock came out.

No true words or arguments came to her, nothing to truly make him see the sheer audacity and risk of such a thing.

All she could offer was wordless, vague concern that doing this would lead to his ruin.

Just as Ulrich said.

Taking advantage of her speechlessness, Vallek pressed, “I’ll make you a deal, skala, as you’re so fond of them.”

“I’m not —” They had made one and suddenly now this was how their mating worked and he was the one always making deals and changing them and—

“Do this for me, stand beside me, and I will aid you in whatever scheme it is you play at.”

Ravenna’s mouth ran dry. “What?” How does he know?

That little grin fell away from his face, and he regarded her seriously when he said, “I know you have plans for something. I’m not a fool—a soothsayer falling into my lap isn’t coincidence. You have many secrets, and I intend to know all of them.”

“Vallek…” Despite her pain, she tried to squirm out of his lap, but he held her fast.

“I won’t pry. Not yet. But when the time comes, you will tell me your secrets and your plan. You will ask for my help.” Leaning down, he touched his nose to hers, taking up all her senses when he said, “And I will give it. If you become my queen.”

The breath rushed out of Ravenna in a hiss. She wanted to curl up on herself, hide away from that penetrating lapis-lazuli gaze. He knew too much. Saw too much.

It was like he peered inside her, even in the dim light of their little fire, and saw everything.

She shrank away—what was there to see but an angry, hurting little girl out for revenge.

He wouldn’t find the queen he wanted. She was nothing but a shut-in, sequestered away for all her life by the sea with her gentle mother.

She was nothing grand, nothing special. A halfling of two worlds who belonged in neither. Her visions were more of a burden than a gift.

She brought him nothing but her anger and her plotting. She meant to use him and his people. He was a fool for wanting to put someone like her on the throne beside him. A stupid, cocksure, handsome, noble fool.

Mistaking her silence, Vallek added, “I swear to you, I will keep you safe. And the safest place is beside me.”

He couldn’t promise that—he was willfully ignorant at best, raving mad at worst to think it. But then, she couldn’t make him promises, either. Not if she meant to have her vengeance.

And she did. She would. Nothing mattered more than that.

But…what if with this agreement, she could secure the army she so needed? If it meant getting that and her revenge, would it be so terrible to stand beside him? To have and claim him as hers while she could?

Everything inside her, from magic to heart to mind, was fiercely pleased with the idea of claiming him.

That he would be unequivocally hers for as long as she had left.

No more marriages of alliance, no more flirting courtiers.

Orcs respected matings, and in their eyes, while they may not like or accept her, they would at least recognize that he was bound to her.

He was a fool for offering her such power—was she a fool too for taking it? Or would she be more of a fool to reject it?

Her desire for him and need for revenge tumbled inside her, a violent clash that split her priorities in two. The turmoil of her indecision ached more than her ribs, leaving Ravenna breathless.

Closing the last little bit of distance between them, Vallek’s breath fanned against her lips. “Be my mate. Please.”

Fates. He was as ruthless as he was dear.

He kissed her gently, lips moving in a light, tender touch that ignited her black, black heart.

Vallek said he couldn’t give up his throne nor her.

As his gentleness seared her, making her magic sing, Ravenna realized—she couldn’t give up her revenge nor him.

He wanted both.

So did she.

Another way they were well suited.

She knew better than to believe she could truly have both. Life was never that simple, fates never that kind. They were both fools, it seemed. She would just have to hope that the consequences didn’t rain ruin upon all orc-kin.

“Yes,” she breathed against his lips. “Yes.”