Page 42 of Faeling (Monstrous World #4)

Having a faeling mate would come with many challenges. He just hadn’t imagined one of them being making nice with unicorns.

He wasn’t alone in feeling a bit more at ease with the unicorns gone, those of his staff nearby noticeably relaxing as they went through the familiar motions of building camp.

When his tent was erected, he called for a divan to be set out for Ravenna. He placed her upon the cushions gently and turned her over to Fenna’s continued care. Vallek lingered, loath to let her out of his sight, but Fenna eventually shooed him away.

“You go do your work and I’ll do mine. She’ll be right as rain in no time.”

He might not have believed it had anyone else said it, but Fenna had taken care of him and his sisters for decades.

An old friend of their long-departed mother, Fenna watched over them with the domineering care of a mother hen, and despite her advancing age, never missed the chance to travel with an official royal party.

“Keeps the old bones moving,” she liked to say.

Content that his mate would be well cared for and was as comfortable as he could make her, he indeed went out to see to anything he could find to do.

Mostly, though, walking amongst his people, he took the opportunity to gauge their moods.

Able to speak more privately to him, he knew his berserkers at least wouldn’t be too shy to tell him their real feelings.

A few avoided his gaze or merely nodded, but no more than he was expecting. Several reached to take his hand, congratulating him. Others stopped him to ask if Ravenna truly was the human soothsayer they’d become accustomed to.

The first true hostility he met was from the handful of representatives from the eastern tribes. One from the Iron-Chest tribe scowled sourly, demanding, “What does this mean?”

“That she will be your queen.”

The orc’s upper lip curled. “First a king and now a faeling queen? What is the world coming to?”

Stepping up into the other orc’s space, Vallek smiled maliciously. “A new age,” he said before moving on.

Resentment from the eastern tribes was expected. Many would no doubt look for ways to renege or escape. For now, Vallek just had to get them back to Balmirra. Install Ravenna on the throne. The rest would work itself out.

He could almost hear Eydis’s snort of derision. No, it wouldn’t be that simple, of course. He expected opposition. But he trusted almost everyone in this party, and they had to start somewhere.

Eventually, Vallek found his way to the back of the column.

There, he helped Mattias requisition several crates to form a makeshift coffin.

Already bundled tightly in canvas, Ulrich was sealed inside, prepared for the journey ahead.

They would deliver him to his sister’s house, and he would be buried with the honors befitting a lord commander.

His heart hurt thinking about taking Ulrich home like this.

It didn’t have to come to this.

No, but it had. Ulrich had made his choice and so had Vallek.

He missed his friend, but honestly…he missed the friend he’d known as a youth. The one who stood beside him in battle, drank with him at bonfires, and plotted with him in those first years of being chieftain. They had been almost of one mind then, so alike.

Vallek mourned the friendship that had died along the way. He didn’t know when or where it had happened, only that their paths diverged somewhere. He regretted that it took him so long to realize it, and that the consequences had spilled blood.

He would never apologize for defending his mate, though.

Laying a hand on the nailed coffin lid, Vallek sighed. “Safe journey, my friend.” He hoped in the afterworld, Ulrich finally knew peace.

Much later, he lay comfortably in his camp bed, watching lazily as his beautiful mate brushed out her long hair.

Upon returning to his tent that evening, he was pleased to find Ravenna far improved.

Bathed and bandaged, salve coated her scrapes, and her wrist was splinted.

Dressed in her nightgown, they made a simple affair of dinner before climbing into bed for an early night.

After her second grumble of frustration, the splint making the otherwise simple task difficult, Vallek sat up. Plucking the brush from her hand, he positioned himself behind her.

“Allow me.” Filling his hand with the dark cascade of her hair was pure sensorial pleasure, the soft silk overspilling his palm like water slipping through his fingers.

His purr deepened as he began to brush, mesmerized by the way the low light of the lamps seemed to be absorbed by the darkness of her hair.

She peered at him over her shoulder curiously. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” Very much. He might want to every night, actually.

Falling back into silence, Vallek enjoyed himself immensely, the gentle strokes methodical and soothing.

He loosened tangles and coaxed out snarls gently, brushing out her glorious locks to a high shine.

He didn’t know he could so thoroughly enjoy something so domestic, something other than talfon, at least, but this simple act of caring for Ravenna quickly became something he could see himself doing again and again.

Lifting the heavy mass of it, he carefully laid most of her hair over her right shoulder. It left much of her back exposed, the loose neckline of her nightgown allowing her wings to lay down the length of her back. Unable to resist, Vallek bent to kiss the space between her wings and shoulders.

He tasted the shudder on her skin and kissed her one more time before straightening.

A wobbly breath escaped her. Looking forward, at the tent wall, Ravenna whispered, “I’m not ready to be a queen.”

Vallek hummed with understanding. Setting aside the brush, he coaxed her down onto her good side facing him.

He suspected she wouldn’t want her back against his front with her wings exposed, but this was better.

Vallek gathered her hands in his and held her gaze when he said, “I wasn’t ready to become chieftain.

I was angry. There wasn’t a plan. I just had to do it. ”

“This is different,” she insisted. “And I fear…your people will hate you for it.”

He feared that, too, but that fear did them no good. They had to have faith that his people were as good and kind as he believed them to be. But, more importantly, Vallek was confident he’d do everything within his power and strength to secure her place beside him.

And it wasn’t just because she was his mate.

No, in the time he’d known Ravenna, both with her true face and in her disguise, he’d come to admire his little hellion.

There was a fire inside her, a clever, capable mind that matched his own.

He could see it clearly now, how she would be a queen they wrote sagas about.

She would bring peoples together, unite realms.

Now, he just needed others to see it, too. Including her.

“It won’t be easy,” he admitted. “But the gods don’t make mistakes. We were brought together for a reason.”

If anything, her expression only grew more troubled. It was obvious to him that something ate her inside. He’d hoped she would tell him when he called her bluff last night, but she was cagey, his mate. She gave nothing away easily.

Perhaps he was mad, but he was beginning to crave the challenge.

Still, he didn’t like seeing the unhappiness in her eyes. Whatever it was she kept from him, it was a heavy weight to bear.

“I don’t need your gift to see that we are meant for each other.

We will rule this new kingdom together.” Moving down the pillows to tuck his face close to hers, he said, “You do the kingdom a great service staying beside me, for I don’t know what I’d be willing to do to keep you, sprite.

” He grinned sadly. “It terrifies me to think…there’s nothing I wouldn’t do. ”

“It scares me, too,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t do this. I should run as far away from you as I can get.”

His purr stuttered into a growl at the thought, but then again, he didn’t hate the idea of a chase. There was no question he’d catch her. She wouldn’t escape him.

She traced his face with her fingertips. “But I can’t. I can’t leave you. No matter that I know I should.”

The need to ask, to push was a living thing inside him. Yet he slayed it, wrestling it back into the depths of his heart. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and he knew with a conviction that should have worried him that her tears could easily slay the rest of him. He was no match against them.

“One day, you will tell me, skala . When that day comes, know that I will love you then as much as I do now.”

Her lips parted on a shuddering breath, more tears gathering. He was about to start panicking when she closed the breath of distance between them, capturing his mouth in a wet, fierce kiss.

He wanted to devour her, press her into the bed and soothe the lingering terror of almost losing her. His body ached to claim her, to strengthen the bond blooming between them. Yet he held back, dreading the thought of disturbing her bandages or bringing more tears.

When he finally sank inside her for the first time, it would be in his bed in Balmirra. She would be healed and healthy and ready for him, dripping with her need.

Vallek purred against her lips, heart full of hopes and aches.

Gods, she made happiness painful and sorrow bittersweet.

She shifted the axis of his world, and he knew then, as clearly as he did his name and his mission, that he would do anything for her.

Remake the world. Bend the other realms to his will.

If he had to conquer the faelands themselves to make her safe, he would do it. Gladly.

She didn’t give him the words back, but that was all right. When he earned them, it would be all the sweeter for the challenge.

Still, she sent a thrill of vicious pleasure careening through him with a little growl against his tusks. “There’s no one for you but me,” she said, her ferocity pleasing him to the most primal depths of his soul.

Chuckling, he nuzzled his nose against hers. “It’d be more romantic to say, ‘there’s no one for me but you.’”

“I’m not being romantic. I’m making a threat.”

“Ah. My mistake.”

Gods, how was it that her threats kept making him painfully hard. Perhaps he really was mad. If so, this was the sweetest madness, and he embraced it.

For Vallek was lost to his faeling mate. There was no hope for him now.

Their course was set, their path laid. Now all that was left was to walk it. And he would, with Ravenna beside him.

They would leave the world remade in their wake.