Page 68 of Forged By Malice (Beasts of the Briar #3)

67

Rosalina

S trong arms clasp around me, and I’m enwrapped in Keldarion’s scent. I snuggle deeper into his embrace.

“I’d give you space, but then you’d be beside something much more furry,” Keldarion says lowly.

“You’re already pretty furry.” I run a hand down the hair on his chest. He’s not wearing a shirt, only loose sleep pants. And I realize his shirt is on me. I must have passed out at dinner. “What time is it?”

“It’s still the dead of night. Go back to sleep.”

I peek over his massive body to catch a glimpse of the moonlight dancing through the window. Kel gives a low grumble. “You see, this is what happens when you sleep all day. You’re wide awake in the middle of the night.”

I grin sheepishly. “It’s okay. I’m perfectly happy to lie here with you.”

He bends to kiss the top of my head before pulling me into a tighter embrace.

“Kel?” I whisper. “What did Ezryn mean when he said he marched your army into the Below?”

Kel gives a low groan and flips to his back. “So, you heard that?”

I lie half my body over him, resting my cheek on his chest. “I did, but you don’t have to tell me.”

“Seeing as you can’t sleep, perhaps I should.”

“I want to know,” I say.

He takes a deep breath, then begins. “I’d always known of the Prince of Thorns. Sira’s son who could control shadows and briars. His name was whispered amongst all of us. We’d glimpsed him from afar. I swear I even met him as a child. But it wasn’t until the Rainbow Eclipse Festival at Castletree that I truly knew him.”

I snuggle closer to my mate as he recounts the tale, burning with questions but letting him be as sparse or as detailed with the information as he needs to be.

“Caspian came to Castletree seeking refuge, claiming he’d barely escaped the Below. No one trusted him. My father took him prisoner and threw him in the dungeons of our Keep,” Kel says. “However, I, in all my perfect wisdom, thought of this as a great opportunity. My parents had spent decades in battle with the Below. They’d even commanded a dangerous mission diving into the depths to retrieve a great power said to have come from the Above itself.”

“A great power?” I whisper.

“A heavenly flower plucked from the Gardens of Ithilias. Sira used it to create the goblins. My parents theorized if they retrieved it, her army would dwindle. However, during the operation, the heavenly flower was lost to both the surface realms and the Below. Long had our forces searched for it. And my ambitious mind immediately thought Caspian was the perfect tool. With his knowledge of the Below, of the deep magic, he could help me find this great power. And he was my prisoner. I was so foolish.”

I clasp his hand as Kel explains how Cas cooperated with the Winter Realm as they planned an expedition to the deepest depths of the Below to retrieve this mysterious power. During this time, the two of them grew close, and in turn, Caspian befriended the other princes.

“And Cas and Ez started their board game rivalry?” I ask, smiling.

“Indeed.” Kel lowers his voice. “I was also engaged at this time. My parents wished for me to be wed before I took the mantle of High Prince.”

“I met Tilla. She works at Draconhold Forge. Gave me my own Spring steel bracer.”

Kel raises a dark brow. “You could charm a bard of his fiddle.”

“I wasn’t charming anyone,” I say. “Though she told me she didn’t think you ever loved her.”

“I didn’t. But the wedding hurtled ahead like a tidal wave until I was standing across from her and somehow knew saying that vow was wrong. Wrong all the way through me. So, I fled. In front of my entire realm, I fled. It was Cas who helped me escape. He used his thorns and took us all the way to the edge of the Winter Realm.

“And there we fought. I can’t recall how it began, only that he was always getting on my last nerve, and all the anger I felt about the wedding, our mission, cropped up. We screamed at each other so loud, I thought we’d shake the snow from the mountain. But then suddenly, we weren’t screaming anymore. My mouth was over his, and I don’t remember why, only that it was me who did it, and maybe it was the only way I thought to shut him up. I had never kissed a man before, didn’t even realize I wanted to.”

I feel it through Kel and can almost see the memory like a dream lost upon waking: Caspian with windblown hair, flecked with snow. And oh, how well I know the darkness behind those lips.

“We didn’t leave that mountainside until the next morning. When we returned to Frostfang, we found it had been attacked. And all the signs pointed the blame to Caspian.”

“But he was with you all night,” I said.

“Yes, but I couldn’t very well admit that. Not without the shame it would bring to me, my family. He told me to keep it a secret. So, I let them banish him away, even after all those months of work to help us. And I said nothing.

“Once he was gone, I found I could not let him go. I followed him all the way to the Below. And it was there I decided to stay while we continued our mission to search for this power. Much to the dismay of those above. And to Ezryn.”

“That’s when you resided in Cryptgarden,” I say.

“Yes. Ezryn came down a few times, and I assured him my personal army was awaiting my order if I ever needed assistance. But after months, Caspian and I finally found the power, a heavenly rose plucked from the Gardens of Ithilias itself. That night, in the haze of victory, we made the bargain, planning the next morning to attend a celebration in the surface world.”

I trace the frosted thorns around his wrist. “Go on, Kel.”

With shaky words, he tells me of awaking alone, of Ezryn storming Cryptgarden with the Winter army. “He believed I was in grave danger, stating Caspian was a spy all along. In the raid, many of Caspian’s personal guard were killed. Among them were a few friends whom he was very fond of. Parts of Cryptgarden were destroyed, including some of his most treasured places. I knew if Caspian learned it was Ezryn who led the army, he would hunt him down. And that would end with either my best friend or the man I—with Caspian dead. I thought if I said the army mistakenly came down at my command, he might understand.”

“Did he? Understand?”

“When I found him, he barely spoke. But he still agreed to come to the celebration. But it was there he betrayed all of us.

“In his anger, the Prince of Thorns created a great chasm that bled from Winter to the depths of the Below. And all of the Below’s terrible and ancient creatures flooded out into my realm. They marched over a frozen wasteland to the capital, Frostfang. And the Prince of Thorns attacked with such a force that the people of Winter had no choice but to retreat to Autumn for refuge. The goblins pursued, and a great battle was waged on the fields outside of Coppershire.”

The chrysanthemum fields with the grave markers … The fallen from that battle became the army I saw Perth raise only months ago.

“My mother was lost in the siege of Frostfang,” Kel continues, and his throat bobs. “And I did not escape. Caspian took me prisoner, left me hanging on the side of a mountain to die.”

“Kel,” I whisper.

“Don’t fret.” He runs a finger down my nose. “Ez climbed the whole thing, hand over hand, and freed me.

“After I returned, the forces of the four realms were able to rally and take back Frostfang. Ultimately, we defeated the Below, though many were lost. The heavenly flower we had spent so long searching for was destroyed in the fight.”

“I can’t believe you lived through all of that,” I say. My mind reels trying to place each of my princes in this sordid history.

“Now you know my greatest shame and why I was cursed. My father died during this War of Thorns, and I became High Prince. It was not long after, that the Enchantress came to Castletree, cursing us forever. Only days passed before Caspian began to wrap Castletree in his thorns and start siphoning the magic from these hallowed branches.”

I hold tight to him, not only to keep him fae, but because he needs it. A light sweat covers his body, and he shivers.

“Thank you for telling me. I’m glad to know your past and all you faced.” My mind spins with the new information and trying to make sense of Caspian within it. Was that what you wanted, Prince of Thorns? Did he love Kel all along, or is it as the Winter Prince believes and a plot of betrayal? Why the thorns and lying to the princes about the nature of it? Why save me time and time again?

“There is, of course, more than I have said, and you may ask me any of it.”

“I will,” I say, nuzzling into his neck. “For tonight, this is more than enough. But there’s something I need to tell you about Caspian.”

Kel tilts his chin. “Is it how you told Farron you think he is your mate?”

“Caspian spoke in my mind, Kel. Only you and Farron have done that and … I don’t know. Farron believes it’s a side effect of the bargain between you two.”

The muscles in Kel’s jaw twitch, but there’s no anger at this mention. “If he feels a connection, it would explain some of his actions. His … preoccupation with you.”

“I don’t really understand it,” I admit, “only that I know Caspian has done terrible, unforgivable things, but a part of me believes there is still good in him.”

“I want to say you’re wrong, but if I truly believed that, then these thorns around my wrist would be gone. Because I’ve seen it. Seen him in a light many others haven’t. When he’s sad, with tears running down his cheeks. Or nervous before a party, desperately trying to smooth down his hair. I’ve seen him blissed with pleasure and hysterical with rage. I’ve even seen him laughing so hard he cried.”

“I hardly believe that,” I say.

“It’s rare, but true. And to think all of that was just an act? A part of me still can’t make sense of it.”

“What about that blackness he coughs up? He called it ‘the rot’.”

“Caspian is a creature entirely of the Below. He is made of a magic not of this world,” Keldarion says lowly. “He never told me the details, but from what I gathered, it had to do with the circumstances of his birth, how Sira bore such a powerful child. There is always a cost for such magic, and for Caspian, it means he cannot survive on the surface. Though, he used to be able to spend months up here before returning to the Below. I would think he is even more powerful now with all the magic he siphons from Castletree.”

My gaze drifts to the thorns snaking up the room, and I desperately want to tell Kel the truth. But Caspian made me promise not to. But I can tell Kel my truth.

“I can feel the thorns,” I say. “And they’re not siphoning magic.”

“Are you sure?”

I take Kel’s hand in my own and press it over a thorn above the bed. I close my eyes and let myself feel. “When you tore the vines in High Tower and when I tried to remove them in the dining room, Castletree crumbled. Look how they curve along the walls … I don’t believe they’re hurting Castletree.”

“Why would he offer strength to his enemies?” Kel gives a low breath. “Perhaps that’s why he’s so sick.”

I hadn’t thought about it like that. How much magic is he using to keep Castletree standing?

I shake my head. “Why does Caspian do anything? I mean, he kissed me, after all.”

“I saw.”

“No, when we were escaping. I tried to pull him with us, and we were alone amidst the thorns. We kissed again.” I clutch Kel close and remember the way it felt to be held in Caspian’s arms. The memory is so vivid, I know Keldarion can see it, too.

He says nothing, but his gaze is soft with a flicker of confusion. “We have to be careful around him, Rosalina. Our hearts are not always trustworthy.”

“I know,” I say. But I know that there is at least one part of my heart that shines with the utmost honesty: the part that binds me to Kel, that says I can tell him anything.

A sly grin crosses my face. “I have one more question, if it’s not too bold to ask.”

“And that is?”

I rise on his chest. “What is it like to bed the Prince of Thorns? That woman who was sent to Castletree said it was quite lackluster.”

Keldarion chuckles so loudly I bounce up and down with the movement. “Shouldn’t you be seething with jealousy at the thought of my former lovers?”

Honestly, I ought to, shouldn’t I? Yet the idea of him with Caspian stirs up a different feeling within me altogether. It’s as though I can almost picture Caspian appearing in my thoughts and playfully teasing me about it. What happened to you after we escaped? I wonder. After you kissed me? “I’m curious.”

Kel raises a brow. “He was much as he is now. Passionate, cunning. Extreme. Sometimes it felt like my whole chest was on fire.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Though I do not think he would be the same with you, based on that kiss you shared in my mind.”

I inhale sharply. “Shouldn’t you be seething with jealousy at the idea of me with him?”

“I should be, shouldn’t I?” he says. “And a part of me is very angry at the idea, and yet—”

“And yet?”

“I cannot stand the idea that he was the last one to kiss you.” Suddenly, Kel’s lips are over mine.

I can’t control my desire for him, deepening the kiss.

“Damn, you even taste like him,” Keldarion growls, hands gripping my hair as his tongue explores my mouth.

“Make me taste like you,” I plead.

“Somehow, I don’t think my story has tired you out enough.”

My leg slips between his. “Kel…”

“You heard what Ezryn said, didn’t you?” Something dark and predatory lingers in his voice. “May I pleasure you?”

A shiver runs through my entire body. “Wouldn’t that be terrible for you? To receive nothing in return?”

“Oh no, my Rose. Your body is all I have dreamed about since you walked through the door of Castletree. Will you let me touch you? Touch all of you?”

I press down on his chest, eyes blazing. “I’m yours, Kel. But let’s get something straight.”

He narrows his eyes in a catlike way.

“I want this always: your heart open to me. Don’t shut me out again. No more lies.” I say, determination lacing my voice. “And I will hear no more about you fucking every man and woman in the Enchanted Vale. You belong to me, Keldarion, Prince of Winter.”

He smiles. “Is that all?”

“Close me out again, and I’ll chop that perfect cock off with my thorns.” I take control of some of the ones from around the room for emphasis.

“I do not doubt it.” He rises, takes my face between his palms. “I have always and will forever be yours, my Rose.”

I drop the thorns and kiss him lightly. “I’m yours, Kel. You know I’m yours.”

He grips me around the waist and tugs me over his hips. “Then hold on to the headboard and sit on my face.”