Page 44 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen (Curse of the Fae #4)

Heartbreaker

DEVI

C old air slips between my legs and numbs my fingers while the body of the dress hums with energy.

Alaric’s power coils around me like a leash of wind and static, guiding me through the thunderous halls of his citadel.

I thread deeper and deeper into the dark until I pass under a wide stone arch and emerge into an ancient arena.

The amphitheater rises from the cliffside.

The tiered seats curve beneath the overhanging ceiling, hewn directly into the rock.

One wall is missing—by design, not decay—opening the place to the sea, where lightning dances across black waters and the cliffs plunge without mercy. The salty tang of brine presses inward.

It’s a chapel built not for prayer, but performance. Not to worship saints, but to satisfy gods who crave a barbaric spectacle. The vacuum of Alaric’s presence makes the oxygen feel thin, like we’ve climbed too high, too fast.

“Forget love,” he snarls, hands clasped behind his back. “I want you to make her as indifferent to him as she is to me. Make sure she never loves anyone else.”

I hesitate. “I can’t do that.”

He narrows his eyes. “I know about your pet Faeling waiting in your bedroom. He’s the one you truly care about, isn’t he?”

Heat drains from my face, my heart, my stupid, dumb brain. Percy.

“Now you’ll carve that arrow for me. Make her numb forever.”

My hands shake. “I can’t.”

His voice drops. “I’m getting real tired of hearing those words from you.”

“I’ve been cursed. I can’t use my magic anymore,” I roar over the wind.

He spins around to face me. “Cursed?”

“Yes. If I were to craft a forbidden arrow for you now, I’d be dead within the hour.”

His eyes are black, but he’s listening. The scales of lyranthium bristle, one end tipping inward to bite my skin, the other hovering in mid-air.

They no longer offer any coverage, but threaten to slice me open instead.

A thousand tiny diamond-shaped knives, poised to strike.

They tickle my flesh—my collarbone, my ribs, the swell of my breasts—ready to kill at his command.

I must look like a sacrifice laid bare at his feet, dressed in nothing but two strips of black mesh. My nipples are hard in the cold, outlined clearly beneath the mesh, my stomach bare, rising and falling with shallow breaths.

Alaric stares at my body beyond the spikes. His teeth are clenched, his nostrils flaring, but his gaze lingers on my chest. On my hips.

He hesitates, lips parted in a mix of cruelty and sexual arousal. “I love her, and she just…dismisses me. Insults me. She doesn’t deserve to be queen.”

The Storm King doesn’t like being rejected. His feelings for Tatiana make him vulnerable, and that’s the part he can’t stomach.

“To love someone is to hand them a blade, hoping they don’t twist,” I say. “Loving Tatiana means giving her the power to hurt you.”

His tongue darts out to touch his bottom lip. “I’m no good at giving away power, I’m afraid.”

“We have that in common.”

Alaric disgusts me, but in his darkness, his desire for revenge, his hunger for power, there’s a piece of my reflection. Everything I hate about myself is in there, magnified tenfold.

He spins around toward the sea, and the dress sighs, its links and pieces trembling over my skin as it settles back into place.

A long outcropping juts from the center of the concentric stone floor, narrowing as it stretches over open air. At its end rests an altar of lyranthium. No railings, no steps, just a smooth, wet stone that rises up to my midriff.

“What is this place?” I ask.

Alaric runs his hand over the slab, caressing it. “Do you know what a traditional Storm’s End wedding looks like?”

“I never had the pleasure, but I would assume the bride and groom have to fuck, like everywhere else.”

A slow, wicked smile spreads on his lips.

“That’s right. No musicians. No silverware.

No tarps. No pretending this ritual is anything but primal.

The groom claims his bride right here” —he slaps the slab— “in front of his peers and under the fury of his gods. Seth might talk a good game and look the part, but he’s no true Storm Fae.

He’s soft, like you.” He walks over to me and grazes the flesh of my arm from shoulder to wrist. “You need a man bold enough to possess you, Lady Eros.”

Behind his heated words—phrased to appeal to women in search of a passionate lover—I hear a different truth. This man wants to own his wife.

He motions to slab again. “There’s no silly phrases or sugary vows. Only a willing bride surrendering herself to her husband.”

“Glad to hear she’s got some say in it.”

“No blade, either. Just the scarred edge of our most precious metal.”

The lyranthium altar looks like it might detach from the stone floor and plummet down to the sea at any moment.

I picture her—the bride. Hands flat against the altar, back arched, hair caught in the gale.

Holding still. Waiting. She’s not meant to see the crowd, or the arena behind her.

There are no candles here, no flowers or music, just the thrum of magic rippling across the sky.

As if the storm itself demands her complete submission, while the ocean below swallows her screams.

Along the front edge of the slab, where her fingers might curl to find purchase, the metal forms a broken ridge.

Alaric gives an amorous sigh. “Yes, it was made to cut. To mark the mating couple as love does. Uneven. Unclean. A place to grip when her knees buckle, when her husband’s cock enters her body like lightning breaking open the sky.

The sharp edge here allows the male to cut himself, too, so the storm takes their blood in equal measures.

A union of pain, power, and sacrifice. Beautiful. ”

My heart hammers.

And I thought Spring Fae were into some twisted shit… Whatever happens here is elemental, and the weight of it kisses the stones. The memory of bodies bent, of vows never spoken aloud, but witnessed by hundreds.

“I’ve been too sentimental.” Alaric finally stops pacing, towering close. “Who needs a rude, stubborn Storm Fae when they can have you?”

My blood rushes at my temples.

The horror of the statement sinks in. I’ve seen that kind of measured amusement combined with a thirst for a ‘yes’ before—on Seth’s face, the first time we met.

He wore that same half-smile, that same studied calm, like he was peeling me apart, dissecting my psyche to his advantage.

But Seth’s curiosity came with reverence.

Alaric’s attention tastes like control.

Fucking hells.

There I go again, being blackmailed into an engagement, but Alaric’s intrusive hands at my waist highlight the differences between my two suitors.

“The Queen of Hearts on her knees… That’s better than any stubborn, foolish young virgin,” he says. “I want you to marry me, Lady Eros.”

I keep my face as neutral as I can manage.

I’ve been blaming my attraction to Seth on his looks, his confidence, his overall darkling-ness, but if that were true, I should be swooning right now.

Alaric has a strong jaw, chiseled abs, and darkness pulsing in his bones—yet everything about him sets my teeth on edge. His arrogance reads oily and overdone. His innuendos turn my blood to ice. His proposal makes me want to crouch and snarl.

But I don’t. Instead, I take a deep, cleansing breath and push my hips forward, bumping into his erection. Because what he’s offering is aligning with every raw, dark fiber of my soul.

And he’s not truly asking.

“And what if I say no?” I say in a teasing tone, tracing the ridges of his chest.

His pupils dilate, his eyes glued to my hands. “If you refuse to bend for me at the altar of your own free will, then I will throw you over the ledge. And Seth and your winged servant will be fed piece by piece to my wolves.”

Just as I thought.

I despise this man, but he’s not pretending to be someone else, not using tricks. A part of me always knew it’d come to this. That marriage would be my undoing.

The ultimate instrument of doom.

“I’ll marry you, but only if you promise not to harm them.”

I planned to only include Percy in this deal, but somehow, I fucked up.

“ Them ?” Alaric shows his teeth. “Plot twist. You care about the little shit after all.”

I keep my cool. “Going once…”

He sucks in air through his teeth, his fists curled.

“Going twice.”

The tension in his arms eases, and he unclenches his hands one at a time, the sly curve of his mouth going from dangerously annoyed to mildly amused . “Oh, alright. It’ll be fun anyway, to see Seth squirm, knowing what he missed out on.”

“Then I agree to marry you, and stand by your side, for as long as they’re safe.” I hold out my hand for him to shake, and he does so with a dry giggle.

“You’re a shrewd business woman. I like that,” Alaric whispers as he bends down to kiss me.

His hand squeezes the bottom part of my jaw between his thumb and index finger, and his tongue spears inside my mouth with no true rhythm or instinct, just the push of his will past mine. The bitter taste of salt and the tangy, earthiness of decaying moss invades my senses.

I can almost see the rest of my life pan out before my eyes, see the bottom of the trench coming from me as I tether over the edge of this catastrophe.

My hopes shatter. My ambitions gnaw.

Something in my chest snaps, then hardens.

I focus on the rationality of the agreement, not the gaping hole in my soul. I think of a strategy to distract myself from his disgraceful tongue pressing against the roof of my mouth, his slimy hands sliding beneath the metallic hem of my dress.

I’ll take this forlorn king—so clearly starved for attention and loyalty. Betray Seth, become the Storm Queen, and when Freya dies and my rightful crown reverts to me, I’ll rule both kingdoms.

Something that’s never been done.

More forbidden and legendary than my arrows are.

I’ll have more power than even my grandsire did, enough to beat Freya’s curse, I’m sure. All feelings aside, two crowns are better than one, and I’d rather be queen than dead.

Rather cut out my own heart than leave it for someone else to break.