Page 46 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen (Curse of the Fae #4)

Fire

SETH

“ Y ou wait for me in your room, Lady Eros,” Alaric says.

The cold, guarded glint in Devi’s eyes turns my stomach, and bile fills my mouth.

Alaric is king, which means he’s more powerful than I could have imagined. He probably blackmailed her, but her expression—cool, unreadable, fills me with doubt. It’s the mask she wears when she’s protecting something. Or hiding who she really is.

The gown reveals the dark peaks of her breasts, the aureoles peeking through the gaps between the clusters of diamonds. It’s a deliberate, provocative design—her body both on display and untouchable.

Alaric knew exactly what he was doing when he gave her that dress, her beauty fashioned into a hook and strung up as bait. He wanted me to find her, and now he’s sending a clear message that she’s his to unwrap.

My fists clench at my sides, and I taste blood when she walks away without a word.

No apology. No excuse. No real explanation.

The woman who once kissed me like I was her beginning and her end is walking away from me, ready to plan her wedding to someone else.

It can’t be real. It can’t be her choice.

Her words echo in my ears—words that couldn’t have been lies. I could never have loved you, Seth.

Zeus knows I want to believe she’s still on my side. That she’s not looking forward to this sham wedding, that she’s not hungry enough for power to choose Alaric over me. But I’m not sure. That’s the tragedy.

Alaric walks ahead, silent. He doesn’t need to guard his rear, his wind snaking around me, pressing tight against my ribs and dragging me along like a dog on a chain. I can barely move, barely breathe. The bastard’s thorough, I’ll give him that.

We descend into the lower halls, to the cell that was conspicuously unlocked at just the right time.

I fight his magic, trying to slow things down, to no use. The more I fight, the more his wind squishes my chest. Black dots dance in front of my eyes. “It was all a trick, no? For me to see her heading to your room?” I ground out.

“She’s a vision in that dress,” he says, voice heavy with desire. “I can’t wait to tear it off her.”

My spine stiffens. “You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re jealous.”

The burn in my throat says enough. “How did you blackmail her into this?”

“Are you so sure about her? Isn’t she a criminal? A traitor? Do you really think her feelings for you are stronger than her ambitions? Be honest, Seth. Isn’t this the perfect revenge on your mother—marrying me instead of you?” he taunts me.

My nails bite into my palms, leaving crescent-shaped grooves. “Is that what she told you?”

He laughs. “She didn’t have to say it. Everyone in Faerie knows how your mother treated her.

You’re too much of a hypocrite to admit it, but your intentions aren’t pure, either.

You want the shiniest toy in the store, the one Mommy told you you couldn’t have.

That’s what this is. Rebellion dressed up as romance. ”

He pauses just long enough for the sting to land.

“Deep down, you’re still that boy starving for your parents’ attention.

And this bogus engagement between you two?

It was fake as hell, at least where Devi’s concerned.

This is strategy. Survival. She’s playing the long game—and she found a better card to play. ”

The “come-to-Zeus” moment crawls under my skin.

Alaric snorts. “Come on, Sethanias. You would’ve grown bored of matrimony within a year. It’s in your nature to fuck anything with legs. And Devi? She’s not the kind of woman who tolerates competition.”

We reach the cell. The metal door groans open, controlled by his magic, and his wind plies me into submission, tucking me back inside the cage.

“It’s better for everyone that I get to have her instead,” he sums up.

The claustrophobic pressure of his magic leaves me.

“You don’t deserve her,” I say.

He meets my gaze head-on. “Neither do you.”

In his eyes, I’m nothing but a screw-up, womanizing prince of nothing.

The air changes. Thickens. Hums. My instincts scream a second too late. Power coils in his hand, and lightning hits me square in the chest.

It burns.

I fall flat to my stomach, my muscles useless under the onslaught of bolts ravaging my nervous system.

There’s no respite—just fire. My body jerks off the floor, my vision whites out. I can’t even scream, not at first. Every inch of me contracts in on itself, nerves flaring, muscles locking. The metal walls of the cell glow faintly, drinking in the charge and throwing it back like an echo of agony.

It ends. For half a second, I think I can breathe.

Then the next strike comes.

The bolt slams into my side and drags me back into the inferno.

My limbs convulse. My jaw snaps shut so hard I taste blood.

My heart stumbles in my chest like it’s lost its rhythm.

Instinctively, I try to fight, but the bars, the floor, even the ceiling are designed to punish power, reflecting back my own magic.

The lyranthium acts as a feedback loop, cycling any attack or counterattack back to me.

“Careful. You’ll hurt yourself,” Alaric snips.

Ashes of regret clog my throat. “I’ll kill y-you. If y-you h-hurt her,” I stutter.

He kneels down beside the bars. “What was that?”

“I-I’m s-serious.”

Another bolt. I scream. The sound is full-throated, guttural, primal.

It tears out of me like it’s trying to escape the pain, but there’s nowhere to go.

My back arches off the stones. The lightning doesn't just burn.

It scrapes along every nerve ending, pries into my spine, yanks on my thoughts, contorting my body, burning, melting.

But Alaric is not done.

The next surges come in smaller, surgical waves. He’s experimenting. A zap to my shoulder. A snap against my thigh. A full blast. I’m twitching on the floor, my skin blistered.

“I’d gladly rape your fiancée while you watch, Sethanias. But I’d rather fuck her as she begs for more, her perfect body hungry for my cock. Trust me, the sight of her wet and willing will hunt you for much, much longer than if I take her by force.”

“She won’t beg for you, Ric.”

“Oh, but she will. Because she hates you, hates your mother—hates herself—much more than she hates me.”

Another bolt.

My thoughts fragment into broken flashes of her laugh.

Random memories fill my brain. The way she rolls her eyes when she’s pretending not to care. The brush of her hand. The taste of her kiss. Until I’m nothing but charred flesh and shattered breaths.

And when the black finally takes me, it’s a mercy. My last thought is of Devi—and how I failed her. Because no matter what she said, no matter how Alaric’s speech fed my fears, she sure as hells isn’t marrying that demented king of her own free will.

I cling to that fleeting hope to keep despair from pulverizing all the little pieces of my heart.