Page 19

The Unseelie King

Fury simmers beneath my skin. I pace the halls of my fortress, my footsteps echoing off the cold stone surrounding me. Each snarled breath I take fogs the frigid air, the temperature plummeting as my temper rises.

The human female is an insistent presence hovering at the edges of my awareness.

I can feel her, a thorn in my fucking side, camped at the boundary of my island.

Taunting me with her nearness and the memories of soft skin and softer sighs that come with it.

Of her eyes flashing with challenge whenever we came together.

If I wanted, I could have her again. Make her yield.

Break her. Slap my hand over her mouth again so I don’t have to hear her voice—

No.

She’s a distraction I don’t have time for. Not now.

I emerge from the fortress out into the desolate wasteland I call home.

Travel by shadow off my island to the boundaries of my territory.

The biting wind lashes at my face, tugging at my hair and clothes, but I relish the sting.

I let the cold seep deep into my bones until nothing remains but crystalline focus.

Tonight, I hunt.

All my senses sharpen, honing in on the telltale heartbeat in the stillness. Human.

I keep my steps measured, each placement deliberate as I stalk closer. The dark rush of power saturates my cells, heady and intoxicating.

Take. Claim. Conquer.

I descend on the unsuspecting human in a blur of shadows, my power wrapping around their sluggish mind and rendering it pliant and submissive to my will.

My fangs puncture tender skin, and I groan at the first scalding gush of hot blood as it suffuses my system, momentarily quelling the insistent demands clawing away inside me.

But too soon, I wrench myself away, dragging in ragged breaths.

If it weren’t for my vow, I’d leave corpses all over this realm.

I sling the human over my shoulder, ignoring the weak thumping against my back.

Nothing but a discarded husk now, emptied of spark and autonomy.

I carry my limp burden through the trees toward the boundary where the forest meets an open field.

This is where our territories collide, two monarchs circling each other in a slow, decaying orbit.

She’s waiting for me when I emerge from the trees, a slim silhouette wreathed in mist and moonlight. My sister always did have a flair for dramatic entrances.

“Kadamach,” Aithinne says, watching my approach with those depthless black eyes that hold equal parts pity and sadness.

Emotions I’ve never seen the use for.

We’ve played out permutations of this particular scene countless times. The steps are rote by now. Just another painful verse tacked onto the endless, mournful dirge that is our relationship.

I dump the human offering at Aithinne’s feet. Let her clean up the scattered casualties and broken bodies I leave bleeding in my wake. Prop them up and pretend she’s restored some small piece of them. That she’s done anything but delay the inevitable.

I lean a shoulder against the nearest tree trunk and settle in, ready for another round of the shaming routine Aithinne’s been subjecting me to for weeks now. Might as well get comfortable.

“Well?” I drawl, already bored with this predictable exchange. “Let’s have it. What fresh invective have you prepared to hurl at me tonight?”

Her hands fist at her sides, magic flickering across her skin in agitation.

“Invective?” She nearly spits the word. “Is that what you call basic decency now?”

“If that’s the best haranguing you can dredge up, I’ll have to assume you’re losing your touch.

Such a shame.” I level her with a cutting look designed to draw blood.

“The woman you sent to soften me up didn’t succeed, in case that wasn’t painfully obvious.

You might try to get her eyes right the next time you send me an impostor wearing my dead consort’s face.

Hazel, not gold. In the interest of small details. ”

It had been the only imperfection in an otherwise perfect performance.

Aithinne jerks as if slapped. She always did bruise easily. “What did you do to her?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.

“Fucked her and told her to leave,” I say, pushing off the tree. “But fair warning—the next pathetically transparent ploy you attempt won’t receive such a kind welcome. Nobody crawls out of the grave, Aithinne. Not for love. Certainly not for me.”

Ignoring Aithinne’s stricken expression, I turn and start to walk away, more than ready to be rid of this tiresome exchange. But of course she calls after me, never content to leave things be.

“Kadamach.”

I can’t help but pause at the sound of my true name on her lips, some deeply ingrained reflex forcing me to wait and give her these last few seconds. Maybe some small part of me hopes she’ll finally say the only words that could fix any of this mess.

But she merely says, softer now, “It’s really her. Don’t you want to know how she came back?”

I shut my eyes, jaw clenching so hard it hurts. “No,” I say. “I don’t give a damn.”

I walk away, focusing on the imposing obsidian monolith visible through the trees ahead. My palace. My sanctuary.

And my prison.

I step out of the shadows onto my island a familiar flash of burnished copper catches at the edge of my vision. Without conscious thought, my steps falter, then slow.

She’s huddled in my fucking forest, tucked onto her side beneath a massive oak like a doe bedded down against the chill. Burnished waves of red hair spill loose and wild around her slender shoulders. I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest, her dark lashes fanned across her cheekbones in sleep.

Unbidden, sense memories surface—the warm weight of her in my arms as I carried her sleeping form to my bed.

The way she would nose softly into the join of my shoulder and neck, sighing out a contented breath that imprinted itself on my skin.

The effortless way we just fit together, two jagged halves making a broken whole.

Cursing under my breath, I bury the memories again. But my traitorous feet still bring me closer to her sleeping form until I’m crouched over her, close enough that giving in to my sudden violent impulse to reach out and touch her would require barely any effort at all.

I dig my fingertips into my thighs until the sting clears my head.

What the fuck am I doing? Have I lost every shred of sanity?

I’m preparing to do the sensible thing and walk away, when a soft whimper leaves her slightly parted lips. Nightmares still plaguing her sleep. Before I can stop myself, my fingers brush over the delicate curve of her cheek in a feather-light caress.

“Breathe for me,” I find myself saying, the command an echo ripped from our shared past.

She settles instantly at the sound of my voice, the pained tension easing from her expression. So soft, so trusting even now. Her hand drifts up to tangle with mine, interlocking our fingers in a familiar clasp.

Something violent and ugly rears up in my chest at that simple contact, lodging itself somewhere in the space just behind my ribs like a piece of shrapnel. I wrench back as if scalded. I can’t —

With a vicious curse, I find myself gathering her close and then I’m striding toward my fortress with her cradled unconscious in my arms.

The dying trees crack around me as I walk to the tower, a testament to the decay devouring the realms.

If I don’t end Aithinne soon, there won’t be a realm left worth fighting over.

The intricate network of enchantments guarding the entrance recognises their master instantly, the imposing gates swinging open noiselessly at my approach.

I barely take note of my surroundings as I climb the winding stairs leading up to the private wing, ignoring the tapestries and weapons lining the walls.

Every ounce of my focus is fixed on the mortal cradled in my arms, the heat of her searing through the layers of clothing still separating us.

The steady thrum of her heart reverberates through my chest, my pulse trying to match its rhythm. As if this fragile, insignificant creature has somehow become the axis about which my entire existence revolves. A fixed point anchoring me in place.

I cross the threshold into my inner sanctum, daring any guard to be foolish enough to say something. To even breathe wrong. Let them see how their king has been brought low by a fragile assembly of blood and bone too stubborn to stay in her fucking grave.

But true to form, the sentries posted at intervals throughout the winding stone corridors are as impassive as ever. Barely even sparing me a glance as I pass by with my stolen prize. They, like most fae, have long since learned not to comment on her.

I enter my bedchamber and lay the human down on the dark silk sheets, detangling her sleep-slack fingers from my coat. I kneel and remove her boots. This temporary truce between us changes nothing.

She whimpers again in her sleep.

This time when I find myself crouched over her again, it’s almost against my will. Some invisible tether reeling me in, whether I wish it or not. My palm comes to rest lightly over her heart, seeking out the rhythmic thumping still imprinted into my skin.

Tenderness is a language forgotten on my tongue. But still I find myself gentling the pained arch of her spine, smoothing back sweat-tangled strands of hair from her brow. I hum low in my chest, an ancient tune drifting up from some mouldering place before thrones and decaying kingdoms.

“Breathe,” I rasp out. Press my palm to the frantic cadence of her heart. Slower. Steady. “That’s it.”

Her lashes flutter, a sigh leaving her lips. No longer drowning.

“Good lass,” I whisper.

And in the ensuing quiet that settles between us, she mumbles three words that slam into my chest.

“Love you, Kiaran.”

I freeze, breath seizing in my lungs. Agony blooms hot and visceral somewhere in the region behind my ribs, forcing me to stumble back from the bed as if her softly spoken declaration were a physical blow.

In the charged quiet that follows, I swear the dead consort mark on my palm tingles.