Page 69 of Angel's Conquest
And he had been doing just that, he’d realized. Moving. Fighting. Fucking. Whatever his body demanded of him so long as he kept his eyes on the prize. Destroy charmers. Save souls. Kill Cyro. Get home. There had never been room for anything else. Perhaps that was why he always found a joke or two handy to offer up. Laughs were simple and fleeting. A quick dopamine hit that was gone as soon as it arrived but had the strength to change the vibe of a room and, more importantly, divert attention from what people would otherwise prefer to keep secret.
What they’d prefer not to dwell on.
Clara didn’t move, didn’t shake, didn’t even look at him. There was no light in her eyes. Just a rigidity to her stature that he’d seen warriors adopt time and time again when they had no true fight left in them but were still resigned to their fate.
“Clara, please . . .”
The shift happened so fast, he nearly fell back on his ass. Clara roared a great painful howl to the ceiling, one that was a haunting mix of mortal and wolf. Then sleek muscle coated in thick white fur sprouted through her garments, and a muzzle holding far too many teeth was pointed right at him. Those tawny-brown eyes that had always reminded him of cinnamon and maple were now trained on him in the style of a predator. One large paw moved forward, then the other. Saliva dripped from her sharp fangs, landing in neat little drops before her, anointing the path she would take to annihilate her prey.
When she was a few feet from him, she snapped her jaws wide and swiped her claws at his chest. He jumped back at the warning shot and knew damn well she wouldn’t give another.
After all, judges didn’t bring the gavel down twice.
With all his options exhausted, Bronze turned from the room, shaking, and shut the door behind him.
Unlike the last time he’d shut a lycan in there, eerie silence met his back. There was no hurled furniture. No breaking glass. Nothing.
Just the absolute stillness of a broken heart.
Chapter 33
Clara knew the moment Bronze left the property, not because of any inkling or hunch, but because it was the moment she vomited up her entire breakfast and had resigned herself to lay on the cold tile of the bathroom floor for however long she wanted.
The rest of her life seemed like a reasonable length of time.
Eventually, however, her joints demanded her attention, threatening to never again move from the shape she’d twisted them into if she didn’t get her butt up.
She’d settled on the chair in front of her mirror as a consolation to her body’s needs, while still lending itself rather well to the suffering her soul wasn’t ready to give up quite yet, even after the hours she’d spent locked away in her room.
Like hell she’d go near the bed, and as soon as Broderick was available, she’d ask him to torch the thing.
Clara leaned back and allowed the rigidity of the wood and the ornate carvings upon it to dig into her spine as hard as they insisted. Despite her wolf’s whining protest, she’d sit there for as many more hours as she needed.
After all, when one was a newly appointed monarch, even by consolation, didn’t they get to do whatever they wanted?
And right now, all she wanted was to feel anything other than the foolish heartbreak that raked at her body from the inside out.
Once again, she had underestimated how truly manipulative males could be. Lord Raff, in a dying testament to his ruthless cunning, had made sure to land his final blade as swiftly and succinctly as possible. Likewise, her father, knowing they were all to meet together at that hour in his receiving room, chose to read Raff’s final words and have them available for Clara to discover, even though he most likely read the note when it had been delivered to him the prior morning before the last game.
And then there was Bronze, whose artfulness was perhaps the most beguiling of all. Every step he took was nothing short of extreme purpose, from saving her to fighting for her and then bedding her. The male had had a goal the entire time, one he’d wisely kept close to the vest while he played the other cards that were dealt.
Clara had been the only simpleton foolish enough to allow herself to get swept up in the machinations of the males around her. It was clear none of them had ever given credence to her own petty schemes.
But oh, it hurt, and only in the privacy of her mind could she admit that to herself and her wolf.
Because she was the queen now. Technically, part of the reigning monarchy, alongside Bronze. She’d won and gotten exactly what she sought to achieve.
The price, however, had been higher than she had been able to afford: her heart, her self-respect, and the respect of her people.
Sometime after Bronze left, Pascal and Broderick had searched her out. Broderick to ensure her the king was detained and the guard would see to her ruling, and Pascal to inform her that, under lycan law, she was now to decide the king’s fate. Since her father, as the monarch, had openly threatened another member of the monarchy’s life in the presence of witnesses, the law dictated that he may be stripped of his family ties and either exiled or killed for his crime.
It was a decision that, as both the victim of the attack and the sole remaining monarch save for her absent mate, fell squarely on her shoulders. So, yes, she’d gotten exactly what she’d wanted, hadn’t she?
Clara picked up the long ivory comb from the top of her desk and ran her fingers across the teeth. Each time her skin snagged a bit, another tug was mirrored behind her breastbone. It had been barely twenty-four hours since Bronze’s lips had pressed their sweet affection onto the bald side of her scalp the night they’d last been together, and she could still feel the ghost of it.
It was an affection she wished she could rip out of her memory, toss to the side, and refill the hole with something far more useful. Like the comb, she had no need for the reminder or him. Though she had to give him points for directness. Once she’d managed to piece the breadcrumbs of his deception together, at least he hadn’t begged too harshly for her goodwill. He’d called for her understanding, but she had been fresh out of logic by that point.
So she’d shut him down. Shut all of it down. Her emotions, her duty, her capacity for clarity.