Page 90 of Renegade Kings
I knew what this was, and I understood her near manic need to prevent what she’d already had to endure once before. Hell, I hadn’t been there, and I felt exactly the same. I wouldn’t survive watching Arik’s army move through this place, slaughtering everyone who dared to stand in his way. Just the thought of her having to witness something like that for a second time… Yeah, I got it.
“And you won’t. We have people positioned to give us enough warning if Arik gets anywhere close, and you felt it last time. The court will tell you again if we’re in danger. But for now, you’re wiped out. If you want to keep them safe, then you need to recover enough to do it. But if you can honestly tell me, you could do whatever you did out there again, if you can tell me you’re strong enough to take on another attack and survive, then I will stand by you one hundred percent and not mention it again.” She said nothing and a wave of exhaustion swept through the link to me. “Why does the idea of resting now hurt you so much?” I asked quietly.
She hesitated to answer, but I knew, given the time, that she would. Even Rhidian didn’t move, his gaze still fastened on the window as if he knew that turning around now would just spook her into silence.
“I brought them here,” she eventually admitted. “They’re here for me. I brought them right to the door and these people will pay for it with their lives if Arik attacks again. Every opportunity I get, I goad him. I can’t stop myself. He will hit harder and faster even if just to prove a point, and I can’t let them die just because I hate him so much.”
I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly as she finally let the tension leak out of her. She was close to reaching her limit. I could feel it and she probably could too, but I didn’t want her to turn away from here, even if it meant her going to bed, without first realising that none of this was her fault.
“He’s coming for us all,” Rhidian said, finally turning away from the window and giving her a soft smile. I knew he had feelings for her. I think we all did, apart from maybe Alyssa herself. She hadn’t seen it yet. “If you had never come here, he still would have come for us. This is what he does, Alyssa. He sees people, and he destroys them. Don’t take even a fraction of the guilt for that. He’s the only one who deserves it, and we’ll make sure he pays for it, too.”
The overwhelming sense of relief that swept over me when she nodded was more than I’d felt in my entire life, and my bear rumbled in happiness as his anxiety slowly lessened.
It didn’t last though, as the sound of claws clicking on the tiles behind us had it skyrocketing once more.
“You always took on the weight of the realm, even when you were a child,” Fizzle’s voice echoed from behind.
My first instinct was to defend my mate, and the bear inside me was more than happy for it to be through violence. I might have been more tired than I realised, too.
“That’s probably because you always told me it was,” Alyssa deadpanned, but I could hear the humour in her voice and quickly realised there was probably an inside joke here that I wasn’t seeing.
The bear sulked into the back of my mind, disappointed that any chance of a fight had dissipated before the fun could begin. He should have been satisfied with what we’d all just been through. There was something about crushing metal armour that was feeling like sport to him and he’d had a grand old time running through the trees and finally having prey to hunt. Once he saw the opportunity to just let go and fight, it was hard to rein him back in. Part of me didn’t want to. There was a freedom in bloodlust that I’d never experience as a man, not when there were things like emotions and a conscience to take into account. But when you could point to the bear and say that it wasn’t entirely your fault, it lessened the guilt somewhat.
“Go rest,” Fizzle ordered. “Tomorrow, we may be travelling, but that doesn’t mean training is paused. You did well today, but those men of yours are still weak and far from their potential. You need to regain your strength to filter through them.”
I felt the bear bristle even though we both knew Fizzle was right. Physically, we were strong, but if I could access and use this magic I now had, with even a fraction of the skill that Alyssa did, we might actually make it through this. And that was the only thing that mattered.
We were all fighting for survival here, and it was going to get bloody no matter what we did.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go get settled and wait for the others to come back to the room,” I suggested, already steering her towards the door.
She came easily; the fight having drained out of her. It had been a long day, followed by a long night. I was just as exhausted as Alyssa, even if the adrenaline still hadn’t completely left me yet. It would, though, and when it did, I’d crash hard.
I looked down at the woman at my side in concern. I could feel how conflicted she was, even if she was finally giving in and doing what she needed to look after herself. This was the cost of power. Alyssa might not see herself like that, but she was slowly coming to the idea of being a leader, and good leaders led from the front. They provided their people not only with a figurehead that they could look up to, but also a shield for them to shelter behind.
This was our future.
I hated that it meant she’d have to face so much danger, but she was exactly what these people needed. She was strong enough to protect them. Good enough to want to do it. But most of all, she wasn’t in this for what she could take. Alyssa’s only thought was how much she had to give.
And that was the sign of a true queen.
Claws dug into my shoulder as Fizzle landed on his favourite perch, the fucker. Apparently, he was coming with us.
As we walked through the winding hallways that were slowly becoming familiar, I wondered why exactly it was that Fizzle had decided to accompany us. Rhidian had stayed back in the war room, silently turning back to the window as we left.
“What happens to Rhidian when all this is done?” I asked.
I didn’t hate the guy. I’d realised that pretty quickly. I may not entirely trust him, but it was hard to do that when I saw the way he looked at my mate. My bear didn’t feel as accepting of him as he had of the others. Logically, I could see the benefit of adding him to the bond. He was strong, and he’d sacrificed a lot to guide and protect the people here for decades. He couldn’t have done that without having some skill about him. Yet, he just didn’t feel like he was a part of us. Maybe it was the distrust filtering through the bond that was affecting me. I was pretty sure it wasn’t jealousy because Alyssa was completely blind to the fact that he was clearly in love with her. She only had eyes for her mates.
Even so, that didn’t mean I wanted him killed off on the battlefield to fulfil some kind of prophecy.
It didn’t take a genius to realise that Rhidian, an outcast of the Summer Court, whilst a hero to the people here, was probably viewed as more of an outlaw than anything else. How could he not be? But everything he’d done was to save the people who needed to escape Arik. I wouldn’t stand by and see him punished for that.
“What do you mean?” Alyssa asked, a hint of sleepiness lining her voice.
“Will he go back to the Summer Court and take the throne there? Will the fae there accept him? He should be their king, right? That’s what the marks mean. But if the Summer Court is fighting back against Arik, they’re on the same side, so why isn’t he there now shielding these people with the full force of his court at his back?”
The more I spoke, the more confused I was. I hadn’t even realised some of this until I’d started asking the question. Why the hell was Rhidian here?