Page 120 of Merciless Is My Crown

“Do not let anything happen to her,” Raziel growled, and Zephryn put his hand over his chest. A good male, that one.

“He won’t,” Simon murmured. “Now let’s go before I change my mind.” He’d puked for a solid ten minutes after we’d landed and still looked sickly. “I already told you, I can fly from here.”

“You’d have to pass over the entire army, and it’s hard to hide a golden owl, even in the dark. If you’re spotted, we’re all dead,” Raziel said roughly. “Tough it out.” Then they were gone.

We arrived at Tristan’s a moment later, Simon already vomiting his guts up into the overgrown bushes, while I stared up at the DeVayne castle. And up. And up.

“Godsdamn. How much room does one family require?” I asked, awestruck despite my best efforts.

“According to my father, this amount was just enough. Though, to be fair, wyverns tended to have big families,” Tristan said, his eyes coolly skimming over the building’s ornate facade. “Welcome to Wingcrest Hold. Let me check the grounds. I’ll be right back.”

“We’ll go get Anaria and Tavion. Two minutes.”

Anaria was half frozen by the time Raz and I arrived on the small incline, the sounds of the army echoing against the quiet mountains behind us. All those small sounds built to a hushed roar—the neighing of horses, the hum of a thousand conversations. The clang of metal on metal and the drunken shouts of dangerous, bored males with nothing to do except fight each other.

Torin stood with her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on something in the far-off distance. She hadn’t spoken more than two words since they’d returned from the Dearth, her eyes haunted.

“Ready?” I grasped Anaria’s arms then hauled her firmly against me, basking in the scent of her. She smelled delicious, flowery and warm, my cock hardening the second her curves fit against me.

For one wild second I thought of taking her away from here.

Flying us somewhere on the other side of the world, where no one knew us, far away from war and ruin. I dipped my head and kissed her neck, her hands winding through my hair with practiced ease until Raz cleared his throat.

“We’re coming,” I grumbled, my voice like sandpaper, my cock straining against my trousers. I was a greedy bastard, but I breathed her in from the time our feet left the ground to the moment we touched down.

“Wow.” Anaria’s eyes flew wide. “That’s…enormous.”

“Wingcrest, Tristan called this place,” I told her softly, letting her step out of my arms but only after I’d buried my nose in her hair one last time.

“A fucking monstrosity, is what that is,” Tavion growled, sword already in his hand as he moved closer to Anaria.

Simon straightened, wiped his mouth, and glared at Raz. “That was worse the second fucking time. We go anywhere else, I’m flying.”

“Works for me. One last trip and we’ll return with Zephryn and Torin.” Raz stared at Anaria with steely determination. “Stay close to Tavion and Simon. Do not leave their sides.”

“Yes, sir.” Anaria mockingly saluted, then went back to scanning the castle, her mouth falling open.

By the time we returned with Torin and Zephryn, Tristan was back and Tavion had peeled the wood planks off a side door, mostly hidden by some overgrowth. “We’re leaving the front doors boarded up in case a patrol comes by. We don’t need the complication of a few missing soldiers to ruin our plan.”

“Good thinking,” I muttered.

“Let’s go inside,” Tristan said quietly, his voice strained. “I’ll get a fire going. There is a permanent ward built into Wingcrest’s foundations. Not as strong as some, but enough to keep us protected from prying eyes.”

I paused and inhaled the stale air.

This place was old. Like…ancient old. Far older than the Wynter Palace, and I scanned the dusty, faded paintings lining the grand hall of flame-haired aristocrats and their children. Their grandchildren.

I found one of Tristan looking the same age as he was now, then bent down and squinted at the date below the signature. I licked my finger and rubbed off the dirt, then took a halting step back, mind reeling at the sheer impossibility of what I was seeing.

Tristan DeVayne, the serious, unassuming archer who didn’t look a day over thirty…was at least six hundred years old.

Older than any of us, even Zephryn.

By the time we got settled, Tristan had a fire roaring in the fireplace—the mantle carved with two wyverns writhing together—the wards hummed with power around us, and we’d cracked open two bottles of very old, very fine liquor.

Things were looking up for the night when Torin set the pendant on the table between our half-full glasses.

The fist-sized stone was a deep red, facets reflecting every sliver of light in shades of crimson and ruby, the setting marked with runes I couldn’t readily identify.

---