Page 36 of Renegade Queen

“I have spent decades wandering this forest alone. Waiting for Nymeria to grant me my last wish of losing my mind and memories. Becoming just a dumb animal. But instead, I’ve had nothing but peaceful solitude to replay the massacre of my friends over and over in my head. Some days I think the screams are real.” My arms ached to reach out for my old friend as he whispered his confession without being able to look at us. He scraped his claws through the tree’s bark and sighed before continuing. “I’ve watched you grow from a faeling into the beautiful woman you are today, even if I had to miss these last few years. You walked through that portal, afraid and alone. And it broke me that I couldn’t go with you. But you weren’t ready to fight him. You hadn’t come into your full power yet and wouldn’t have stood a chance. Losing you is the one thing he never forgave Nymeria for. And he’s taken his frustrations out on our people, like the petulant child he is, ever since.”

When Fizzle turned back, there were tears in his eyes, and I stretched my arms out to him that time. Leaping from the branch, Fizzle snuggled against me as I held him tight. The soft purr rattling in his chest broke my heart as I imagined everything he’d been through all this time.

“When you see what he’s done, you’ll never leave. And I can’t watch you die as well.”

Fizzle’s whispered confession against my chest had the others moving, and soon we became one big group with a soft, fluffy centre that took the moment we gave him to slowly break apart.

“So soft,” Ryder whispered after a while, breaking the tension and making the rest of us laugh from the relief of it.

“Please tell me you’re not attached to this one,” Fizzle mumbled against my chest. “The perch I could maybe get on board with, but the rest just look like pretty annoyances.”

“Awww, you think I’m pretty,” Ryder joked, reaching for Fizzle’s fur again, only to pull a bleeding finger back. “Ouch!”

As the others pulled away, Fizzle climbed back up to my shoulder, shuffling as close to my head as he could as he wrapped his tail possessively around my neck. My fierce little friend would take on an army if he had to, and not many of them would forget the ferocious little owl gryphon in the aftermath. When I first met him, he was the fiercest warrior I’d ever seen, and there was no one else I’d choose over him to have at my side.

“I never should have left in the first place,” I admitted, even if it was just because it was finally time to stop lying to myself. “I should have stayed and fought for Nymeria.”

“Then you would have died with the rest of your family,” Fizzle told me glumly.

I could feel the shock from the guys around me. It might not be the first time it had been said, but I think it was the first time they’d really heard the words. The first time they realised what I’d left behind in this place.

“We can’t stay here,” I pointed out, wanting a quick change of subject. “We should head for the nearest village and get rooms for the night. We can figure out how we’re going to get to the Winter Court from there. If we leave now, we should be able to get there by dusk.”

Fizzle huffed in agreement and clung to me tighter. It was his way of telling me that if I was going to do this, he’d be at my side. It gave me the confidence I needed to move toward a place filled with the people I’d failed. The ones who had suffered all this time because I’d run. I could never make up for the things they’d endured; forgiveness wasn’t in the cards for me. The only thing I could hope for now was to stand against the man who had terrorised them for so long.

It was time for someone to take out the man that had the audacity to call himself a King.

It was time for the pretender to die.

Chapter 17

Tank

My bear grumbled unhappily as we walked into the fae village. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to hold him back like I normally would. He was pissed, but he wasn’t on the verge of rampaging out of control. It was so out of the norm that I didn’t entirely know how to handle the situation.

I’d never felt as connected to him as I did right now. I could feel his protective need laying over mine like an extra layer. We were completely in sync, and in turn, he finally saw why he couldn’t just burst free to force his way.

We were both in full agreement that this wasn’t a place we wanted our mate to be. We’d have much preferred her to follow the little cat creature’s advice and leave this realm behind. But that wasn’t Alyssa. In fact, I was surprised he’d managed to get her to leave the first time. She must have been so overcome with her own grief that she couldn’t see the others she was leaving behind. Because the Alyssa I knew now wouldn’t be able to abandon someone who needed her. Hence, why we were in this mess to start with.

Yet it was more than that. She needed this. Whether it be for closure or for retribution, I didn’t know yet. But Nymeria haunted Alyssa, and until she could deal with what had happened here, she’d never find any peace in her life.

She thought I didn’t see the pain in her eyes. It was why she spent so much time in the cathedral, after all. It wasn’t just to recharge her magic. It was because it was the only place she could have the slight whispering connection to Nymeria that she’d been able to cling to. And through that, she reached for those she’d left behind, even if it was impossible for her to ever touch them.

The village itself wasn’t quite as I’d imagined, but far closer to the forest everyone seemed so concerned about than I would have expected. The houses were all stone built with clay tile roofs. The roads between a mixture of what looked like a cobbled main road and packed dirt side streets. It was basically a step up from the fairytale village I’d assumed it would be.

“They have electricity,” Ryder whispered in awe.

It should seem like a stupid statement, but I was just as shocked as he was. I’d imagined them lighting fire lanterns as the darkness slowly crept in.

Alyssa looked at us like we’d lost our minds and then rolled her eyes. “Running water too. It’s like we’ve stepped into the future,” she said sarcastically as she kept heading into the village.

I realised then that she seemed to know where she was going, and I wondered if she’d grown up around here. I could see a young Alyssa tearing around these streets, causing mischief wherever she went.

Until her family was murdered.

It wasn’t a surprise. I’d suspected that part of why she’d left was because they were dead, and I didn’t think it had happened peacefully. But hearing it had still been shocking. Because I didn’t want her to ever have to go through something like that. She must have felt alone for so long, and I hated that.

Alyssa pulled the hood of her cloak further down her face as she hitched it tighter around her. When she told us to keep the hoods up, I’d looked at her like she was crazy. What other way was there to stand out like a sore thumb than for a group of hooded strangers to rush through a small village on the edge of a forest.

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