Page 8 of The Flame King's Queen

The body she’s holding while she cries is…mine? I’m a wreck of a man with broken bones protruding from the side of my chest and blood coating my mouth and chin. I’m not a wreck. I’m…

Dead?

Anger and pain swell in my heart. My life had only just begun. I’d spent just a few short months with my mate, and now I have to leave her behind. I need to be there to protect her and the baby. Isavelle carries me within herself, and with our enemy still threatening Maledin, she needs me to protect her while she’s vulnerable. I need to get back to my body, but I feel like a loose cobweb trying to fight the wind. I feel myself being dragged farther away.

Isavelle freed me from beneath the mountain, and I saved Isavelle from the Brethren and brought her family home. My mate has her dragon and family and friends who love her. She’s no longer the scared and starving sacrifice that was bound and gagged the day I found her. She’s a queen. She’s more beautiful than ever. So why do I have to fucking leave? I’m stuck watching my death scene as it slowly fades before me, and I know the moment it vanishes, I’ll be gone in the mist.

Alone.

I’m so alone.

Something dark is stirring in the corners of my vision. Sickeningly green magic rolls in from all sides, and a cruel whisper reaches my ears.

The brazen little destroyer. Her mate. The black prince. Three dead. Shall I take your pregnant little bitch as well?

A cruel laugh echoes around me. I’ve met this fiend made of shadows, spite, and dark sorcery. This is the lich that possesses Emmeric, but at this moment, there’s not a trace of my brother in the thing that’s closing in on me from all sides.

I want to know what your soul tastes like, Dragon King. Let me know your despair.

Invisible clawed fingers reach for me. They’re colder than ice, and I feel them plunge into my soul and begin to rip me apart. The scene before me is fading fast. Isavelle is still holding me and weeping while my world turns a sickly shade of green.

You are strong, Dragon King, purrs the cruel voice.How I would have enjoyed rampaging through your life with your sword in my hand. Eviscerate. Impale. Kill. Your little queen sobbing as I make you kill her. But alas, your body is useless, flaccid meat. How about this last, pretty thought before you fade into nothing, useless mortal? I will destroy everyone you have ever cared about, and then I will go on living forever and ever because I will win. I will always win. I am unkillable.

I can feel the lich moving around inside me. If I could taste, my mouth would be filled with the taste of acid and bile. Hatred and cruelty. This is the evil that has already killed half my family and hungers to kill the rest. I need to retch. I want itoutof me.

Suddenly, I’m dazzled by golden light. My hair is blown back by a warm breeze, and something sweet spills down my throat. Something is driving out the poison. Far away, I hear her calling my name through her tears. First faint and echoing, then loud and clear as a ringing bell.

“Zabriel.”

I open my eyes, and I see her as if for the very first time. The first deep, sweet breath of her scent. Isavelle is standing before me, made from sunshine. Sparkling tears are pouring down her cheeks, my mate with golden hair and eyes a vibrant turquoise. Dragon’s eyes, brimming with magic. Her scent bursts joyously around me. The sweet scent of my child in her belly.

La. Mother. That is what our child will call her in the old tongue.

The icy claws dig deeper into my soul. The pain seems endless. Isavelle reaches for me, wrapping herself around my dissipating form. It hurts to fight my way toward her. The darkness doesn’t want to give me up. I won’t let it take me away from her. I can still fight. I won’t ever stop fighting.

Straining against the darkness and pain, I gather myself back together with Isavelle’s help until I have arms that can hold her. A mouth that can form words.

“Sha’lenla,” I whisper into her warmth. “I want to go home.”

5

Isavelle

Isuck a panicked breath into my lungs, feeling like I’m drowning, as I open my eyes and see my mate covered in our blood. That place didn’t want to let go of Zabriel, and I could feel it dragging me away with him. He belongs here with me and with everyone else in Maledin who needs him. Any longer, and I don’t think we would have made it back. There was so much darkness around Zabriel, and it was trying to take him away from me. Darkness and something else. Something evil.

I sit up and lean over my mate. His eyes are still closed as I call his name. “Zabriel?”

Zabriel takes a shuddering breath, and his eyes snap open. There are sickly green strands among the red of his irises.

“Zabriel!” I clutch his shoulders, fear pounding through me.

A moment later, the green veins of magic dissolve. Zabriel turns his head and looks at me. He tries to form words, but a thread of blood drips from the corner of his mouth and slides across his cheek.

“Ma’lenis breathing. Mend his bones and close that wound,” the Temple Crone orders. “Lady Isavelle, you need to let us work.”

I move so I am standing by Zabriel’s head, cradling him in my arms. The Temple Mothers spring into action, seizing Zabriel’s bones with bare, bloody hands and manipulating them back into place. Zabriel’s expression transforms with pain, but he holds my gaze. The Temple Mothers chant as they work, and I keep my hand pressed against his cheek, willing him to stay awake. The priestesses pack the wounds with a paste made from pounded herbs before binding his chest with bandages. Sweat pours from Zabriel’s brow, and his jaw is grit tight against the pain. Several times his eyes roll back in his head, and I urgently squeeze his hand before he can pass out.

“Stay with me. Keep breathing, Zabriel.”

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