Page 119 of Wrath of the Fae Queen
“You already have. You don’t understand the pleasure it gives me to tend to your needs. To make you climax. Especially tonight. I just need to hold you close. Can you do that for me?”
A groan leaves him as I unbutton his tunic, pulling aside the two halves, and nestle into the side of his hard body, skin onskin. I rest my head on his pectoral and close my eyes. Warmth curls around me as his hand strokes up and down the length of my spine, the touch far too soothing for me to resist the call of sleep.
I find peace sprawled out across him.
Aldrin pulls the blankets up, tucking us in.“Sleep, dear heart.” The rumble of his voice vibrates through his chest and into my ear resting upon it. “There are still a couple of hours until dawn and you need your rest. I will wake you when it is time.”
Right before I drift off, an unnatural heat builds within me, running through my very veins. I let out a sigh as he channels threads of his healing magic into me, replenishing my energy and stealing the sheer exhaustion from my soul. Undoing the physical traumas of the day.
He needs all his power for tomorrow’s trials, but Aldrin has always been far too good at giving, and terrible at taking.
“It would make sense for us to go our separate ways.” I fasten the buckles on Aldrin’s armor, slowly moving down his chest and avoiding his eyes. “To cover the ground quicker, if what you say is true, and I can send out the royal compulsion to vote just as you can.”
“No fucking way.” He uses a single finger to tip my chin up, forcing me to look at him. I catch his face falling. “I don’t care about sense, Keira. I can’t let you go. I need you in my arms for this. To hold on to you and know that Titania hasn’t torn you away again.”
“You will know through the mate bond.” My voice breaks.
“Ineedthis like I need air. We ride together,” he demands, and I cannot deny him.
He helps me don my armor, not the signature piece we had crafted for me that is now somewhere in the palace, but whatever bits and pieces we could borrow from the female warriors fighting for us. I glamour it as best I can, making the metal panels shiny and new, with many gold embellishments.
When we step out into the tavern’s rooftop garden, only a hint of dawn bleeds an orange glow across the sky. Ezekiel’s familiar form glides through it, approaching us. The warm light glitters across the white-and-gold scales of the dragon’s back and the ground trembles as his huge form lands before us.
He throws his wings up wide, stretching them while the sun illuminates every bone and vein in a radiant glow, as though his very flesh is on fire. He yawns deeply, putting on display row after row of pearly white teeth each almost as long as my forearm, while he whips his tail around and digs his claws into the stone, leaving long channels in it.
He is preening, that much is for sure. It doesn’t change the fact that he is absolutely majestic.
Fucking show-off,Aldrin growls in my head, but his voice is threaded with amusement.
A show-off that we desperately need, so if he wants us to grovel, we grovel,I chide.We both know he and his clan are in this city just as much for their entertainment as they are for any loyalty to you.
Aldrin grunts at that, but we have both seen it: dragons descending on columns of Truth Templars in the night, and instead of killing them efficiently, playing with their food. Bodies tossed in the air. Enemies made to run and scatter so they can have the pleasure of hunting them down.
The dragons remind me of cats from the human realm, as beautiful as they are sardonic. At least I could never be on the menu for a kitten.
Ezekiel finally cranes his long neck around to look at us.Aldrin, you never told me your people were so…tasty.He chuffs, like he told a hilarious joke.
My stomach rolls at the thought.
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” Aldrin’s eyebrows furrow. “We need to leave as soon as possible?—”
You want to leave the city when we are having so much fun here? Why not stay and butcher your way into the palace? Make those stairs run red with the blood of your enemies. Use our fire, ice and poison to make them hurt. Then no others would dare take your throne.Ezekiel is manic with glee at the prospect.
“We have discussed this,” Aldrin snaps. “You know why I cannot fight my way into the palace.”
Patience,I send to Aldrin’s mind.You know the dragons like to play games.But I feel it too. We cannot lose even a moment of time here, arguing over something that has already been negotiated.
Because the tyrant will take your mate.The dragon tips his head to the side, considering deeply. Dragons also mate for life, and there is nothing they value more than their family, not even the thrill of violence.Then we fly and turn the entire court against her.
We climb Ezekiel’s tail and mount his back with quick efficiency, settling down together between the ivory spines of his shoulder blades. Aldrin wraps his arms around my middle, weaving ropes of air to hold us in our seat. With powerful beats of the dragon’s wings, we are lifted off the balcony and into a sky quickly turning pink.
Relief floods me that the bargain doesn’t stop me undertaking this mission. I wasn’t completely sure it wouldn’t drag me back under the clause of not causing Titania harm, but I am calling an election, not a rebellion set on removing her head from her shoulders. I keep my intention to eventually return to the palace and my captivity firmly within mind, and it stops the drag of the magic from urging me back.
The entire City of Vertical Gardens shrinks beneath us.
The sight is breathtaking.
The sharp, decorative angles of the buildings with peaks and spires and delicately arching bridges spanning between them are surreal when glimpsed all together. The thousands of balconies with greenery draping from them reaching up those mountainous structures; the huge trees with floral canopies branching over great heights. The many azure streams and waterfalls glittering vibrantly as they crisscross over the entire city.
