Page 134 of Wrath of the Fae Queen
“Not as much as it benefits you.” Leonardo is cool and collected. “Aldrin and his followers will die, and your hands will be clean. I know how much you love scapegoats. The bargain was to ensure you wouldn’t come after my court to appease your people. I know how you turn against the fae you do business with. Why would politics be any different?”
Aldrin’s hands shake as frothy blood spills from his lips. Those eyes that I fell in love with are no longer amber, but almost completely black, whites and irises both. He keeps trying to communicate something to me, expression pleading, but he cannot form words. My heart shatters anew and tears sting my eyes.
“You disappoint me, my dear Leonardo,” Titania chirps. “You were meant to bring me the false king already dead. It was a clause in the bargain. I don’t want to take any chances.”
She is too much of a coward to finish the job herself.
The king shrugs. “He is on his way to death.”
I have had enough. They dare to bicker while my world falls apart. To speak of the death of my mate while he chokes on poison at their feet, without even a glance in his direction. I am sick of ruthless, heartless rulers hurting everyone around them only for their own gain. For more power and more money.
No more.
It stops here.
They will abuse and terrorizeno fucking more.
My gaze flicks up to Titania. She sits forward in her throne with thrill dancing over her face as another king stands at the bottom of her dais and answers to her. Leonardo stands straight-backed and tall, without a hint of shame for his betrayal, and Belladonna and Valentine match him.
No. Fucking. More.
I will not be a victim here. I will not allow my mate to die. The world can burn for all I care. They will meet the wrath of this queen.
Something breaks inside of me.
A dam. A block.
The door of a hidden vault.
More magic thrums through me from a chasm deep within. Even though I am no longer connected to Aldrin, it pours out of my mate bond. From my very soul and essence, which grew and transcended the moment we accepted each other and became joined. A vicious, violent kind of raw power thrashes within me.
I unleash all of it.
I am blinded by the sheer intensity of magic that pours from me. Every last drop is soaked up by my cage. The bars groan as an inferno of heat radiates from them. They turn the bright orange then red of metal being tempered in fire.
One moment the golden cage is whole and intact, and the next, it shatters. Shrapnel flies out, long bars piercing the wisteria wood of the throne room. The air fills with shouts.
The magic the cage’s enchantment stole from me, every drop any other fae put into it to try to free me—it all hovers in the air like its own entity for a heartbeat, then I grasp it and suck it up inside myself.
My mate bond snaps back into place. I stagger with the intensity of the pain that consumes Aldrin. His thoughts are completely incoherent. The sheer evidence of what they have done to him only enrages me further.
It breaks my fucking heart that with all my earth magic, I don’t have a drop of healing ability to save him or take away his agony. I would bring all of it into my body so he wouldn’t have to feel a moment of it if I could.
I step out of the cage as everyone whirls toward me.
My feet don’t touch the ground as I walk. My burning hair hovers around me like a bright halo and the entire surface of my skin radiates the golden light of raw magic.
Time drags out unnaturally as they scramble for weapons, each inch they move taking minutes. Titania launches out of her seat. Guards step toward me. Leonardo’s shadows churn as Belladonna and Valentine position themselves to protect him with their bodies.
All I know is that my mate is dying and these people are at fault.
I cannot hold all this magic. I must use it and they must die. Everyone in this room must die. The strings of my heart attached to Aldrin draw my body toward him in that slow dance. The need to clutch him to my chest and thrust my power, my life force, into him is overwhelming. But with this much power, I can do many things in a single heartbeat.
I lose my mind.
My wrath whips out of me in lashes. In dozens of wields while I move toward Aldrin. My power of death and decay wraps around Titania. It pierces Torin. Leonardo, Belladonna, Valentine—I spare none of them. I penetrate key senators from Titania’s inner circle. I find Dante in the crowd and target him too for daring to befriend my mate, only to betray him.
I can’t even hear their screams, not over the agony screeching in my head. Aldrin is fading. I can barely feel his essence now.
