Page 86 of The Beast King's Bride

Way to break my heart a little more. This man, this king of the Fae, has turned the tables on me, turning me from loathing to loving him in such a short time. I hate knowing he’s been in pain for so long. By the end of today, I fear my heart will be shattered into such tiny pieces I’m not sure I’ll be able to piece it together again.

The study is dim, the only light coming from the dying embers of the fire, a coppery glow that limns the chairs and the tables in red.

At first, I don’t see him at all, and I think that we were all mistaken, that he was never inside the study.

But as I approach the fireplace, I see him, sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, his knees gathered to his chest. His arms are looped loosely around his legs. The flickering embers send reflections in his eyes, on his horns, on that long braid hanging over his shoulder.

“Talen,” I whisper.

He doesn’t reply. How long has he been sitting in the near-darkness? I go to my knees beside him, tucking my skirt under my legs.

He’s still dressed in his fighting leathers, though he’d discarded his coat and his shirt is open at the collar and the cuffs, baring his collarbone, his muscular forearms. They are streaked with something dark. Dark red.

“You have blood on you,” I whisper.

“It’s not mine,” he says after a long moment, his voice raspy, and relief floods me. I realize I’d been afraid to find him sprawled in a puddle of blood, dead or dying.

“Good.”

He shakes his head slowly as if disagreeing with me.

I take one of his hands in mine. It’s icy cold, streaked with more dried blood. His palms and the inside of his fingers are callused from holding the sword, much like Pete’s had been from carrying buckets and baskets.

Like mine are.

A warrior’s hands, he’d said about mine. I turn his over, stroke the filthy knuckles, the long fingers. No rings, no bracelets, no other jewelry that kings and princes usually wear.

I think of the signet ring I found in that desk, in the office behind the throne room, the seal of the tyger. Of how he hates his other form.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I’ve lost… more land. More people. I cannot keep doing this.”

“But you must. You can’t give up.”

That seems to rouse him. “Why not? Why am I not allowed to give up? In war, you know when to stop, and I fought for a hundred years!” His voice is a low growl. He pulls his hand out of my grip. “I fought longer than she had thought possible. She had expected me to declare defeat after the first decade.”

“She didn’t know how much you love your people,” I whisper.

Finally, those dark crystal eyes turn to me, the pain in them taking my breath. “I couldn’t save them,” he hisses. “I keep losing people. Losing myself. It’s all my fault. I should surrender to her.”

“No. Talen.” I lift a hand to his face. Touch his lips. “This isn’t your fault, you shouldn’t—”

He explodes into motion, hurtling to his feet, stalking to the fireplace. I almost fall back on my ass at the suddenness of it. “It is my fault. I told you the story. I thought you understood.” He slams a fist into the stone wall and a fissure cracks down its length.

“That everyone is blaming you, including yourself? Yes, I gathered as much.” Carefully I stand and walk over to him, resisting the urge to grab the braid swaying against his back. “You were young and ambitious and your family wouldn’t think of letting you have the throne. Why? There was something about you that they disliked, wasn’t there?”

He doesn’t speak for a long while, until I think he won’t reply, that maybe I was wrong. But then he shrugs. “I showed… too many emotions. They felt I was too close in nature to the Lesser Faeries. To the beast. And as it turns out… they were right.” He gives a mirthless chuckle, his fist still half-buried into the wall. I try not to be alarmed at the trickles of blood running over his hand. “A king ruled by emotions. Maab’s tits.”

“They were wrong,” I say softly and see his back stiffen. “And I doubt that their argument was the real reason they pushed you away. My guess would be that you were too brilliant for them to behold, to understand, too kind to fit their grander schemes. You didn’t always want to be king, am I right?”

He shakes his head. Lets his hand drop to his side.

“What happened?”

“My brothers are cruel. Seeing them torture everyone around them, I knew I couldn’t let them rule without challenging them to the throne. I wanted this land to be ruled fairly,” he says, the truth shining in his voice.

“You were the mirror that showed them their ugliness, the conscience they didn’t want. They tried to silence you but you were stronger than them.”

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