Page 14 of Wrath of the Fae

The soldier said she was in Cyrus’s arms by the main doors. That they held each other tightly in a long embrace. He had just returned from a month-long attack on an outskirt village by the Seventh Kingdom. An attack led by the King’s son. Elias Reid. An attack which has been repeated on countless villages and Kingdoms before and will be repeated again and again.

Cyrus senses those with power. Reid triggers them. The soldiers return those who bend the knee to the First Kingdom for training. The children are torn from their families and forced into training camps, brainwashed to fight for the false king who sits on my mother’s throne.

Those who refuse to obey are now killed since they can not be sent to the human world. The portals died when I returned, so they are executed after their powers are stolen. They don’t want to leave too many alive that will rise up against them.

The soldier went on.

He has seen Reid three times. The first time was Reid’s wedding to my best friend. He and El married two days after Cyrus married my sister. The entire Kingdom attended, and celebrations lasted ten days. Through his memories, I saw them kiss. I saw their lips meet and their happy smiles as they gazed into each other’s eyes.

‘Raven?’ Lucca tries. ‘Open your eyes. Take a breath.’

The soldier saw Reid again on something he called “shipment day”. Reid stood by a group of twenty Fae men in iron chains, watching them being forced through one of the portal arches in the First Kingdom courtyards. The large, elevated stone arch of pure white marble had to be climbed by stairs to reach it. Black markings, like a circuit board, were built into it. Reid stood beside his father. Beside the tyrant king. And he watched the men be forced through the golden shimmer of the portal within. The golden shimmer of my stolen power torn from my body before I perished in the caves.

I saw him, just as the soldier saw him. I saw them all. Together. A part of this wickedness.

Hot tears brim in my eyes and spill down my cheeks before a firm hand lands on my shoulder. I quickly throw open my eyes. Tessa has her hand on me, and another hand grabs mine before I can push her off.

‘Let her help you,’ Lucca warns, holding me firmly. The caves are trembling, and I know my eyes are glowing in reaction to my pain and anger. ‘Please,’ he whispers softly. ‘Before you… ya know…’

I nod and rest my hand on hers.

Her light glows as she uses her empath power on me, syphoning my misery away. Lucca keeps hold of me and waits.

My heart eases a little, and the agony of the deep betrayal seeps away from me. As it does, the caves fall silent and still. Tessa staggers back with a heart-breaking sob, clutching her chest and falling to her knees.

‘You with us, Pup?’ Lucca asks, ignoring her almost completely.

‘I don’t… I don’t think…’ I shake my head and look over at Tessa, who is rocking back and forth. Wolf lingers by the entrance to the cave, his hammer over his shoulder, watching us all closely.

Lucca lays my hand flat on his cheek and offers me a smile.

‘It’s okay. Everything will be okay.’

How? How does he still smile when the woman he loves abandoned him, married his best friend, and now works for the king? How can he summon that smile he often wears when I can barely keep myself whole?

‘Because if I don’t smile,’ he replies, tracing his thumb across my cheek. ‘I’ll die of despair.’

I feel his scars again. A map of his pain. Of his survival.

He’s proud of them, just as I was when I wore the scars of the Dark Fae on my face.

I stare at myself in the mirror every damn day and don’t recognise my reflection.

No scars linger on my skin. No hint of the marks left behind by a life of brutality. No Mate markings. No inked promises.

Without them… I don’t recognise myself. I can’t trust what happened if I can’t see the proof.

Now, I am new. Undamaged. A virgin without a scratch on a body holding a brutalised and tortured soul.

‘I know,’ he whispers, pressing his forehead on mine. ‘I know it’s hard. I know it’s painful.’

‘I asked you to stop listening to my thoughts,’ I whisper, pressing my forehead into his.

‘Then stop thinking so loud.’

‘How could they do this to us, Lucca? How?’

Before he can answer, Tessa slams her fist into the ground.

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