Page 79 of The Wolf Queen

But as he said the words, I knew there was some truth in it. My mates had made me queen in their mind, but they ignored what that might mean. Kings and queens were forced to make tough decisions, ones their subjects didn’t like and I was fairly sure my mates would hate this.

Do queens feel pain at their subjects’ suffering? I wondered, as Bryson escorted me out of the chapel and back into the throne room? I’d felt the tug of a cloak around my shoulders in my dreams and I felt it again now. My brow was light though, for now, right up until we walked into the room.

“There you are.” Gael’s voice was full of warmth, right up until he saw the cloak around my shoulders, then its owner. His mouth thinned. “Where have you been?”

“Working out a way to win the war against Callum,” I replied crisply. “Let's get everyone in the room, because a decision needs to be made.”

Chapter46

“No, absolutely not,” Weyland snapped after I put the proposal to my mates, his arms crossing his chest. He adopted a square stance, as if ready to tackle Bryson at any moment.

“Mate…?” Axe looked pained and that hurt far worse. Gael’s fury, evident as he paced back and forth across the floor, Weyland’s anger, they were far easier to weather than this. “But we just… And he…”

I know what he was trying to say because my heart said the same. I’d made him wait for so long, after we’d been through so much, but as I gritted my teeth, my eyes dropped to the floor. I would never have suggested this, not if I didn’t need to, but—

“So this is how you do it.” Dane slipped off the bed, standing tall and then walking slowly towards me, but I wasn’t his focus. Those ice blue eyes bore into Bryson’s. “I knew you had designs on Darcy but—”

“If you say no, then no it is,” I said and that’s when all eyes came back to me. “I would never impose this on you.”

“But you want us to say yes.” Dane’s gaze softened in its intensity, but he still watched me closely. “You think it’s the only way.”

“They have the same power.” I’d explained all this before, but I could make my case again. “Bryson is the only means we have to counter Callum’s power. It’s either this or I try to take him on myself again, but his power eats mine.”

“Or we don’t factor either of you into the fight,” Weyland said. “The king can sit back here and deal with the pit of vipers he surrounds himself with—”

“No.” Bryson hadn’t said much until now, but his voice tone was very firm now. “You know that will never work. I don’t know Darcy like you do—”

“Damn right you don’t, king.” Only Gael could make that title sound like the worst of insults. But he jerked himself away from the others and came to me. His hands went to my shoulders and I welcomed their weight, his gaze as he stared into my eyes. When he was touching me, still engaging with me, I felt there was still hope. “Darcy, lass, we’ll find another way. One that doesn’t include tying you to a man, a fucking Granian, for the rest of your life.”

“So what is it?” I asked, hating that I was doing this, just as I knew I had to. “What is it, Gael? Callum is marching his Reavers on the keep as we stand here and argue about this. We’re tossing around ideas about how to fight him, but he knows how he’ll win. He’ll destroy everything and everyone in its path.”

“And that’s what you can do?” Dane the man was shoved to one side, but Dane the advisor was back in force. He eyed the king like he was a thing, another sword with miraculous powers.

“I don’t know the full extent of my powers.” Bryson’s cheeks flushed as he admitted that. “I’ve never dared let myself go that deep.”

“But you have that same destructive power?” When Dane eyed the king’s hands, the others did the same.

“Dane, he showed me—” I started to say.

“Show me,” my mate insisted.

I could almost feel the cogs inside Dane’s head whirr as he watched Bryson sigh, the roll his sleeves back again. There was a hiss from Axe when he saw the black smoke begin to ooze from Bryson’s fingers. The king scanned the room, then walked out onto the grand balcony adjoining his suite, walking towards a neatly trimmed rose bush in a marble planter.

I wanted to stop him. The bush had been trimmed and trained within an inch of its life, but it was still a living thing. Bryson caressed one of the sweet-smelling flowers, the perfume sharpening, right before it soured. The petals gleamed bright, bright red, as if coming to the peak of their bloom, right before this happened.

“Gods above…” Weyland swore, taking an instinctive step backwards, because the rose shrivelled, blackened and then fell away to dust, but the king didn’t stop there. His breath came in rapid pants as the rot spread to the leaves, then the branches. The darkness seemed to be coming faster and faster and when I saw a frown form, the muscle in Bryson’s jaw ticking, I moved closer.

“Darcy, no…!” Dane snapped, reaching for me, but I dodged past him and then placed a hand on Bryson’s forearm.

“Fuck, no!” Gael shouted as they all watched the black smoke engulf my hand.

It was cold, but not horridly so, crisp like a spring morning, but I sucked in a breath at the feel of it. Bryson’s focus jerked to me, his brow smoothing as he stared.

“You want to give in to it,” I said, knowing somehow exactly how he was feeling. I was pretty sure it was the way I felt when I had a weapon in my hand. “You want to let it go, dive into that feeling.” Just a small little nod. “You’ll get lost in it, somehow you know that, but gods…” I let out a sigh then, a feeling of longing rising inside me. “What a way to go. It’d be bliss, to stop wanting, stop needing, stop fighting.”

“Gods, yes,” he rasped.

“So stop fighting,” I told him.

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