Page 53 of The Ruthless Fae King
Wherever Lucien was, he was… withdrawing his power to make it look like I was causing the temperature to rise so quickly.
Marcelle leaned into my side then, his lips brushing against my cheek. “You were worth every piece of gold,” he purred.
And that’s when I snapped. The caged, murderous animal inside of me that he’d created broke free.
I’d never tested the full capabilities of my power. I knew I could strip a tree of its bark in seconds, or an apple of its skin. I could toss a thousand-pound boulder from a mountain or snap a tree in half. I’d had to fight off my mother and father simultaneously in training as they attacked me from both sides. But I had no ideajusthow powerful I was until the moment Marcelle tested my patience and found it lacking.
Wind exploded out of me as if I were made of it. In that moment, it was like I no longer existed. I’d become wind and I was everywhere at once. My magic caressed everything in a twenty-foot radius, sensing where it was, and then exploded. The guards surrounding me went flying ten feet into the air, at the same time that Marcelle’s body flew into the stone wall of the castle and then held there.
Because I was the wind and the wind was everywhere, I felt the moment the archer released the arrow. It hurtled through the air and I ripped it to splinters.
“Be reasonable!” Marcelle screamed as I stalked towards him, building the wind with me and creating a funnel in the courtyard. The wooden beams holding up the veranda creaked and the mortar between the stones crushed to sand. My feet lifted off the ground and I had to focus just to keep from flying away.
Reasonable? That bastard wanted me to reason with him after everything he’d put me through? It didn’t even deserve a response. It deserved death.
I threw the wind funnel right into his pinned body and his screams of agony tore into the chilly night. For the first few seconds, hearing him in pain brought me joy, but then bits of his skin began to separate from his body and his screams turned to moans and pleas for mercy and my heart softened.
This was torture. This wasn’t me. A clean quick kill was more humane. I could live with that.
My rage dissipated slightly. I pulled the wind back, but kept him suspended in midair, his arms and legs out like a star as his back rested against the cool gray stone. He was bleeding from a few spots on his face and arms. In his hands he held flickering flames as if he meant to attack me but didn’t have the strength.
I stepped closer to him, holding his gaze with mine as I measured his breathing and the air intake in his lungs.
“Marcelle, you—”
The words hadn’t finished leaving my mouth when a cold gust of wind hit my back and then over a dozen razor sharp icicles slammed into Marcelle’s body. His neck, his chest, arms, legs and stomach were pierced simultaneously. He was pinned like a butterfly to a board. He barely uttered a wail when blood dribbled from his mouth and his head slumped forward, the sound dying in his throat.
He was dead.
I knew in that moment that Lucien Thorne was behind me, but I didn’t have the courage to turn around and face him yet.
“Madelynn.” Lucien’s voice was a whisper, full of heartache and pain.
Tears threatened to obscure my vision and so I blinked them back rapidly, breathing in and out deeply.
I just stood there, frozen in shock and grief andshame. I knew that Lucien had just killed Marcelle so that I didn’t have to, and now I was free.
“Sugar plum,” Lucien tried.
It should have brought a smile to my lips, the fact that he was still showing some affection towards me, that he wasn’t mad. But I didn’t think he knew, he must not know the extent of it…
I turned finally, facing the winter king. He looked more handsome than I remembered, but my gaze went immediately to the giant black dragon standing behind him.
It was the dragon king.
Holy fae, heflewhere with the dragon king? So that’s how he got past the armies of three courts. Heflew.
Shaking myself from my stupor, I lifted my head high as my bottom lip trembled and I caught Lucien’s steely gaze. “Lucien, Marcelle and I were married in a carriage with a witness, and later…” My voice broke. “…that marriage was consummated against my will. It was all legal. So I’m sorry to inform you that I am no longer pure.”
Anger flashed across Lucien’s face and a blast of cold air slapped at my skin, causing the tears to fall to my cheeks and freeze there. Blades of ice shot from his palms and slammed into Marcelle’s body behind me. I spun and noticed his crotch area was now pierced through with four ice shards.
As I suspected, he didn’t know the extent of it.
Turning back to face Lucien, I closed my eyes, unable to see him like this, and then I heard him shuffle forward. His hands cupped my chin and then his lips were on mine. I gasped in shock and opened my eyes.
Pulling back from me, Lucien met my gaze. “Madelynn Windstrong,everythingabout you is pure. Your smile, your heart, your good intentions.”
I was at a loss for words… “But the decrees state that a royal must be pure—”
