Page 54 of The Ruthless Fae King
“Do you think I’m pure?” he asked honestly, and I blushed. The men were never really held accountable for that as there was no way to check. “Ineverwanted you for your purity, Madelynn, and tomorrow I’m going to change that decree.”
That got a sliver of a smile out of me. “But I’m… married.” My mind couldn’t grasp what Lucien was saying, how he was acting.
Lucien pointed to Marcelle’s dead body nailed to the wall with icicles. “Technically you’re a widow now.”
A sob escaped my throat. “Lucien, what are you saying? You still want me?”
I couldn’t allow myself to hope. Lucien looked at me like I’d gone mad. “I didn’t just convince my old friend here to fly me across the realm, while I froze everything in sight, so that we could be friends, Madelynn.”
Laughter pealed out of me, then I rushed forward into his arms, peppering his face and collarbone with kisses. He wrapped his arms around me and just held me as I finally felt safe for the first time in days. I pulled back to look at him. “You’re a good man, Lucien Thorne.”
“Shh.” He glanced over his shoulder as if checking to make sure no one was there. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
The small flicker of hope that I had held since Marcelle dragged me from my home roared to life. “I love you.” I leaned in and kissed him again, my lips hungrily searching for his, not caring that it wasn’t proper and that technically I should be a grieving widow who stayed single for a full year.
Forget the rules.
I was going to live for me and my happiness from now on.
Lucien eagerly returned my kiss and then pulled back and looked at the dragon king. “We should get going. The Nightfall queen has started a war on my border and she has an entire army of warriors with fae powers she stole from us.”
I felt my eyes widen. “And you came for me? Are you crazy?”
He gave me a halfcocked smile. “A little bit.”
So the stolen powers, she’d given them to her people! It didn’t make sense, she hated magic. Or maybe she just hated that she didn’t have any, and now that she did, she wanted to be the only one with it.
“What will happen to Summer Court? And Spring and Fall?” I asked, thinking of my parents and sister, and Birdie and all of the innocent people here.
Lucien gave me a look teeming with a mixture of rage and hurt. “Hazevillemade their bed, they can lie in it! Forget them. They’re on their own.” He spun to walk us to the dragon king and I pulled on his arm.
When he turned to face me, his gaze softened slightly.
“Darling,” I cooed, and he steeled himself as if knowing I was about to ask something. “The people were just scared, and Marcelle may have forced them or forged some of the votes, we don’t know.”
Lucien shook his head. “It was not forged. The reason I had to fly here is because when I tried to come on horseback, I was fought. Fall, Spring, and Summer Guardsallturned on me.”
I frowned, knowing he was right, but thinking of Birdie and her father who were against the separation. An idea came to me then. “If the Nightfall queen sees that the fae are united again and Marcelle is dead, she might back off, which will buy you time to go and see King Moon.” Axil Moon was the reclusive wolf king that I’d never met nor barely heard about, but I knew he was integral to Lucien’s plan to join all the races against Zaphira.
The winter king sighed, looking dejected. “She has Summer and Fall power. Enough of it that she fought me off last night when I tried.”
Shock settled over me which turned to anger. “She has wind power?”
“A lot of it, from multiple Fall fae I assume.”
That thief!How many of our missing fae had really just been science experiments to her? Had she been taking them for months? I felt sick thinking about it.
The wind picked up behind me as I tried to calm my rage. “Marcelle is dead, which makes me the queen of Hazeville. I was coronated. I will gather my people and meet you at Winter Court. We will fight with you as one and then you and I will marry to solidify the merging of the fae back to Thorngate.”
Lucien swallowed hard, his eyes glowing silver in the moonlight. “All I got from that was that you still wanted to marry me.”
Laughter bubbled up from my chest as I reached out and raked my hands through his hair. “Of course I still want to marry you. But we have to put our people first and push back the Nightfall queen.”
Lucien growled as if he didn’t agree with putting the people first.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a troop of Sun Guards approaching.
Rushing forward, I kissed Lucien chastely and then pushed him towards the dragon king. “I will see you on the battlefield.”
