Page 65 of The Ruthless Fae King
I laughed at the old wives’ tale. “Exactly. So have no fear.”
Lucien reached up to thread his fingers through my hair and pulled my face to his lips, planting a kiss on my forehead.
The door to the back of the cathedral burst open and a guard rushed in. It was in that moment that I realized I had been alone with Lucien, without a chaperone, for the first time and I didn’t care.
The guard was wearing the emblem of a messenger, and he was wheezing from running too hard. Before he could open his mouth to speak, the ground shook, causing a crack to splinter one of the artistically designed glass windows of the cathedral.
I gasped, looking at Lucien.
“What was that?” he bellowed.
The messenger spoke then. “Queen Zaphira is at the border with a thousand men. We need you.”
A thousand!Already?She was mobilizing quickly.
“She’s going to try and take out Winter because she knows of the separation,” I said.
Lucien took in a deep breath as if to calm himself. “Then go and rally your people. If a single one of them hurts you again, inany way, I will freeze Spring and Summer, taking the life of everybody there. I don’t care how many innocents die.”
His declaration sent chills down my spine, mostly because I knew he would. There was a darkness inside of the man I loved, one I constantly had to keep in check.
SIXTEEN
There was a very real chance that I would die trying to bring Summer and Spring soldiers back here. They’d already tried to assassinate me once. This would rob Lucien and I of the future we so desperately wanted with each other. So as I stood in the courtyard, looking up at the man I loved, I didn’t know what to say.
Leaning into my neck, Lucien planted a kiss there and then moved his lips to my ear. “You brought me back to life, Madelynn,” he whispered against me, and my entire body ached.
You brought me back to life.
His words reverberated around my head and I took comfort in knowing that at the very least, if I died, I had mended his heart for another. Let the woman who came after me love him greater than I did, because he deserved it.
I took two steps towards the black dragon waiting for me and then thought better of it.
If this was possibly my last time seeing Lucien Thorne, I was going to make it count.
Spinning, I ran for him. The heat in his eyes matched the heat buzzing around my body. I leapt into his arms as they came around me, tightly crushing me to his body as our lips found each other with a hungry need. We weren’t married. We didn’t have a chaperone. Our tongues were dancing together in full view of the public and I didn’t care about any of it. I needed to taste him before I left.
When his hand came around the back of my hair and tugged gently, I whimpered into his open mouth and he swallowed the sound.
We finally parted, both panting, and I ached for more. Standing on my tiptoes, I pressed my lips against his ear. “My heart is yours, Lucien Thorne. Now and always.” With that, I pulled away and spun around before I could see his face. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to go into this as an emotional wreck. I needed to be strong.
I hopped into the basket with Piper, who sat beside me, and the dragon king took off into the skies. I tried to focus on the task ahead and not about the war or what Lucien was doing right now. I knew he was more than capable of protecting himself and his people. He was the most powerful fae among us. But the Nightfall queen had been stealing our magic for months! Not only did she have a thousand warriors at our border, she had them…enhanced, with our power.
Now I had to do my part. We couldn’t ask Archmere and Embergate to fight beside us when we ourselves were broken. I had to unite Thorngate once more. It was going to be a large group effort to get everything assembled in time to fight Nightfall back and push them off Winter’s border.
I reached out to grasp Piper’s hand. She was being quiet, and I knew she was probably in shock. I told her she didn’t have to come but she’d insisted. I’d barely been able to check on my mother and Libby as I’d run out of the Winter Court palace. Both had been asleep, an elvin healer with them. But Piper, my loyal friend to the end, was waiting for me with Drae.
“I never got to say thank you for the letter. It gave me hope and kept me going!” I yelled over the wind.
Piper peered over at me then, tears brewing in her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop the carriage. I should have thrown a rock or—”
I cut her off. “What? What are you talking about?”
Her voice broke. “When Marcelle took you, I saw the whole thing and I didn’t know what to do. I’m not powerful like you are. I knew I couldn’t fight, so I ran to get help, but now I wonder if I had tried to fight—”
I pulled her into my arms and she fell into sobs, shaking against my chest as she exhaled her pent-up grief. Was this why she’d been so quiet? She felt guilty for not being able to save me?
“Piper, they would have killed you. You did the right thing. The best thing. You told Lucien so that he could save me.” I stroked her back as she cried. I felt bad for not realizing she’d been carrying this guilt.
