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I knew it would kill me one day, but I’d had no idea that I would force its hand.
I felt my skull with every pulse of my heartbeat. The water around me was red, stained, and wispy as my blood leaked from the wound.
“Where is the healer?” Liam growled.
I laughed, feeling more blood rush past my teeth. “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.
I blinked, but the world had changed between one moment and the next.
Gone was the forgotten throne room, and the next moment, I lay on a table.
Shay’s face came close to mine. His eyes were pale, ice blue. “Don’t you fecking dare! Stay awake.” He growled. “You fool. You knew it was a trap.”
Somehow, his anger just made the situation ten times funnier.
“Feck. Off.” I laughed.
Shay growled and leaned in, pressing his lips against mine. I pressed my hands against his chest to push him away, but I was too weak.
I was ready.
I had made peace with it.
I would sooner die than sit on the High throne again. The moment their backs were turned, I’d finish the job. I’d slam my head onto the table or find a knife. Maybe I’d ask Cormac to run me through with a trident. To finish what he started all those weeks ago.
Shay’s healing magic washed through me, mixed with masculine and sexual energy that made my back arch off the table as his lips met mine. I reached out, grabbing his braids and pulling him toward me. Allowing a single moment before I remembered what he was trying to do.
I pulled away. “Let me go,” I whispered.
“No,” Shay growled.
“I don’t want to sit on the throne again.” I pleaded, my eyes filling with tears. I reached up and placed my hands on his cheeks. “Don’t make me. Let me go. I want to go. Let me go.”
I fell back, the darkness closing in again, even with Shay’s healing magic coursing through me.
Shay Mac Eoin cursed again and pressed his lips to mine as the world went dark.
I was carried to the throne room between two guards. They looped their arms under my shoulders and dragged me through the water. Shay remained by my side, and though he attempted to help me, the guards made it clear that Shay would meet the sharp end of their blade if he touched me again.
When King Irvine had sat on the High Throne, the shock had nearly killed him. Though it was a well-guarded secret amongst the undine, my uncle had taken to his bed for a fortnight and lost most of the blood in his body at the hands of the throne.
The elders, a collection of undine council I had never seen or met, had declared that no woman was strong enough to sit on the throne. Part of a campaign to instill Irvine as king after my mother's passing.
The High Throne tainted all that touched it. Its power was too hungry and demanded too much.
My head sloshed, and I struggled to keep the contents of my stomach inside my body when the guards dropped me at the foot of the replica throne—in front of Elaine Cruinn, like a sacrificial offering.
My limbs folded, and I drifted to the floor, pressing the heel of my hand to my eye as the pain stole my vision for a moment.
Rainn and Tor stood on the other side of the room, but I couldn’t look at them.
I shouldn’t have blamed them, but I did. They knew how much I didn’t want to return to Cruinn, yet they had left me alone at Balor’s mercy.
Whether they had gone to the harem to get their dicks wet was irrelevant.
I hadn’t expected to be saved, but they hadn’t even tried.
Elaine, or rather Balor, had successfully pushed my mates away from me. Proving that, once again, I wasn’t enough. Not enough to save the undine from their own greed. To save the lake from Balor’s poison and the war that would never end.
