Julius laughs, the sound low and dark. “You’ve been usurped, my dear.”
The men all wear the same scale-like armor that Eira and Balthasar wear, but their eyes are wholly black, devoid of any human emotion. These are not their men anymore.
Their souls have been replaced.
We draw our weapons. Swords whine from sheaths and I unstrap my axe from my back.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Julius purrs.
He snaps again and a guard trudges up the dais from behind a stone archway, his dagger held at the throat of a woman. With raven black hair and slate-blue eyes.
Odessa.
She staggers on her feet as the guard roughly shoves her beside Julius. A long silver gown twists around her feet as it trails behind her. Her slate-blue eyes scan the throne room, widening when they fall upon me. Tears line them, threatening to fall as her bottom lip trembles.
“See—a family reunion,” Julius chuckles darkly.
But even as he speaks, my eyes don’t leave her. She’s tall and waif thin. The toned body that the imposter wore must’ve been what she looked like before her kidnapping and subsequent torture, if the scars marking her arms and chest meant anything. Her hands are tied with a thin black chain, the links so small they resemble that of a snake’s scales.
My blood heats, rage boiling up within me. I take a step forward, but Odessa jerks her head from side to side.
“Un-huh.” Julius wags a finger at me and nods at the guard, who presses the knife against her throat.
The blade nicks her skin, and a bead of pure scarlet runsdown her throat and soaks into the glittering silver gown. “You’re going to stay right where you are. Or my rejected mate will have her throat slit.”
His words thunder through me. Rejected. Mate.
Freya’s words from days ago ring in my head.“To deny the bond is to deny fate. Some choose to set sail on their own paths. And it has not ended well.”
I snort. Lachlan and Eira whip their heads to me with twin looks of horror on their faces.
“Is all this,”—I gesture around us—“because you got your feelings hurt?”
“Easy,” Lachlan whispers, gripping his sword tighter in front of him. I shake my head, lowering my axe.
But Julius stands rigidly by the throne, a snarl curling his lips.
“How utterly unoriginal of you. To declare war across the realms because you were spurned by a lover?” I scoff.
His eyes narrow on me before he’s flicking them to Odessa. A well of unending sadness opens when she meets his gaze.
“Is that what you think? That she spurned me?” He licked up the column of her throat, lapping up the drop of blood that had oozed under the tip of the guard’s blade.
My mind grinds to a stop.
“She would have done anything for me, to fix me.” He laughs. “A mate is a weakness. A useless liability. Look what it’s done to you.” He nods to me at where I stand beside the love of my life. “And she,”—he glares at Odessa—“would have ruined me. Would have taken all that I am, the power I was destined for, and twisted it into a figment of my imagination.”
The air burns my throat as I suck in an inhale.
He turns his gaze back to me, the hatred in it gleaming like burning embers. “I was left on my father’s doorstep. Unwanted. A male born to a female-only clan of shifters. And while Marcus was a decent male and tried his best. Nothing could have beendone to make me normal. To make me good.” He spits the word out as if it’s spoiled food. “I was born with an insatiable need to conquer. Being a lowly council member’s son or the king consort to a kind queen,”—he scoffs, a snarl curling his lip—“pathetic. I was born for greatness. Even if I had to take it myself. I tracked down the woman who conceived me and she was horrified.Utterly horrifiedthat I had accomplished nothing. So I struck her down and set above achieving my greatest desires.”
There’s a rustle of wings behind us. My friends shift on their feet or settle into a more defensive crouch. Impatience looming like the calm before the storm. Waiting. Ready.
“So you’re saying being loved by your father and mate wasn’t enough?”
I still don’t understand his motives. He had love. And now he holds the fate of the world in his hands—unless I can take it from him.
“Love is a weakness!” he spits. “Love will cripple you, and hold you still, while it rips you apart to meld you to another person. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I had to conquer, not be conquered. And there’s no better conquest than ruling the world.”
