“Your rage—you wear it like a cloak. It is constantly with you, a reaper leaching off your back. Feeding upon you and every motif you’ve ever had. It’s what drives you, thrills you. In fact…” She paused as she sipped from the glass. A bead of the wine trailed down her perfectly painted lips, and she swiped it away with her tongue as her eyes remained on me. “I’m willing to bet you wouldn't know who you are or what to do without it.”
My eyes darted back and forth between hers. “And what makes you sense this?”
She huffed out a vicious laugh that would’ve had any other male cowering before her. Something had changed in her, and fortunately, I knew exactly what it was. Perhaps I could make that work to my advantage.
“I recognize this in you, for it is a mirror of myself.” She took another sip. “What happened to my son, Adler? Why have you arrived with such little numbers and not a single prisoner in tow?”
Interesting that she would ask about her son before her mate, but she didn’t know the extent of the knowledge I held.
“We were ambushed.”
“HOW?!” she screeched as she lunged forward in her throne, the word violently bouncing off the walls, jostling the wine in her glass.
My eyes flared. “Elianna…”
Before I could get another word out, she cut me off once more. “Your job was to bring my children back to me and be rid of her! I did not give a single fuck about those pathetic fae that felt they might find a better-suited life outside of Isla. They werenotthe priority.” Her brows knitted together as she pinched them between her thumb and forefinger. “Does she still breathe?”
I swallowed. “She does.”
The queen’s stare snapped back to me. “And my son does not?”
Silence blanketed the room, but it was deafening.
“Many do not. Your son being one of them.”
She let out a shuddering breath and sipped her wine. “How.”
A demand.
I chose to omit the scene of our initial attack on the mortals and cut to the moment of the answer she sought.
“Somehow, Elianna received word of our arrival once beyond the Sylis Forest. She arrived on the back of your wyvern that she initially escaped on, and many were lost in the blaze, including the prince,” I lied. “There was nothing that could be done.”
“And Callius was among them?” she asked, but her amber eyes shone with a fiery intensity.
She was silently testing me. While I lacked a mate, I knew of their legends. Everything was felt between the two bonded souls—even physical pain. She was trying to bait me into a lie, but she didn’t know that I knew better.
The look on Callius’ face, as I plunged my sword through his gut, flashed across my memory, and I knew that if the queen were to believe me, I had only one chance to get this right.
“He was not, my queen.” Her eyes softened the tiniest amount. “You see, the wyvern burned through its flame, as it had many times before, beneath this very castle. When that happened, both Elianna and her few companions stepped foot on the soil of our camp.”
Her breath hitched, and what could only be described as pure, hate-infused dread etched itself into her features.
“Queen Idina,” I started. “No, Callius was not lost in the blaze as your son had been. Elianna gutted him where he stood and fled on the back of her wyvern once she realized they were still outnumbered.”
I waited for her to speak, but no words found her, so I continued the lies. “I was across the camp when I watched her and a few others ride the wyvern into the smoke-hazed sky they had created. I was forced to listen to my soldiers' agony-filled screams as their flesh melted from their bones. By the time I had reached Callius, his breaths had turned staggered, and his wound beyond repair without the assistance of a healer.” Both her eyes and nostrils flared. “But he did ask something of me.”
Her head tilted to the side in confusion. “And what was that, Adler?”
I dramatically looked to each of my sides, to the guards that stood at attention next to me, and then met her stare once more.
“I don’t believe it’s something that you would want others to hear.”
Braynon’s eyes whipped to me, nearly burning a hole in the side of my face.
“Everybody out,” she demanded, barely above a whisper. When no one moved, she screeched, “Getout!”
As if they were startled rats in the castle’s dungeons, the guards and handmaidens posted throughout the room scattered, fleeing the chamber instantly.
