By then, the rejoicing crowd began to realize Shrike intended to carve through them, and those nearest to him scrambled to make way. Shrike hardly heeded them. He strode forth, the tide of courtiers parting before him, Wren half-dragged along behind. More fae fled from Shrike’s wrath as he stormed down the spiral stair, out of the bower, and across the flowering field. He met no gaze as he went, looking ahead to the tree-line.
Nor did he cease once he reached the forest, instead marching on in furious silence. The Beltane revels faded to the merest echoes behind him. He heard nothing from Wren at his side all the while. The silence grew as they drew within sight of the briars encircling Blackthorn, as the vines parted before them, and as they entered the cottage garden.
No sooner had the thorns grown over the path behind them than Wren jerked to a halt.
Shrike, still holding him by the arm, halted as well. He turned to look at Wren—the one thing he couldn’t bear to do ever since the queen had laid her sword upon his shoulder.
Wren still held her gyrdel in his fists. His palms turned white where the chain’s links dug into his flesh. Shrike felt those same links wrapped around his heart and cutting tighter with every beat.
“What just happened?” Wren said, his voice low and urgent.
Shrike forced the impossible words out despite his clenched jaw. “The Queen of the Court of the Silver Wheel has named you her Holly King.”
“Has she ever crowned a mortal Holly King before?” Wren demanded.
“All Holly Kings are mortal by definition.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Wren snapped. “And you know it.”
“No,” Shrike admitted. “She has never done so, to my knowledge.”
“Then what the Hell is she playing at?”
“I don’t know.”
Wren stared up at him, his gaze darting between Shrike’s eyes in search of answers he didn’t have.
To see Wren look upon him in fear clove Shrike’s heart in twain.
“I should never have brought you before her,” Shrike blurted. “I ought to have left you safe in the bower. Or better yet, in Blackthorn.”
Wren stared at him. “You cannot possibly blame yourself for this.”
Shrike could see no one else to blame. “If I’d swallowed my pride and lain with her—”
“If youwhat!?”
Shrike balked at the sudden outburst from his beloved. In an instant, Wren’s aspect had shifted from fear to rage. Jealousy, Shrike thought—yet even as it occurred to him, he realized he erred. He’d had jealous lovers before, not keeping them long after he realized their flaw, and what he saw in Wren’s face now wasn’t that same maelstrom of envy and wrath. Wren’s rage was borne of something else.
“To give your gyrdel to another is to declare your intention to lie with them,” Shrike explained, though it didn’t seem to do much good.
“And by giving it over to me,” said Wren, “you declared your intention to lie with me instead?”
“I made my preference clear,” Shrike admitted.
“If your preference isn’t for her,” Wren continued, no less heated than before, “then why is your lying with her even a possibility?”
Shrike thought the answer obvious. Still, he said nothing. This didn’t seem to do much good, either.
“What claim has she to your body?” Wren demanded. “None, but what you grant her of your own will. Only a coward would ask you to submit yourself to her whims to preserve his own hide.”
“If it would keep you safe—” Shrike protested.
“If it would keepyousafe,” Wren shot back, “would you want me to sacrifice my own body to her bower?”
The very thought sent a flood of wrath through Shrike’s veins. “I would slaughter her and her whole court if she tried to take you.”
Wren raised an eyebrow at him, as much as to say he thought Shrike ought to realize his impulses were mirrored in Wren’s own soul.
