Page 153 of The Fallen Fae King

Still, this feels like offering her my most precious glass possession, which I have held safe in my palms for months, and trusting that she will hold it as carefully as I have.

My breathing has become ragged.

“Aurelius has his army and his Golden Family,” I explain. “And I have my featherglass and my Frost Clan. One of them died. She was my best friend. Three of them remain. I raised one of them. He was only a baby thrust into my arms to save when I ran that day, leading the others from my burning court. He’s like my son.”

The words are out. I can’t take them back.

Freya is staring at me in shock. “You have a son.”

“I said that Bai was like my son. He’s nine and more mischievous than I was at that age. I raised him along with the rest of the Frost Clan, especially Ela. We all did our part. Bai is my personal attendant, the youngest member of the featherglass. Wren acts as our druid. He’s the heart of the featherglass. They’re my family.”

Freya’s expression is cool. “You kept them secret from me.”

She looks like she bloody hates me.

“I’d lost almost everyone — twice,” I plead. “I can’t lose anyone else.”

“Aren’t we co-conspirators?” She demands. “I thought that we were on the same side.”

“We are. But I was keeping you all safe by⁠—”

“Hiding things from us?”

“I’m telling you now.” My eyes gleam. “I never hid that I had a plot. That I was a bad guy. I have shared more with you than I have with anyone — my bloody soul. But my duty to the Frost Clan is separate to my vows of love to you. I swore to my da as he was dying that I would protect the Unseelie. Please, understand how bloody hard it is to have conflicting duties, responsibilities, and demands of love. It’s been tearing me apart.”

Freya’s expression gentles.

She cups my face. “When do I get to meet them?”

Relief surges through me. “Soon, I hope. They’ve been bloody impatient to meet you too. It’s not that I’ve wanted to keep you apart. I can’t wait for you to become part of my Clan. I have been desperate for you to travel to my kingdom and find a home there with the Unseelie. But I couldn’t risk⁠—”

“Their lives,” she says, slowly, as if figuring something out, “mine, or the game of Shadow Kingdoms that you’re playing.”

“The first move is to save Lanlin.”

Freya buries her fingers into my feathers, rubbing her thumb along my newly grown pinion feather, which is more sensitive than my other ones.

I hiss in shock.

Instantly, I am hard and panting with pleasure.

“You’d risk your life for our pack. You’d protect your Clan. And you’d give your soul to me. None of those are in competition. I’m not jealous. I love you, my devoted fool of a fae.” When Freya leans to kiss me, I realize that she never bloody hated me. She just loves me as foolishly as I love her. Then she draws back and breaks me with a word like I knew she could. “But if you leave to meet with the Frost Clan, you come back home safe because I can’t live out our dream alone.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Guild of Assassins, Shadow Court

Lanlin

“You.” I point with my chained hands across the Sun Arena. “Don’t chase the blade. Watch their shoulders. A sword tells you nothing; a body tells you everything.”

The ragged, half-starved young Eternal with crooked teeth nods shyly, before ducking her head. “Yes, sir.”

Then she returns with renewed determination to her sparring across the pit’s floor, which is stained with dried blood.

I wrinkle my nose at the scent of sawdust and sweat.

When the guard prowls around the edge of the arena, slicing down their whip across the Eternal’s back for no other reason than boredom, I snarl.