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“We’ll get them back,” he said, “at all cost.”
My three other mates had said the same thing about getting Elvey back, and look how that had turned out.
“I won’t get them back if it takes you away,” I said as unfamiliar cold dread invaded me.
“I don’t matter,” he said roughly. “You matter, and they matter.”
“Don’t you dare say something like that again! You matter just as much,” I exclaimed, angry tears spilling from my eyes.
If he hadn’t had that kind of idiotic belief, he wouldn’t have been tricked by the evil queen in the first place.
“We’ll get them back, my heart. I promise,” he said confidently.
“Don’t promise,” I said, sobbing into him. “Promises are meant to be broken.”
My three former mates had promised to love me and devote to only me forever. And how soon they’d forgotten all about it.
“Shush, love. I’ll make sure mine stands.”
“They’ve betrayed me, Elvey,” I said, clinging to him. He was all I had now. But with certainty, I knew Elvey would never abandon me. He had proved it for a millennium.
“Things might not be what they appear,” he said carefully.
“I saw them. Iokul was painting her toenails.”
“Yet in the middle of it, they still called you. They might not know, but their souls called out for you.”
“How do you know?”
“We all share the mating bond. We’re all bonded. But it seems I’m the only one who knows how this works.” He pushed my hair away from my face and brushed his lips over the tip of my nose. “Your mating bond to them is still whole. It hasn’t broken. If they’d truly betrayed you, it’d have been cleaved, and you’d have felt the pain as if a force tore your soul apart.”
I had been feeling the soul-tearing pain, but I wouldn’t tell Elvey of it and add it to his pain.
“What do you mean?” I asked pathetically.
He smiled. “It appears that the Challenge between you and Tianna has its own definition of betrayal and its own arbitrary rules. No matter, cheer up now, my queen. Leave tomorrow’s trouble for tomorrow. I’ve just claimed you, and I want you to sleep peacefully in my arms. I’m a free man for the first time. And we’ll come up with a plan to get them back.”
I studied him, and when I spoke, my voice was uneasy. “Why aren’t you jealous?”
My other three mates had been constantly jealous of him and of each other. Jealousy was normal in a romantic and sexual relationship, right? Unless Elvey didn’t want me that much.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted in the universe, Daisy Danaenyth,” he said, cupping my face. “For centuries, I never stopped longing for you. I learned to accept my fate of only being one of your mates—if you’d want me—a long time ago. I had centuries of practice to get rid of any jealousy I might feel. However, love, I did envy the dragons when they had you and I could only watch from afar.”
“I love you,” I said, and suddenly realized that I had never told other mates that I loved them, though I had loved them, and I still did, despite my bleeding heart.
His eyes burned with the star fire, and he kissed me again.
He fondled my breasts, and I moaned against him, needing him more than anything.
Elvey rolled me to my stomach. My heart pounded at the thrill anticipation as he moved on top of my back. With a swift, hungry, and powerful thrust, he drove into my wet heat again.
13
The next morning, when Elvey and I arrived at the throne room, my court was waiting outside for me.
The Challenge was between Tianna and me. We were forbidden to murder each other during the truce. She wasn’t allowed to order a direct hit on my court, and neither could I. However, our subjects still had the free will of forgoing the rules, discarding the consequences, and slaughtering each other.
The dark Fae who belonged to my court trailed after me along with part of my army.
