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It was the wrong thing to say. I sounded like a petulant child. It was as if that seven-year-old boy had resurfaced, all the pain and confusion from that night washing over me like a tidal wave. I’d woken to flames outside my window and found my parents’ lifeless bodies on the floor, blood pooling around their heads. My brothers had almost died in that same fire. Their nursery in a separate part of the castle from mine had gone up in flames. Hadn’t it been for the sacrifices of a few brave servants, I would’ve lost my brothers, too.
Then our queen had come, and she held me while I cried in her arms. She’d taken care of everything, from finding my baby brother a nursemaid to hiring a steward to maintain the estate until I’d come of age. But most importantly, she’d held me many, many nights, letting me cry out my sorrows while singing me to sleep. She’d been more than my queen, she’d been my surrogate mother. And now I was supposed to accept that the story Malvolia had told me about my parents’ death was wrong?
Blaze’s feathers stood on end as he paced in front of me. “She’s our mate, Drae! I swear, I don’t even know you right now.”
Nikkos landed beside Blaze, kicking up dust and rocks as he looked at me with murder in his eyes. “Did you want to tell her you were attracted to her?”
I looked away from their penetrating glares. “No.”
Blaze let out a string of curses. “She forced you to tell the truth.”
I worked hard to unclench my jaw as reality settled over me like an icy bucket of water. “Yes.”
Nikkos’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Her parents didn’t kill our parents.”
No. They had to have been the killers, because if not, then our queen was lying. Our queen. How I’d adored her all these years. Had her motherly affection for me been nothing but smoke and flame?
I clutched my chest, which ached as if it had been split open by an axe. “There were witnesses.”
Blaze folded his arms, giving me a look that bordered on a mixture of pity and disgust. “They either lied or else they were tricked.”
“How?” I shook my head. None of this made any sense. “They saw Flora and Derrick slit our parents’ throats.”
Blaze jutted a foot forward. “Who saw?”
“The servants.” I tossed my hands in the air. “The guards. Malvolia’s mages.”
Nikkos rubbed his chin. “And they just stood by while it happened?”
I shrugged, realizing their story didn’t make sense.
“What if they were too afraid to tell the truth?” Blaze asked.
Smoke poured from my fingers as I glared at my treasonous brother. “Are you suggesting our queen’s mages did it?”
“I don’t know who did it.” Blaze’s gaze shot to my fingers as he took a step back from me. “But if Shirina says nobody can lie when she uses her siren voice, then I believe her.”
“Which makes you an even bigger asshole for treating her so badly,” Nikkos spat.
I swallowed at the censure coming from my youngest brother. In all my years, I never recalled Nikkos being cross with me. “She lied about the girls’ fathers.” My voice faltered as the words sounded flat even to my own ears. It was the only defense I had, and I realized more and more I was a fool.
Blaze gaped at me as if I’d sprouted horns and a tail. “Are you just looking for excuses to hate her?”
I backed up when both brothers advanced on me, their feathers standing on end. “No.”
“You’re really fucking up, Drae, and believe me, you might not care now, but one day you’re going to regret it.” The disgust reflecting in Nikkos’s eyes brought me to a new level of low. “We could live five hundred years, fight in dozens of wars, serve many other queens, but we will only haveonefated mate.”
Elements, he was right. One fated mate. I’d never find another Shirina.
“Listen to my words very carefully,” Blaze spoke through a hiss, his words searing the air between us. “If you so much as look at her the wrong way again, I’ll pummel you so hard, you won’t be able to fly for weeks.”
