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Tears threatened my eyes. I let them come. If I tried to hold back every tear today, I wouldn’t survive.
Malachi leaned his head on mine. A silent agreement, an unspoken promise. I wouldn’t be going through this alone. I wouldn’t have to carry this burden by myself.
“Your strength is inspiring, my queen,” he whispered before pressing his lips to my temple. “We’ll get through this together.”
I didn’t speak. I just took a few long breaths, taking in Malachi’s presence behind me, before opening my eyes again and stepping toward the door. “It’s now or never,” I said, choking down the emotion that threatened to erupt. “Let’s show those bastards they can’t take me down that easily.”
When Malachi didn’t follow, I turned to look at him. The amount of utter pride in his expression was almost enough to drop me to my knees.
“I know you don’t feel like you belong here all of the time,” he spoke. “But you are the best queen these fae have ever known.”
He grabbed my hand and we walked to the dining hall in silence.
Five minutes later, I was staring at five dead bodies.
Hanging from the ceiling of the dining hall.
The roaring conversations in the room around me seemed to halt. Blurs of wings and colors passed by as my vision locked in.
Nobody seemed to pay any attention to them. The entire dining hall was packed full of citizens, silently going about their business and eating their breakfast.
“I assume this was your doing?” I asked Mal.
His eyes darkened as he stared at the corpses. “This crime was not going to go unpunished.”
There might have been a younger version of me that would have been mortified by the image in front of me. Blood continued to drip on the floor from each of their impaled bodies.
But today? A bright ball of satisfaction lit up in my stomach.
They had paid with their lives. By Malachi’s hand.
And I knew more than anyone that Malachi was sending a message with this act.
I turned my attention away from the bodies and back to the room full of fae. “Everyone’s staring at us,” I whispered to Mal.
“Don’t worry,” he assured. “That’s nothing new.”
We walked to the head table of the dining hall, the one that was reserved for Malachi.
Even though he rarely ate here.
Servants greeted us as soon as we sat down, our backs to the wall with those corpses hanging in my direct line of sight.
“My queen,” one servant asked me. “We have fresh fruit, picked just this morning from our fields. Absolutely divine.” She set a massive bowl in front of me with an assortment of colorful fruits.
I nodded my thanks, but I didn’t miss the sparkle of pity in her eye.
At least the servants cared.
Malachi’s tension spread to me as we sat there, but his chin didn’t drop an inch. He looked everyone in the eye as they stared at us.
Part of me wanted to look away. The other part of me welled with a familiar pride that reminded me of the way he had looked at me earlier.
My king.
I was completely thrown off guard when a body slammed into mine from the side, wrapping me in a tight hug.
Adeline.
