AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And since Bane burned that kid alive not long after…
Well, bygones could be bygones and Victor was happy to give Bane his loyalty and support.
So far, things have been so easy for Bane. Even with his mate and dozens of his supposed followers working against him from within, his rise to power has been swift and smooth.
Deep down, I’ve never really believed that we could stop him.
I’ve worked as hard as I could to bring about his downfall, but always with a sense that I’m shoveling shit against the tide. No matter how many times Elsbeth assured me that the stars are on our side and that a queen will rise, when I close my eyes, I see Bane on the throne.
He’s loomed too large in my life for too long. He will always rule me, haunt me, even if by some miracle I manage to live to see him burn on a funeral pyre.
And that—that exact thought—is what I’m turning over in my head when Elsbeth opens the door to the cabin and says, “He’s dead, Kelley. Bane’s dead.”
My stomach begins to fizz and the hairs lift at the back of my neck in silent celebration, but my brain rejects the information outright. “No.” I shake my head slowly back and forth. “He’s not. I would know. I’d be able to feel the severing of our bond.”
“He hasn’t been your mate like that in a long time, sweet girl,” she says, crossing to crouch beside me on the floor, moving with strength and grace despite her age. And when she takes my hand in both of hers, I can feel her determination flowing across my skin. “The retrieval team just returned with his body. But it was just Kieran, Wesley, and Hamish. The rest of the Fey team were killed in the fighting with Maxim and Willow.”
I look up sharply, meeting her gray eyes and widening mine.
She answers my silent question with a nod. Most of the Fey were loyal to me to begin with and now the few who might have stood against us are out of the way.
And if Bane really is dead…
“The rest of the alliance will look to you to fill the void your mate left behind,” Elsbeth says. “They’ll support your rise and your need for vengeance. We’ll do the ritual out in the open now, let all of our people see you pledged to the sword and to uniting our people under just and humane rule.”
She tightens her grip on my fingers and lowers her voice, “This will be even better than what we planned. You, we can count on. Willow was always going to be hard to control. She’s too sheltered and innocent. She doesn’t understand what’s at risk. She would have shied away from the sacrifice. She would have seen only the horror, not the hope. But you… You weren’t just born for this, sweetheart. You were bred for it. Every time he laid hands on you, every time he showed you the monster in the hearts of men, he was preparing you for this moment and what comes next.”
I pull in a breath, hope and despair warring in my chest. “But if he’s dead, I can’t use him as a sacrifice to bind my fate to the sword’s. And even if he were still alive, we wouldn’t be able to conceive. We’ve been trying for years and even with the fertility charm, we couldn’t—”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Elsbeth says, a smile curving her lips. “When I was healing you yesterday, Kelley…I felt it. Another heartbeat, soft, but strong.”
“Wh-what?” I stammer.
Elsbeth nods. “Your scent was different, too, but I wanted to be sure before I said anything. I took a small blood sample to the medical tent. They confirmed it this morning.” Her smile widens. “You’re pregnant.”
Tears spring to my eyes. I press my free hand to my belly, wonder and revulsion rushing hot and cold through my veins. I’ve wanted a child for so long. I’ve begged the universe for a miracle more times than I can count.
And now my wish has finally been granted, at the worst possible moment.
If I go through with the ritual, this child will never be born. I will never see it smile or laugh or hold its sweet, heavy body warm in my arms. It will remain locked inside me, a power source for the sword, the third point in the trinity of connection needed to make me a queen it will be almost impossible to overthrow.
Trinity…
That part of the puzzle is still missing. “But will it be enough for the ritual?” I ask. “Just the child?”
“No, we’ll still need your mate bound and suffering,” she says. “But leave that to me. We don’t need him to be the man he was before. We just need him in the land of the living and there are ways to make that happen.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Our witch allies from New Orleans are preparing the body for the pyre,” she says. “They’ll switch Bane’s corpse for another the same size before they wrap it in linen and remove Bane to the underground cell. They assured me that summoning him won’t be a problem, as long as we don’t mind if he comes back with a taste for brains and the IQ of a slab of rotting meat.”
“A zombie?” I croak, shocked though I supposed I shouldn’t be. Elsbeth has dedicated her entire, very long life to the rise of a queen. She isn’t about to let something as minor as a supernatural treaty banning the creation of zombies stop her now.
“Yes.” She arches a brow. “Do you object to the plan?”
Do I? If I’m willing to sacrifice my own child is there any line I won’t cross?
“No, I don’t object but…” The tea I drank earlier rises in my throat. I swallow it down and tighten my grip on her hand. “We have to make sure he never gets out, Elsbeth. Never. If he does, he’ll—”
