“Where angels tread…”
He grinned, and before she knew it, she was standing in the center point before the throne, slowly spinning around looking at the immensity of it all—the charming enclaves, the infinite sections set aside for nothing more than gathering.
She felt him looming behind her seconds before his voice slid down her body. “Do you want to see your home, my Queen?”
She didn’t answer, a silent tear treaded down her cheek, then she spun around and slammed her fist into his chest.
“What is this?” she asked as she went to hit him again, but this time he caught her, this time he showed aggression, and it was exactly what she was looking for—needing—she even sighed in relief.
He did care.
“This is how you fight?” she raged.
“You want to fight with me?” he asked in a sharp tone.
She jerked free from his grip and turned, walking across the stage, away from the throne of a kingdom he had laid at her feet.
“I only know how to be loved jealously,” she admitted. “I know how to destroy a room with rage, and I know how to give a shoulder so cold no fire can melt it.” She turned sharply to face him, extended her arm, and pointed. “You taught me to fight that way. What few fights we did have when we were here before were as so.” She lowered her hand. “And every single fight we’ve had since you have returned has been that way.”
She lifted both her arms to the side. “And then you give me this, all of it. You damn well know what happened last night. You fucking felt it and you do this. You stay away all night. Send your fucking men to me as guards then don’t say a word when I return. Not until the sun rose and the hell of my night was put to bed.
He stepped forward, power rippling off him, so much so that the white birds resting in the countless flowerbeds took flight.
“You want me to be angry?”
“Yes.”
“Because you regret it?”
She shook her head as even more tears fell.
His smirk was cold, vindictive. It was the look of a true king. “You poured your soul into your lover, and then hours later, your kiss devoured the mouth of my sworn enemy, or so the fates say. And you do not regret it?”
“Ex lover,” she whispered as she trembled on.
“Why?” his voice bellowed across the stone kingdom.
She jarred back. “It was the only way to save their lives.”
He took one more stride toward her.
“The only way,” he repeated
“As I saw it then.”
“And are they alive?”
She gasped at the absurdity of the question. Then she got it, he was fucking forgiving her. She charged forward. “You listen to me, if you ever—I mean ever—did that, I would not give a fuck what your reason was. Do you hear me? I would redefine the meaning of vengeful.”
Right as she went to push into him, he clasped her hands again. “The vim you gave him was us, this entire fucking faction. And when you laid your lips upon my sworn enemy, you didn’t touch him. Your lips touched my vim. I know it to be true, or I would be invading Crass’ prison now to free you.”
“You knew it was going to happen!”
“I knew Crass was asking too many questions throughout the Veil for him not to be up to something. We have been infusing Cashton with our vim since he returned. We told him what spell to use.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I would have, when I saw you off—but you are the one who left without one backward glance, days early.”
She ripped her arms away from him. “ So, that was my punishment? To be blindsided? That could have went down a million ways. Dagen giving me a heads up would have been fucking nice.”
“Dagen didn’t know. He knew what spell to give Cashton, and he knew Cashton had to be strong, hidden from who he was.”
She shook her head in denial. “And Ambrosia? Sending your men face to face with her? Do you want Revelin to find you? Do you think he will not be able to reach you here?”
Now, they were circling each other, vicious warriors preparing for a fight.
“No, I don’t think he can, and no I do not plan to hide like a coward from him. This faction needs allies, and again, you would have known that if you came to me—there was no way for me to know Adair and you would both anger her in one night. I thought we had time to plot perfect alliances; instead, I went with the faith that your love for me would find the perfect terms under duress.
“Hours after I slammed my vim into my ex and moments after my lips brushed across your enemies—you had faith!”
“You heard me.”
She flinched toward him. “It was too dangerous.”
He leered. “It worked beautifully on both accounts.”
She went down, her hands raking through her long locks and her body trembling, aching for a place to hide and sort out her past. “And sick regret is mine.”
“You said you didn’t regret it.”
She glared up at him. “Shame.”
He stepped forward, so close it looked as if she were bowing at his feet.
“And why do you have shame, Reveca?”
“I love you,” she said across a breathy cry. “You are me.” Her eyes searched his gaze. “I’d surrender it all for you. I fear nothing more than a division.” She closed her eyes for a long moment. “But I keep grasping for it because I know it’s coming, and when it does, it will hurt worse than death. It will be my demise.”
She clenched her fist. “I’m too weak for it, King. I admit it. I should leave you, prepare for the feeling I know I will feel when you face Revelin again, but I can’t.”
She looked to her side. “And because I can’t, I should leave my family behind. I should pretend the only life I have known for some time is null and void and come here with you. Prepare for any fight we can muster. But I can’t.”
She looked up at him. “I am the girl you found here. I am the witch I became. And I am yours.” She searched his eyes, which gave nothing away as to what he was thinking. “I can’t divide the two. If I see a way to help or protect my family, I will use whatever is in my grasp. Including your vim, energy you need to reserve.”
She stood in one fluid motion. “You’re going to have break free from me, King.”
He narrowed his stare on her, and the pair of them began to circle each other once more.
“I’ve met men like Dagan before,” she said. “Kingmakers. He will not allow me to hurt you, and you have to claim your power.”
King nearly growled out his next words. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing beyond the truth. He will not let anyone hurt you. He will not lose you.” She lifted her chin as she kept to her prowl. “It was the look in his eye, King. It was the look that told me he knew I’d betrayed you. He knew our business. That’s not how I do things. My affairs are private, and my people know what I want them to and nothing more.”
“How you do it?” he repeated. “You mean, it’s not how you and Talon do it?”
She jarred back.
He smirked. “You want me to fight like him, you want my men to treat you like the Sons treat you.”
“Fuck you.”
“You want me to do that like him, too?” Reveca charged him, and he caught her, pinning her arms behind her back. “I’m not him. I came first, Reveca.”
She twisted to get free, but it was hopeless. He wasn’t using strength to hold her in place, it was vim. In all truth, he didn’t even have to touch her to hold her.
“Everything that drew you to him was me. The way he led, the way he faced danger. His reserve. His ability to make hell look like paradise.”
Reveca didn’t speak because it was true, she always knew it to be, but at the same time, for every similarity, they had a hundred differences.
“I’m not taking his place, Reveca.”
She trembled with his words.
“I’m not him. And I never will be. I will l
ove you the only way I know how. My way.”
“And your way airs our transgressions to your people,” she accused.
“Nature revealed to my first in command you were in danger. He’s a smart man, he knew what Talon needed. It didn’t take much for him to gather what was occurring.”
“You make it seem so sterile,” she spat.
“It’s not,” he hissed, a breath from her face. “You think I fucking enjoyed it? You think the urge to destroy you both didn’t cross my mind? Do you think that I thought twice about imploding the entire fucking city of New Orleans?”
She was silent.
“That’s what you want to hear isn’t it? Because that is what Talon would’ve done. He would have said it and done it—then you and he would have fought over his lack of control.”
She squinted her eyes closed.
He let go of her, but she couldn’t move, the vim was pinning her in place. As he prowled behind her, she felt his anger wave against her flesh.
“Do you feel my power,” he breathed against her neck.
And just then, she did, not the standard serge of vim but what he had always given her—raw seduction, heated waves that would have brought her to her knees if his energy was not holding her in place.
What he was doing now wasn’t a flirtatious pass or even a lust-filled rush to grab her attention. It was more than she had ever felt, and she was sure she could not take much more and live to tell about it.
“That is not even a breath of it, Reveca,” he said as the tips of his fingers traced her neck, birthing warm chills. “Do you think a man with a short temper and jealous streak could be fit for such a power?”
She didn’t answer, sure it was a trick question. He was not only both, but also he owned the power.
The pace he took to circle her was agonizing, mere seconds felt like centuries.
“Would it be wise?” he asked, when he was before her again. “Answer me,” he bellowed.
“It’s not the mood, it’s the heart that matters!”
The slight flicker of agreement in his eyes was the only reward she received for her answer.
“This power has to be managed. It takes will.” He clenched his fist. “Creator forgive me, it was the only gift Revelin gave me—he taught me how to manage it.” His ice blue eyes feathered down her. “I learned to observe, to expect, and when shocked, to digest before I acted…for my actions would be detrimental.”
He circled her once more, ever so slowly. “You’re upset your actions were sensed by one of those in my command. The one person who covets us both.”
“You. Dagen covets you.”
“Both,” he said just behind her. “There is no division.”
A gasp left her, but she held her words.
“You are upset I did not arrive and breathe vengeance upon the one soul you were trying to save. That I didn’t destroy your Boneyard—cause the Sons to rise in battle, distract them from the siege they are under now.”
She slammed her eyes closed hearing the absurdity of it all. “I wanted to know you cared.”
“With blood? Is that how I show you I care?”
“Stop it.”
Long, tense silent moments passed as his pace circled her and the surge of his vim waved through her, one glance from him would be all it took for her to reach an explosive climax. She kept her eyes adverted on purpose, refusing him the satisfaction, the control.
“I agreed with you, Reveca.”
She didn’t look at him, she couldn’t, she was too focused on telling her body to back down and doing her best to channel the vim in a different direction.
“He needed to be saved,” King tilted his head. “However, I’m sure we could have found a way to save his dignity.” He glanced over her eyes that would not meet his. “But then again, my love adores revenge, and in your mind, Talon had a debt to pay you.”
Reveca flinched forward, managing to move some.
“A sin I forced him into,” King said evenly.
Reveca shot a brief glare at him, but then had to look away. “I didn’t see you forcing him to fuck anyone.”
“No, but he thought it was best for us to be together.”
“And why is that again?” her tone was thick with sarcasm but stained in a truthful inquiry. Why did her vengeful lover give in so easily?
He leaned forward, “You know.”
She shook her head and then slammed her eyes closed again.
“You do. I felt your awareness. The very moment Windsome showed you we had never been apart…our energy colliding.” He breathed his next words down he neck. “What we created.”
Those three words might as well have stroked her very soul. They were enough for her body to convulse with the erotic rush of a climax she had now failed to hold in, much less hide from him.
His lips feathered across her temple, and his vim pulsed rapidly through her, wringing out every ounce of sweet misery.
“It’s too late for us, Love. We are one soul, and there is not a damn thing either one of us can do about it.”
Her eyes flew open, meeting his.
“The separation was an illusion. If either one of us had taken the time to understand where the comforts that we could not see but only feel came from, we’d have known as much.”
She was feeling control come back into her body. The rush had left her in a blissful haze, one that took away the sting of the night she had endured away. It placed distance between those moments and this one. The lore she knew was prevailing in her memory, as prevailing as it was the last time she was in this land.
“Couldn’t be,” she breathed.
His words were filtering in her mind, and so was what Windsome had showed her.
As understanding came, fear and denial ushered in right behind it as her gray gaze fluttered around the world she was in, and once again, she heard her father’s words. “This will be yours, child. A man of great measure will rule with you. I’ve seen it.”
Chapter Four
Reveca glanced to her side over to the castle that was now perfectly etched into white stone and aligned with bark of the same shade.
In her memory, she could see her father standing there, his eyes distant but searching as he tried to grasp everything his vision had shown him. Reveca was certain he was staring right where she was now standing. “A humble heart will shield you from the truth for a time. The power will come gently, secretly…it is beautifully crafted to protect your people, child.” Her father squeezed her hand. “Trust the trials will have made you strong, and trust enough to bend, for even the strongest branches sway with the wind of change.”
Reveca was only seven when he said such things. Being the daughter of a prophet had its downfalls, mainly the ability to ignore the predictions for they were too far away and held little weight, especially to a girl who only wanted to play.
“Ironic, is it not?” King asked, matching her gaze as if the memory was his too.
“It’s not true.” She looked at him right as she felt the hold he had on her relinquished. “This isn’t over. You’re not safe.”
He stared into her eyes. “Not yet.”
“King, tell me what the hell is going on. I can’t do this—read through the lines, assume.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? How about for the fact I haven’t spent ages in another realm with a God or dark angels. I have lived in a mortal world in a mortal life.”
“That would be a stretch,” he said with a lifted brow.
Reveca pointed her finger at the castle. “I didn’t live here. Where magic is spoken of by the moment, where imagination is afire, and where the talk of warring Gods was a common conversation at any table.
I’ve been in army camps. I’ve been on battlefields. I have lived in a world where healing or having any independent thought would have been enough to execute me at one time. I live were magic is myth, and the people are cut off from all of nature.”
“Where we have been is not th
e matter, Love. It was circumstance we endured.”
“King.”
He crossed his arms. “Zale knew what neither one of us did.” He glanced around. “Or at least, he knew part of it.”
Reveca’s mouth fell open, appalled at the very idea of Zale knowing anything she didn’t.
“He said we were one, undividable.”
Reveca could find no fault with this notion, she’d always felt that way.
King nearly grimaced. “Meaning my enemies are yours.”
“Of course,” Reveca agreed.
King stepped up to her, “You’re not getting it. The reason you fell so sharply, without warning, five years ago was because I died.” He reached to cup her face in the palm of his hand. “When I waver, you do.” He tilted his head to the side. “When Zale said as much, my plan was to separate us.”
Reveca jerked away from him, pissed as ever.
“I wasn’t going to let you die,” he said through gritted teeth.
“And what exactly is living?”
He turned his head away. “It was more than you. You and I are one, and everything we created is us.”
It took her a moment, but finally, it sank in. Her eyes grew wide with rage, so much that she was sure if Revelin was there, then she’d be strong enough to take him down on her own—at the very least claw his fucking eyes out. “My Sons!”
“All immortals you created, a clean sweep. My death, yours, it’s all it would take.”
“Now. You are fucking telling me this now! Did you not think to tell me this when you figured it out? Or was it fun to watch me face off with Latour, Crass, and Ambrosia—are all these brushes of death turning you on or something?”
He clenched his jaw before he spoke. “You know the answer because you know the prophecy.”
“You told Talon this, he destroyed us because he wanted to give our family the best shot, and to top it all off you didn’t fucking believe I loved you—that I always have?”
He stepped up to her. “I didn’t tell him shit, Zale and Jamison did, and I made it clear to him this threat wasn’t imminent and I had time to divide us. He took matters in his own hands.”