Page 144 of Crowned By the Fae King

How do you fight a god? You find a stronger one to protect you. You better hold up your end of the bargain, Faerqen.

Standing on a piece of Mercy no more than forty feet in diameter, surrounded by an enemy Court, I bared my teeth at a goddess.

She hissed at me like a snake, and stomped her heel down on Cass' spine.

Everything went suddenly cold and white. A shrill scream was cut off with the finality of snapping jaws. The crunch of bone filled the air.

The whiteout snow drifted away, slowly clearing until I could see the gaunt, enormous form of a black wolf, holding Ithronel's limp body in his jaws. Blood wet his mouth and dripped from her fingertips. Frost crawled down the feathers of Cass' wing, beautiful against the darkness.

"Clever mortal soulmate," Faerqen's voice crooned, curling through the air. He took one step and vanished in a swirl of snow, leaving me alone with Cass.

I staggered over and collapsed to my knees. Cass kept breathing, wet and labored. He didn't move, lying there facedown in the snow.

"Cassie," I said, my eyes burning. I almost touched him before remembering the opals on the glove, then peeled it off and threw it away from me, into the snow.

He coughed. Blood splattered the snow.

Cass was too big for me to move. I got my thighs under his head, though, keeping his face out of the snow. The Court of Mercy practically seethed, acting without my direction, turning all the tiny shards of iron in his lungs to rust.

It didn't help. The rust wouldn't poison him, but it would still slice up his lungs. Even time wouldn't help that. Turning the clock forward would only kill him faster.

"I'm… sorry," he said, his breath whistling. "My… fault."

Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away. "Don't be stupid," I said, trying to keep my voice light. "They were going to do this no matter what."

"Not… them." Cass shifted, pain marking his face, and wrapped his big hand around mine. "Us."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. A single tear fell and splashed on his shoulder, making a dark circle on his combat leathers.

It didn't matter what we were talking about. As long as he stayed alive. He just had to stay alive long enough for the monk's-tongue to wear off—to be able to cast again. To heal.

He wouldn't. I knew he wouldn't. He was hurt too badly; poisoned and battered, broken beyond repair. Poisons like that lasted for hours, and he had minutes at best.

I still sat there, hoping.

Cass smiled for me, a trembling expression. "I know… what I am," he said, every word labored. He coughed again, blood wetting his mouth and pain tensing his face. "Dangerous. Broken. You deserve… better." Another wet breath. "I believed that. Still… do."

"Cassie," I said, my voice thick with sorrow.

He squeezed my hand. "Doesn't matter. Didn't, ever." He swallowed, licking the blood off his lower lip. "What matters… is what you want. What… we want. And you always… chose… me." Cass rubbed his cheek against my thigh, lying there, back broken, lungs lacerated, loving me. "Could have… tried to be the man you… deserve. Aspired… to him. But I held back."

"Cassie," I said again. A hot tear escaped to splash on him. Another.

It felt like the universe had me in its grip. Like I was standing on the fulcrum of the world, with everything looking down at me.

"I'm sorry… it took me… so long," he said. "Could've had… more time."

"Stop talking like that," I told him, starting to cry in earnest. "You're not dying. You can't die. I won't let you."

The smallest smile tugged at his mouth. His eyes drifted shut. "Do you still… want me?" he rasped, blood flecking his lips.

"Of course I do." Agony speared through me, clawing at my ribcage. "Cassie. Of course I want you. Don't die. You can't die."

"I love you," he said. The sense of imminence grew stronger, like standing on the peak of our palace, looking at our thrones—like feeling the Court rouse beneath my foot for the first time. My soulmate's beautiful eyes in my soul, and perfection at my fingertips. He coughed, a wet sound, drowning in his own blood. "I… need you."

Cassie, I begged him through our bond, drowning in his soul. Don't go. Please don't go.

Cass took a whistling breath. He leaned the smallest distance and pressed his lips to my hand. It left a smear of blood. "I'm yours," he whispered, and died.

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