Page 76 of Crowned By the Fae King

I cupped my hand around his ear. "You have to do something about that!" I said, pitching my voice over the wind of our passage. "People are going to get hurt!"

His ears pinned back, but he pulled up, beating his wings to take us higher. "I might hurt them," he said grimly. "The guards are under orders to minimize their harm. If someone grabs you, I—" Cass panted. Thunder rumbled in the distance. "I don't think I'll handle it well," he ground out.

People kept flailing at the guards, trying to claw their way to the palace.

I gnawed on my lip. "I know, but you can't keep ignoring them. Look at them." The wind snatched at the worshippers. A brightly-colored scrap of cloth tore off of a woman's head and tumbled through the air, carrying it away. I frowned at him when he didn't say anything. "Seriously, Cass. It's like a horde of superfans desperate to see their pop idol. It has to be you."

He let out a low growl. "Fine. Hold on," he said, and stooped into a dive.

The people had enough self-preservation left that they scattered when they realized the Merciful King was dropping out of the sky at them. He flung his wings out moments before impact, flinging dirt and grit into the air, and landed heavily on the stone in front of the drawbridge. The impact sent cracks radiating across the ground, dark lines that flared with sunlight before settling into dusty earth.

A woman cried out in rapture. People rushed forward.

Cass roared.

It wasn't a sound a man could make. It was the roar of a tiger, deep and vicious. Even held in his arms, even with the soulmate bond, all my blood went cold.

Everyone stopped in their tracks. The air went perfectly still, and perfectly silent. One person stumbled and fell, then scrambled backwards for the safety of the crowd.

He kept his wings mantled, menacing with them like the weapons they were. "That is enough," he said, pitching his voice so it carried. "I have been tolerant. I have ensured you remained unmolested, and granted you forbearance. This is how you return my gentleness?"

"Your glory—" someone started.

Cass cut them off with a snarl. "Do not name me as one of the ancient gods," he said, his voice cold. "Call me 'your splendor' if you must. Chant prayers I don't hear and beg for miracles I don't intend to grant. But I am not a god. I'm a man, and I demand you treat me as such." He raked his gaze across the crowd.

They stayed silent. Someone started crying.

"You injured my soldiers. You trampled my fields. You frightened my Queen," Cass continued ruthlessly. "Enough of this. Go home."

A fae girl stepped forward, trembling. She looked young; no more than fifteen. Small horns curled up from her forehead, and a long tail coiled behind her. "Most of us don't have homes, your glor—splendor," she said, her voice shaking. "My father threw me out because I wouldn't let him cut off the horns and tail you gave me back, like he had when I was an infant." She pointed at a man. "His village is a forest." To a woman. "Hers, too."

Sorrow seeped into me from Cass. His grip on me eased, and his wings relaxed partway down. "There was to be space set aside outside of Taeskana for the local refugees."

She bit her lip, looking away, her ears turning like an anxious animal's. "You may not be a god, your splendor, but we know this Court is under your hand more than anyone else's, even the goddess'. You're our hope, but, um… not everyone agrees? We weren't welcome."

Cass closed his eyes for a moment, breathing carefully. The sky darkened—but instead of the storm I expected, dreary gray clouds collected, promising cold and misting rain.

He wasn't simply controlling his body with magic. He was meditating. I could hear him counting in the back of my mind, so like how I dealt with my own sharp emotions that I almost laughed.

"If we set up another place for you, will you go?" I asked, trying to be loud enough for people to hear, and to give Cass time to reel himself in without locking his emotions down with magic. "This isn't going to be a good spot to camp once winter hits, and even with His Splendor caring for the land, it's going to be torn up and reek of… well. You know." It already did smell faintly of sewage.

People started murmuring, looking at each other and at the sky. The girl wrapped one arm around herself, looking around as if she could find someone else to talk, but she was in front, and no one else stepped forward.

Her tail tucked forward between her legs. "Would you come? Sometimes?" she asked, flinching when Cass' wings flared again and a flash of lightning lit the sky.

I gave his braid a light tug, trying to bleed off some of his tension. I knew he hated this—being worshiped like this, and the nexus of everything. Too bad, I thought briefly. He was who he was, and there was no escaping it.

"Of course we would," I said. A few visits to desperate people who were only looking for hope seemed like a small price to pay for peace. "We won't put ourselves in danger, and we expect the respect you would give to any other Monarch, but it's not like we plan to stay up on this rock forever."

Being. Free? With my… favors? Cass asked silently, the effort of shaping the words loudly enough in his own mind for me to automatically overhear them obvious. The words were even tenser than his shoulders.

Y-E-S, I traced on the back of his neck.

He shivered, a pleasant tingle running down my spine. "Are we settled?" he asked in a dangerous voice.

People murmured. I saw some nods; heard some agreement. No one protested when the fae girl nodded her head, worrying her lip between her teeth.

"Good," he said, and launched us back into the sky.

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