Page 94 of Crownless King

He stomped around the room, his tail lashing around his legs agitatedly.

“Do you realize what you got yourself into, Sparrow? What you gotmeinto? Your boy is a prince by birthright. He’s the only heir to the throne this kingdom has right now. Sooner or later, someone will come for him. Either the king or his enemies, I don’t know who. But I don’t want to be a part of it in any way. I want to have nothing to do with Elaros and its power struggles.” His voice boomed like thunder in the confined space of the house. “Nothing!” He slammed the tabletop with his hand.

I drew my head into my shoulders, faced with his temper.

“Do you want Aithen and me to leave?” I asked quietly.

We had nowhere to go. But we couldn’t stay here any longer against the will of the owner of the house.

Bavius knew that, too.

“Fuck!” he roared, shoving at the table so hard it tipped and crashed to its side. “Fuck!” He stormed past me and out of the door.

I slammed a hand over my mouth to stop a sob. Then I tried to straighten the table, but it was way too heavy and cumbersome for me to handle it alone. Leaving the table where it was, I paced the floor between it and the stove.

Thoughts buzzed like a swarm of angry wasps in my head. In the past few minutes, I’d lost a place to live and gained…a bonded mate.

A mate?

I stared down at my breast. The letters V and S were unmistakable, even if the lines were still unevenly carved, deeper in some places and shallower in others. Inside the deepest parts, gold glistened. Thorns and flowers were also visible around the letters, forming a beautiful rosette.

Human love transcended magic and could form a bond. Only it made no sense.

Why now? When Voron and I weren’t even together and never would be.

How was I supposed to live with this? The mark claimed me as his woman more effectively than a wedding ring would. Yet he thought me gone. The whole world thought I was long gone, never to return.

“This is insane,” I groaned, rubbing both hands over my face. “Just crazy.”

But I had much more pressing concerns to address. I’d just lost a roof over my head. Where would I take my son now? How would I keep us both alive?

I felt terrible about the way this conversation with Bavius went. He was angry, and I searched for my part in that.

Maybe I shouldn’t have kept the secret from him for this long? Maybe if I told him sooner, on a calmer day, without his nerves being already frazzled by the unwanted visitors, he’d be a little more understanding?

Either way, I needed to talk to him. If he really wished us gone, maybe I could at least negotiate a few more days to buy me time to figure out where to go? Maybe I could find another isolated place somewhere, where people wouldn’t care who I was and where my baby came from.

I ran to my bedroom to change out of the dress Bavius had torn, then grabbed a cloak from a hook by the door and stepped outside into the biting wind.

Shutting the door behind me, I hurried across the yard and along the path that led out into the fields.

The hooves of Bavius and the many generations of his ancestors before him had formed and maintained this path. He used it daily, and I assumed that was the way he’d taken off. In his irritated state, his hooves would take him down the worn and familiar path, as his mind would be clouded by anger.

It was early evening, and the thickly overcast sky helped the darkness to set in sooner. Only the angry red glow of the sunset remained on the far horizon over the endless open fields on my left. On the right, the dark woods creeped close to the path.

Bavius’s deep voice boomed from up ahead in the distance. He was talking to someone. Yelling at them.

“You missed him. The king has left. Now, get the fuck off my land!”

He was furious. Probably still fuming from our conversation, but also with the added anger at whoever he was talking to.

I followed the bend in the path around the trees on my right.

Up ahead, Bavius faced two highborn men with their wings out. I couldn’t see their faces in the thickening darkness, but they both wore the uniforms of the royal guards.

Why would they be looking for Voron? How did they not know his whereabouts if they served him?

Both guards had weapons ready. One held a sleek crossbow. The other had a curved knife in each hand.

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