Page 107 of Fae Champion

“Rush, do it. Kill me and save everyone else.”

His eyes didn’t spark with his shock, his mouth didn’t alter its grim line.

I laughed nervously. “I won’t lie and say I’m excited for it, but…” I shrugged, not sure what one did in moments like these. “You know she’s gonna find the way to kill me anyway. I don’t have power or magic to resist her. She’ll get to me. So you may as well save everyone else and be done with it.”

My words, my conviction, dissolved into bitter ash across my tongue, coating my throat, dipping into my stomach and making it churn.

My last few minutes of life.

But I didn’t recant. Everything I’d said was true. The queen would find the way to get me. Whether it was today or ten years from now, she wouldn’t stop hunting me.

“Do it, Rush,” I whispered, unsure if he’d hear me at the end of the long array of people and the dragonling he’d spare by not sparing me.

But he swallowed so regretfully that I saw his throat bob. “Okay,” he eked out. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

His face was a testament of sorrow and grief so overwhelming that tears stung my own eyes.

He looked to the queen. “But if I’m going to do this, I want you to agree to my terms first.”

The queen’s brows rose. “You’re in no position to bargain.”

She ran a hand in the general direction of all of us, how many of us she was willing to slay to get her way—and she hadn’t even mentioned Pru and her kin, thank sunshine.

“True,” Rush said. “But if you acquiesce to my demands, I’ll go along with everything you ask of me … without resistance. I’ll be agreeable and carry out your every wish without complaint. Even once I’m eventually crowned king, I’ll still bow to your orders.”

Her brows arched more. “You’ll swear to this?”

Rush gulped. “I will.”

She slid back in her throne. “Very well, then. Let’s hear it.”

“Have Braque put up his silencing spell.”

My heart squeezed as if not allowing me to hear his terms were the greatest of his betrayals, not the fact that he’d just agreed to kill me.

The queen’s eyes glittered. “Of course. It will be our little secret. Braque.”

Braque rummaged inside his potions satchel while I glared at Rush. But the man I’d dared to hope might actually love me didn’t so much as deign to glance my way.

30.SOME OF US ARE MEANT TO WIN, OTHERS OF US ARE DESTINED TO LOSE

“We’ve reached a satisfactory agreement,” the queen crooned the instant Braque ended his spell of silence. Her lips bared her teeth in a grin so smug and feral that it made me grate my own.

“Not satisfactory to me, I’m sure,” I retorted.

“No, probably not, girl.” She shrugged elegantly, the jewels dangling from her crown swaying around her pretty face. “It’s just the way it is. Some of us are meant to win in this life, some of us are destined to lose.”

My back went rigid against the wall behind me, causing my many cuts again to sting. I swallowed my discomfort and glared down the line at Rush, silently saying,This is what you’re making me sacrifice myself for? This is whom you’re forcing me to die for?

Deep down, I understood Rush was as much her pawn as I was turning out to be. But it didn’t stop theheat of my blame as I aimed it his way so fiercely that I felt its burn in my stare.

He winced as if my ire were branding him on the inside. His eyes churned; I could make out the unsettled whirling in his moonlight irises from the other side of the friends who separated us. His brow furrowed into lines so deep I realized I’d never seen him this distraught before, not even in the arena, where he might be forced to face off with his buddies.

I glanced away quickly, my thoughts beginning to race as I wondered if there might be some way out of this I hadn’t yet identified. The queen and Rush had made some pact; I hadn’t. I’d said I’d allow Rush to kill me, but I could change my mind. There was still a chance I could fight my way out of this, that my powers, whatever they were, might shed their dormancy and save me just as they had in the arena.

My magic might still retain its secrets, but there was no doubt it simmered in my veins—if for no other reason than all fae possessed its gift, however slight.

The time for pretenses and subtlety past, I yanked on my chains; they didn’t loosen so much as a hair’s breadth. I tugged on them harder, putting all my strength, built over so many thousands of hours of training, into wrenching open their locks. The manacles rattled viciously under my efforts, causing the queen—and consequently Braque and then Ivar—to laugh raucously, as if there were nothing funnier in their entire upside-down world than a woman trying to defy her seemingly inevitable death.

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