Page 60 of Fae Exile

Apology scrawled across his grave face, he gave a single sharp shake of his head.

So she knew.

I’d never had to work so hard to force a believable smile to my own face.

For Elowyn, I could do this. For my sisters and for the fae who’d suffered so much at her hands.

She crooked her finger at me, and when I managed to get my feet to obey, her smile dropped.

Her blood-red lips curled into something akin to pleasure, and she hissed, “Rush, you betrayed me.”

21.BATTLES TAKE ALL SORTS OF SHAPES

~ RUSH ~

My brittle smile faltered as I stared up at the queen. How could someone so hideous on the inside be so objectively beautiful on the outside? Serpents should slither from between her perfect red lips to suggest her true nature.

“Your Majesty?” I asked, hiding the unease that washed down my torso.

Though I stood only a few steps away from my brothers, the distance was too great when I suddenly feared she’d strike any one of them to punish me.

While she stared at me with eyes that burned like the coldest ice, I scrambled to anticipate the best explanation for our being in the dungeons. We went down there to identify the source of the shaking—to protect her and her reign, of course.

We should have left the burnt-orange dragon restrained. But then we would have been as heartless as she was.

My attention flicked once more to the guard, who wouldn’t meet my eyes this time. Or could this be about releasing the four children she’d condemned to execution?

Or it might be something else—or a combination of so many situations. I’d never once been on her side, and she was too cunning to fool entirely.

“Whatever it is I’ve done to betray my queen to whom I’ve sworn allegiance,” I uttered, “I beg Her Majesty’s forgiveness and plead for the opportunity to make things right.”

There was a time when diminishing myself in such ways would have stuck in my craw, but not anymore. Not with Elowyn out there to protect. Not now that we were so close to success. I’d do whatever it took now to see our plan through so I could get back to Elowyn.

Anything.

Including the very last thing I’d ever want to do.

“Perhaps Her Majesty will invite me to visit her in her private chambers? To show her how much I appreciate her understanding?”

I heard someone’s breath hitch behind me, but couldn’t decide whose it was.

I tilted my gaze downward, proving my subservience. There, not two feet from where I stood, beneath chunks of cracked stone, rested clumps of dust, a reddish gray from where they’d mixed with Idra’s or Yorgen’s blood. Matted strands of Idra’s hair, once a straw blond, snaked across a chunk of marble pillar, now the muddy oxidized brown of dried blood.

The warrior in me itched with the urge to protect my neck from the dangerous predator.

“No, Rush,” she said.

My gaze jerked up at the eerie resignation in her tone.

“You’ve betrayed me one time too many. And after I granted you leniency with that”—her lips curled—“girlyou claim to care about.” She shook her head. Her crown was pristine and perfectly straight despite the chaos that engulfed the throne room. “I never would have guessed you’d be so stupid as to throw away every opportunity I’ve offered you—and for that ridiculous girl. For all that I do see, I didn’t see that.”

“Your Majesty,” I started. “Please. Nothing is lost. We can still?—”

“Wewill do nothing.” She snarled, then sighed as if contemplating a strain as heavy as the pillar that had crushed Conroy. “I’ll have to start all over again. Prolong my reign even further as I search for a new suitable heir.” Her eyes glimmered, belying the insincerity of her feigned regret.

She shifted to view my brothers behind me, and every muscle in my body tensed, my jaw clenching so hard my ear drums popped.

“I suppose one of them might do, but they’d have a long way to go to prove they’re more loyal to me than to you.”

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