Page 18 of Fae Crown

She looked at him.

As did I.

Those silver eyes of his I so loved held steady, revealing nothing of his reaction, or if he even had one. His stoic face was relaxed, as if he didn’t care one way or another, but moonlight vines crawled rapidly up hisneck, across his jaw, over the bridge of his nose, as he pretended not to notice, that it meant nothing.

When it meant everything.

His emotions were as in knots as mine.

How dare she do this to him?!There was no good in the woman. None. Not even a speck.

I felt her stare back on me.

I ignored it, not wanting to reveal how much she was affecting me.

Eventually, I faced her.

The moment I did, she said, “And you all will watch.”

5.RUSH IS EAGER TO PLEASE

ELOWYN

And you all will watch.

Azariah was speaking again. I could hear his deep voice as it filled the cozy nook carved out of the larger salon, the decor so precisely orchestrated. But I couldn’t make out his words, not even the gist of them. Not even when it was vitally important that I absorb every rule and nuance of this twisted game the queen was playing.

Her declaration echoed through my thoughts until her slithery and clinging voice filled every recess of my mind. Not only did she intend to force Rush into her bed—surely violation enough, for fuck’s sake—but she’d invited spectators to whatever indignities she planned for him.

I struggled to absorb the all-too-real possibility that Rush would be forced to surrender his body as he’d warned me he would. As he’d resigned himself to dowhen he’d sent me off into the Sorumbra, hoping I’d somehow live despite my appearance otherwise.

How did we find ourselves here? How could I have been in the Wilds one moment, at the palace the next—so much magic at play, magic that could have been amazingly wonderful—only for the man I loved to be mistreated in such a profoundly personal way?

I couldn’t allow this to happen. I simply couldn’t.

But I could devise no way to prevent it that didn’t bring about the torture and likely death of the people and creatures Rush and I were working so desperately to protect, whom Rush had already sacrificed long years to keep safe. Did the goal of their well-being, and the well-being of countless other fae of the Mirror World, truly justify the methods? Could existence really be that awful?

One look at the queen and the satisfied grin she wore gave me the answer:yes, yes it could. She wouldn’t stop until everyone was a hollowed-out husk of who they’d once been.

Despite the threat to the connection between Rush and me—primal, ancient, and so fucking sacred it was regarded with awe by the entirety of faekind save one horrible person—I had to suppress the visceral urge to bash the queen’s head into the stupid, shiny gold plate set in front of her until it overflowed with her blood, drenched the tablecloth, and dripped to the floor in big, slippery gobs—until I could fuckingswimin it.

West and Ryder had only just reminded me how important control was. I fully understood I needed toshove down the righteous anger that was surging through me with the speed of a wind-fueled fire.

But who protectedhim? Who would keep her nasty claws away fromhim?

His friends, the men I knew he considered his brothers, were excluded from the night’s entertainment. And even if they hadn’t been, they’d been making similar sacrifices for as long as Rush had. “The ends justify the means” might as well be etched across their collective foreheads. Each of them wore the haunted look of a man condemned by his fate.

I shot to standing, slamming my palms to either side of my place setting, upsetting plates, crystal goblets, and polished silver. Azariah trailed off in what I assumed was mid-sentence, and a chirp slipped out of Braque from where he sat beside me, his chair squeaking.

Just as quickly, Ivar also rose to his feet, leaning onto the table. His eyes narrowed at me, his lips pressed into the stark line of disapproval I’d seen many times already.

“Take your seat,” he hissed at me while Braque’s pudgy hands slid to his potions satchel, ready to defend his precious queen from me.

With no one but the tyrant herself in my sights, I opened my mouth—to protest, to vilify, to ask her how she fuckingdaredcontemplate using Rush as her sex plaything over fizzy wine and fucking finger foods. Like she was actually civilized. Like the niceties of the formal salon had any kind of place inher vicinity. Perhaps to suggest she feel shame for how many lives she had ruined, tainted, and defiled as if the existence of others were some horrible cosmic joke.

But instead of the jumbled accusations that jostled to tumble free first, all that came out was a growl so ferocious, so vicious, I couldn’t help but think of the wolf West had likened me to.

It was the kind of warning—nay,a promise—that it would be the last thing heard before its target crossed over to the Etherlands. Or in the queen’s case, to burn for an eternity in the Igneuslands.

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