Page 102 of Fae Reckoning

And she’s fucking immortal…

“We fight,” Xeno said, his tone as stern as his jutting jaw. “No matter what, Wyn lives.”

Finally, something easy to agree on with the man who made no secret of his desire for my mate. “No matter what, El lives.”

I glanced behind us at Ry and West. Their faces were steeled with determination, constantly sweeping our surroundings for immediate danger. They understood what was at stake as well as I. They’d fight to defend Elowyn despite the personal cost to themselves. Their eyes met mine and held.

“About that,” El said from between Xeno and me. “Any idea how we actually kill the bitch now that we’ve proven she really can’t, you know, die?” My mate’s eyes vibrated with some untold, intense emotion as they darted to the two parts of her father’s corpse and Dashiell, still slumped over the king’s body, caressing his shoulders, as if he were fighting not to break into pieces himself.

My frown was deep enough to ignite my tattoos in a flash of flaring, distressed light. Whatever Talisa was, whatever she’d become, she wasn’t a normal fae. Therewere no others like her. No known way to end someone who could survive a slit throat—Elowyn had cut so deeply no one should have been able to survive.

A dragon roared so loudly that my internal organs jumped. I crouched into a fighting stance as more courtiers screamed. One wailed until her voice cracked. Ferocious thunder rumbled beyond the walls, and more of them tripped, stumbled, and staggered out the doors, some holding each other up, dragging loved ones to safety, shoving anyone who stood in their way.

Despite the fleeing courtiers, at least half of them remained rooted to the spot, pressed to the mirrored walls, unwilling, I presumed, to draw the attention of the sängmortarán queen who so openly hunted us. This predator enjoyed pursuing her prey. She’d made it well known how cruelly she would punish those who defied her. Even now, in a hall filled with varied murderous creatures, they feared the sängmortarán queen more.

Elowyn began to shake, the only warning before she ran for her father. I reached for her a moment before Xeno did, hugging her to my chest.

“My … my father,” she muttered as if only just now being hit by the full impact of the horror we’d witnessed. “My father … he’s dead.”

By the Ethers, was he ever.

“Shhhh,” I cooed instinctively as I’d done with Larissa so many times when she was a little girl and I her older, protective brother.It’s gonna be alright, I almost told El as I had Lari; only now it wouldn’t be. SoI simply held El tightly, unsure of any better comfort to offer when we couldn’t lower our guard.

“She killed him,” El said, sounding distant despite the warmth of her in my embrace. She gripped her sais at her sides. The curved blades were stained with the sängmortarán queen’s blood—for all the good it had done us.

“I know,” I answered softly, certain there must be something better to say.

“She just … killed him. She wasn’t supposed to be able to kill him. The royal magic should’ve protected him.”

“You’re right. It should have.”

“When it didn’t, I should have stopped her.” A stifled sob undulated along her spine.

The queen had retreated to her throne, where she perched, openly nude for all to see. At least she’d crossed one long leg over the other. She licked her lips at the sign of my mate’s sorrow across the room and attempted to catch my stare.

“No, El, you shouldn’t have,” I said with the kind of steel I hoped the warrior in her would respond to. “He was okay with Talisa killingyou, remember?” I pursed my lips at the unwelcome recollection that accompanied that one: minutes later, I’d myself stabbed my mate in the heart in a desperate attempt to save her. I plowed on before the memory of the betrayal on El’s face could hook its claws into me.

“You have a purpose far greater than saving a male who had no qualms over throwing his own daughter tothe ravenous dragons.” Was it the right thing to say? I had no idea. Regardless, I persevered, lowering my voice to murmur against her ear so no one else would hear above the tumult. “The dragons are free. We still have a chance. Maybe they can kill her.”

El went rigid in my arms. She breathed a few times, her gaze steady on Oren’s severed head, now gurgling a slow trickle of blood from the neck, then nodded.

Gently, I released her. Unable to resist the opportunity, I pressed a firm kiss to her temple, her dark hair plaited in pretty rows along her scalp to keep it out of her way for fighting. She’d joined me and others in smearing the inky, black-violet juice of the wild morand berry beneath her eyes and along the straight ridge of her nose as our ancestors had long done before heading into battle. Her many scratches, cuts, and deeper injuries were now largely healed, but she looked no less fierce, no less of a survivor. Each of her striking features that I’d grown to love was tight with a stoic strength.

By the blessed peace of the Etherlands, my mate was sexy.

In a vicious scrape of sound that pulled me from my admiration, Xeno asked, “What would Zako say?”

El laughed bitterly, darkly. “He’d say, ‘Death isn’t for warriors to mourn, little cub. Grief is a luxury reserved for the victors. Fight first. Live to lick your wounds later.’”

“Yup,” Xeno said, before adding in an affected, melodic lilt I assumed was meant to imitate Zako. “Now, are we going to stand around gossiping and sharpening our blades, or are we going to use them?”

“Oh, we’re gonna fuckin’ use them, alright,” El said in a rumbled growl.

She stepped forward to stare ferociously at the closest dragon, who was about a dozen feet away. Nostrils flaring wide, he stared back at her, dark, pupil-less eyes blazing with defiance. She stared harder—long moments passed while nerves twitched all across my body; that dragon alone could eat El, Xeno, and me before he was full—until finally the dragon lowered his eyes for a quick moment that I understood as agreement: he wouldn’t attack us. El bowed her head in reverent thanks before spinning her sais in her grip with the kind of fluidity of someone who knew the weapon nearly as well as her own limbs.

Clutching the curved blades, she scanned the panicked and cowering nobles, the guards who awaited orders, the serpents and other dragons, the many fae who had crowded into the hall to see what was going on when their peers had scattered in the opposite direction, the shuddering mirrored walls that scarcely ceased trembling, and, finally, our allies. West and Ry flanked Ivar, as if they didn’t fully trust the male who would have once stood at Talisa’s side as surely as Braque did. I didn’t know where Pru, Edsel, and Zafi had gone; and we’d left Hiro, Roan, and the others fighting off the last of the pygmy ogres and remaining guards.

El shouted, “You witnessed the supposedqueenkill the king.” A surge in conversation suggested some ofthe late arrivals hadn’t yet realized what kind of scene they’d walked in on. “She’s been killing her supposed subjects and allies for as long as she’s ruled and then blamed others for her actions. And she’s done much, much worse, more hideous fates than ordinary death.”

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