Page 64 of Fae Reckoning

“Her Majesty does have good in her,” Ivar said. “Everything she does is for the good of the kingdom. Anything that’s good for Her Majesty is good for Embermere. It’s thanks to her that the Mirror World thrives.”

Reed laughed darkly, which I doubted he often did. “Are those her thoughts or yours? You think the Mirror Worldthrives? What hole have you been living in?”

“A very opulent, luxurious one at the palace,” Ryder supplied with a scowl. “Ivar doesn’t live in the same world the rest of us do. He sees only whatshewants him to see.”

“That’s not true,” Ivar insisted.

The snakes began to rouse. Hiro’s eyes narrowed in focus on them.

“I accompany her on every trip she makes beyond the palace grounds. I see what’s out there just as much as Her Highness does.”

“Do you, really?” Ryder asked, a vein throbbing in his neck. “When’s the last time you saw the outskirts of Embermere?”

In spite of his restraints and a nest of freaking vipers living inside his body cavity, the malestiffened haughtily. “I’ll have you know I escorted Her Highness to the outskirts just four seasons ago. Everything was beautiful, lush and verdant, very evidently healthy and fertile. We are all fortunate to live in the Mirror World under her protection, and you are all ungrateful scum.” He stretched his neck to spit beside his chair. “You should be thanking her, not vilifying her.”

Ryder, Hiro, West, Roan, and I were exchanging loaded looks. Eventually Ryder said, “An illusion, it’s got to be.”

“What’s an illusion?” Ivar snapped.

Hiro positioned himself in front of Ivar. “What you saw,” my friend said with some of his familiar gentleness. “That’s not at all what the outskirts of Embermere are like. The area is downtrodden and miserable. The land is dying, its fae barely surviving. The earth is parched, dry, and brittle. The fae are frightened and suspicious. They live in constant lack. There is too little life there.”

“No,” Ivar denied instantly. “That’s not right.”

“No, it isn’t right,” Hiro said. “On that we finally agree.”

Ivar was shaking his head. He caught sight of the snakes, now undulating back and forth, and quickly averted his eyes. “Everything Her Highness does is for the ultimate good of her kingdom. Her subjects aresupposedto support her. It’s how it goes. They fuel her so she can look out for them.”

I stalked over to him and waved his cutlass in the direction of the fae who appeared half dead as theyclung to their lives. “Is this what you call ‘looking out for them’? By the Ethers, Ivar, are you out of your fucking mind?”

Ivar’s face hardened like stone. “No respect for her sacrifices,” he muttered as if to himself.

“What sacrifices do you think she’s made for her dear, darling subjects?” I pressed.

Evidently offended on her behalf, Ivar tipped up his head in regal fashion. “My queen has no need to explain herself to any of you, and I won’t do so on her behalf either.”

I felt my beloved’s approach before I saw her round me to lean behind Ivar. Fury hardening her features, she pressed a blade to his throat.

He stilled completely. The snakes did as well—Hiro giving her space.

Elowyn lowered her mouth to his ear and hissed, “You stood by while your cunt of a queen”—he bristled at the crude insult—“violated my mate.”

With Saffron’s head bobbing over her shoulder, she drew the blade across his throat in one swift slice. I believed that was it for him until the line of crimson that welled revealed itself to be shallow. She shoved the knife back to his neck.

Though surely Ivar was intelligent enough to view her cut for the warning it was, he sneered. “He was there of his own free will. He chose to come to her bed.” He stared up at Elowyn. “My queen is the most beautiful female in all the realm. Just because you’rejealous and don’t like that he made love to her, doesn’t mean it wasn’t so.”

Many things occurred at once, converging from many directions.

“What a spiteful, disgusting thing to say,” Elowyn exclaimed, her dagger digging into the slim cut she’d already made. “She made him forget me!”

“He didn’t want to be there,” West snarled at him, shocking me that he’d left Ramana to rise to my defense. “Fuck, of course he didn’t, you spineless piece of shit.”

Ryder, Hiroshi, and Roan were there too. Even Xeno’s face was flushed with what may have been anger on my behalf—or perhaps it was on Elowyn’s. So many of his reactions seemed to be about his best friendWyn.

To avoid the snakes, Ryder bent over Ivar from the side. “Just ‘cause Rush puts his duty above all else—a duty that involves saving this entire damned place, by the way, which means he’s also trying to save your sorry ass—doesn’t mean he likes what he’s got to do. That’s what a real male does, Ivar, ‘cause obviously you don’t know what real courage and strength look like. He takes the hits on the chin and keeps going because that’s how he protects those of us he loves.”

I gaped at all of them, my own protests dissolving.

Larissa appeared at my side, her smaller hand sliding around mine. I gripped it with ferocity as I struggled to quell a tsunami of emotion that arrivedwith memories of what it had been like to feel those females touching me as if I were their possession.

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