Page 29 of A Story of Mates and Temptation

“To war!” I shout at the sky. The sun rises, burning in the sky with reds and oranges like it knows, but as I look up, I see something new. Three bright, massive stars shine around the moon that is fading under the brightness of the sunlight, and they are casting their red, orange and pink light in dancing waves across the sky. Like a celebration.

If this is my last day in this world…I will spend it fighting for her, making sure she survives this, because nothing else matters to me. This world needs a reader like Story Moonsilver as a queen because her story will rewrite it all. She rewrote my soul after all, and it burns for her alone now. It always will.

Chapter Sixteen

Page Sixteen. I failed, but deities, if you still believe in love…please save her.

Iwake up with my face pressed against moss—stony moss—and the wind blows across me, carrying the scent of smoke in the air. Turning over, my head hurting like I’ve banged it a thousand times, I see the sky. The night sky and it is extraordinary. Bright lights of reds, silver, yellows, and gold are dancing across the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Screams echo in the air, just as a dragon swoops across the sky above me, blocking out the light for a second, and then it is gone. What happened? My head hurts the more I try to think about it, and a flash of light catches my eye. Not light. Silver. Like moonlight. I lift my arms, blinking as I see silver marks swirling around my skin. I know they’re everywhere, all over my body, even before I check. The marks are like Ziven’s, marking him as the King of the Dragons, but what do these make me? I don’t just have dragon markings; I have other symbols of moons, suns and stars. “You are our warrior, Queen Story Moonsilver, andthese marks are a touch of our power. With it, you have what you wish.”

What did I wish? Ziven. I touch my chest, knowing exactly what this means. Ziven is going to live. Memories of everything that happened come back to me as I hear more screams from a distance away, and I flinch. Ziven is alive and I need to get to him. His soul is mine now. And mine is his. I can barely breathe as I reach for him through our bond, and he is there, in the depths of my mind, like a shadow I’ve longed to see. “Where are you? What happened? When were you going to tell me that you were going to die?”

Silence for a second. Then—“Story… Thank the deities. Where are you?”

There is so much relief in his reply, and I can feel him through the bond. He is fighting nearby, and his relief makes my heart pound. I’ve always been connected to him, but this is so raw, so strong, and we are one and the same, now and forever. “I made the deities link my soul to yours,” I speak to him, my voice shaking even in my mind. “I woke up from our bed, and I was somehow in front of the books. We made an agreement, a deal that I had to make to save you, and I am mad that you kept it from me, that you took that power to save me, knowing the cost, but I only care that you’re alive right now.”

“I’d do it again.” His deep voice is steady. “I’m not apologising for choosing the path that was needed to win this war. To save you. I would save you again and again—and never once apologise for it.” He pauses for a long time and fear makes me want to run to him, even if my body is currently reeling. I shakily try to stand and grab onto a pillar to hold myself up. “What else did the deities take?”

Our child’s future. I can barely think it, let alone tell Ziven yet. He will only blame himself, and we have a war to win. I can’t get my mind wrapped around the thought of being pregnant or how it even happened in the first place. “Ziven, we need to win this war, or it is all for nothing.”

“We win or I’m flying with you and our people to safety. We won’t come back,” he vows, even if I know he would hate himself forever for giving up on the fae and I would, too. “Where are you? I’m above the city, and I sense you to the north. The city is burning, and the Silkvir are falling back. I see the vampyre king, but I am turning?—”

“No!” I shout. “Stay there and end this. I will come to you, and I’m fine.”

There’s a stillness to the forest around me that cools my blood, and I don’t think I’m alone. I don’t know how I’ve ended up at a temple, but it is now just broken pillars, retaken by nature, clawed back in by ivy and thorns. The trees form a perfect circle around the ruins, towering high, but they are trimmed back, and there is a clear pathway to the south. To the burning city. The forest will no doubt burn too, and I need to get moving before the smoke gets to me .

“I love you,” Ziven vows, like a vow of storms on a hot day. Vivid, strong, and endless. Like us. “For the fae. For you. It’s all for you, Storm.”

“I love you too,” I send back, and I push Ziven away in my mind, blocking him the best I can—making sure he doesn’t feel the sharp, cold fear that surges through me as I seehimstep out of the forest.

Prince Emyr. He looks at me like he can hardly believe I’m here in front of him, and neither can I. “I sensed you out here,” he says, voice smooth, eyes sharp. “Smelled you in the air, but I thought it was a trick…” There is a smile that sets my teeth on edge. “Did you come back to me? Have you finally seen sense and remembered how much you love me?”

I want to laugh and scream, to tell him that his hope is impossible. I am never to be used again. Or fed on. I will be with Ziven, and only Ziven, forever. Something breaks inside me as he looks at me with what I assume is how he thinks people in love stare. I lift my arms as it begins to rain, slow drops at first, but the coolness of the rain only fuels me. The silver markings on my body glow. Through my dark top and leggings. Through the night, they glow bright enough to reflect in his eyes. I smile as he shakes his head in disbelief. In fear. “What have they done to you?”

He moves fast—so fast. But it doesn’t matter. He can’t hurt me anymore. I saved a part of my soul, through all the years of abuse and pain he caused, and that tiny piece became a spark that burned into the woman I am now. The queen. The mate of King Ziven of the Moon Dynasty. I became what I was always meant to be. Shadows like Ziven’s but brighter. Mine. They wrap around me in a protective shield, and Emyr is thrown back when he gets close. The shadows swirl around my legs, turning silver—bright like the moon. They are protecting me and it is effortless. The deities gave me what I’ve always wanted—a way to protect myself.

His eyes widen as he looks up from the ground where he was thrown. He looks at me in fear, and if that isn’t a blessing from the deities, then nothing ever will be. I never had power, but I did have a deity watching over my every move. She made surethat if I needed power, I could have it. I could borrow it for just a second—to protect myself. The red light. All of it. It was her guiding me because they needed to be free. The mistakes of my ancestors are undone, and now to truly free this world, the vampyre king and prince, and all who stand with them, have to die.

“What have they done to you?” He keeps ranting as he rises to his feet and steps back. His Silkvir comes out of the forest, the stink of its rotten flesh hard to ignore as it bares its teeth at me, and bones rattle with every thud on the forest floor. The glow from its body, from the light somewhere within it, lights up everything in blue.

Emyr moves fast, stepping onto his dragon’s back and climbing up. “Come,” he demands. “We can go. Fly back to my castle and forget all of this. I will forgive you for all of it, Story.” He stares at me with the obsessive gaze I’m used to seeing, used to fearing, but I don’t anymore. He is one vampyre, and he is nothing. “I knew when I first met you that we were destined for each other and nothing would ever come between us. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I will change, and we can?—”

“No.” I speak the single word, a word he isn’t used to hearing. “You think I’m coming with you?” I take a step forward, the shadows flaring higher around me. “I am not your blood slave anymore. I am Story Moonsilver of the Moon Dynasty. I am their queen and I am his mate. The only male I belong to is him, and he is a thousand of what you could ever have been. I will forget you in time, and so will this world. I’ll make sure no books speak your name. I’ll make sure you’re a ghost forever, a nameless prince who died in the war as nothing… You should be terrified of me this time, Emyr, because this world—the one I will remake with Ziven—will not include you.”

Dragons rush across the sky above, shadows streaking toward the city, and Emyr screams my name as he leads his Silkvir towards me. My shadows make a wall between us, and the Silkvir slams into it, but it doesn’t dent. It snarls, smashing and attempting to crack the shadow wall, but nothing happens. Emyr is screaming and shouting for his Silkvir to get to me, to kill me, but he can’t get close, and I smile as I feel her.

A dragon crashes down through the rain clouds with a smack of thunder to hide her dive—Maeve. She lands on the back of the Silkvir, with her claws cutting through the Silkvir’s back and rotten flesh, the bones collapsing under her weight. Her jaws snap around his neck—teeth sinking deep—then she whips him into the air as Emyr leaps off to the ground. He runs at me, slamming himself into the shadow wall in a feral rage, his eyes burning with hate as his Silkvir dies behind him. He doesn’t look back or care. It’s my mother who lands behind him. My mother—who has never ridden a dragon—and all I see is her red hair as she lifts a dagger up. A familiar dagger. She slams it through his back, straight into his heart, and he silently gasps.

“For all the days you caused my daughter pain and for all the years you stole her from me.” She pushes the dagger deeper, her voice steady, cold and merciless. “You stole her and now you die for it, prince.” She twists the blade. “May the furious fires of the deepest hell keep you company.” She rips the dagger free—then plunges it back in. Deeper, and he screams this time, reaching for her, but my shadows snap around his body in a vise and hold him still.

I walk up to him and stare into his soul. He screams and screams and screams. “You lost.” And then—my shadows rip him apart. Into pieces. Into nothing but ash that scatters into the wind, and he is gone. The male that caged me and abused me for somany years of my life is gone. I never have to fear him again, and I know it will be years until I can really accept that fact and understand it.

In one final breath, I’m finally free.

My mother is windswept, her hair a mad mess like mine, and she wraps her arms around me with a delightful laugh, clinging to me tightly. I laugh with her for a second, only a second, and grin. “You rode my dragon, mum.”

Maeve snorts from behind us, the Silkvir’s dead body thrown into the forest in bones. “I knew we need the blood of fire and revenge to save you, my rider. Your mother is very similar to you and demanded I bring her.”

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