Page 37 of Consort

“Yes, my queen,” I say calmly. “Until Mitah provoked me, my magic was also weak, just like theirs. Today is the first time I’ve produced flames like that.”

She stares at me with a distant look in her eyes. After a few moments, she rises and walks over. I bow my head and steel my nerves as her power slithers across my body. Through the foul sensation, a whiff of the Omega’s sweet, floral scent slips into my nose, and I freeze.

I should have found a stream to wash up in before returning. What if the queen picks up on her smell? It’s too late now. There’s nothing to be done. She’ll notice, or she won’t. I did what I did, and I don’t take it back. I’m thankful I don’t know where the Omega is hiding. Or her name. No matter what the queen does to me, she has no way of finding her.

But the queen seems to be too preoccupied with something else to notice. She reaches up and places her grimy hands on my cheeks. Magic flows through her fingers as she sends something cold and intrusive into my skin. It’s almost worse than the physical connection I was forced to endure with her that first night.

I buried those memories deep in the dungeon of my mind. But as she touches me again, they claw at the bars, viciously trying to resurface. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, pulling forth a vision of the little shifter instead.

She’s on her back in the straw with her arms outstretched at her sides. Her sharp, green eyes peer up at me curiously asI hover over her body. I’m deep inside, teasing her by growing and shrinking the knot with each roll of my hips. The slightest smile is hiding in one corner of her mouth, and I’ve made it my mission to pull it forward and spread it out across her lips.

I become so wrapped up in the memory, I barely notice when the queen releases me. If it weren’t for the new magic now barreling through my veins, I might have stayed in the past indefinitely.

But this magic is too foreign and powerful to ignore. It’s frigid and erratic, fumbling through the maze of my veins as it tries to find its way to my core.

Its unwelcomed, but I won’t deny how untouchable it makes me feel. I was impressed with myself before, but now… Well, now I understand what I’m truly up against. The queen has given me a taste of her magic, and it’s almost too much for my body to contain. The amount of power she must possess is beyond my comprehension. Taking her down is going to be much tougher than I thought.

But the hardest thing to wrap my head around iswhyshe would share her magic with me.She didn’t do this simply as a defense against a single telekinetic. Why would a controlling, power-hungry ruler share her advantage with me? There must be a damn good reason, and I’m determined to find it.

But first, I’ll need to calm the battle raging inside me.

This magic is insanely powerful, but it feels tainted, like something stolen or cursed. My own magic is rejecting it, trying to purge it from my body. I’m afraid of who I might become if it remains in me for too long. And my magic seems to share that fear.

But something shifts as the new magic closes in on my heart. My fire stops resisting. It welcomes the icy energy, wrapping it in warmth until it settles. Both magics suddenly feel at peace instead of at odds. It’s like the queen’s magic sought solace inmine, then they merged into a single, dominant force that bows to only me.

“Burn the wall,” the queen commands, unaware of the alliance that just formed within me.

I move toward the wall she’s pointing at, but she grips my arm with her skinny, ice-cold fingers and stops me. “From here.”

I’ve heard the queen can strike from great distances, across fields or lakes, killing in an instant. If what I’ve heard is true, I should be able to burn the wall from where I stand.

Though I appear stoic on the outside, I’m dying to see what I’m capable of. I extend my hand toward the wall and visualize charring the light wood. I laugh as my blue glow blasts from my fingers like lightning, leaving a black scorch mark on the previously bare wall. With more control this time, I test my dexterity and slowly carve what I can remember of the queen’s crest into the wood.

“Well done,” she says with a hoarse chuckle, slipping her arm through the one at my side.

I ignore her nauseating touch and beam at my work. She can think me an arrogant noble, proud of the new strength she’s gifted me. But I’m simply imagining all the ways to use this magic against her. I’m itching to get out into the forest and test the extent of what it can do.

“Don’t use it unless you have to,” she says, stopping my fun before I even get the chance. “Grow the magic. Keep the power building inside.”

It’s as if she decided I was too happy, and she needed to crush me just a little. To keep me beneath her like the rest of the realm. I have no intention of obeying that command once I can work out why she’s given it.

She walks halfway across the room then turns as if she’d just remembered I was here. “Eat and rest. I’ll call on you when you’re needed.”

She turns back around and walks through the doorway leading to her chambers. Without me. I hurry in the other direction before she can change her mind and call me back. Though I’m relieved to be spared from her bed, a deep sense of unease rolls down my spine. The magic feels peaceful within my own, but I can’t help but wonder about her strange instructions.

I eat a quick meal in the dining hall, foolishly allowing the little Omega to interrupt my thoughts. But once she has, I can’t think of anything else. Her behavior was so different when she was in heat. She had moments of feistiness, but she was mostly needy and sweet. Once her fever broke, she was brash and rigid, no tenderness in sight.

I know when she woke, she saw me as the enemy. She immediately realized what I’d done to her body. There was no use trying to convince her I’d done itfor her. But I was impressed by her strength. It was clearly there before I met her, and that intrigues me. The urge to see more of her is overwhelming, but it’s a very bad idea.

I finally reach my room, exhausted and hoping for some rest. When I step inside, the two servants from the other day attack, stripping me of my cloak and tugging off my boots. I’m fully bare before I can even react.

“Filthy!” the sterner one scolds. “It’ll take more magic than I can beg for to get these garments clean. Better off tossing the whole pile.”

“No!” I yell, grabbing the cloak out of her hands. Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t try to take it again.

“This one stays,” I say more gently, pressing it against my chest.

As I watch her consider it, I wonder what magic they possess. All fae have some kind of magic. It must be mild for them to be servants to a consort. I want to ask, but rescuing the cloak is more urgent. I refuse to let go of it. There’s nothing the servantscan do to make me. With my additional magic, I doubt there’s a fae in the realm, save the queen herself, who could make me hand it over.

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