Page 68 of The Cursed Crown

She'd freed him with her blood, binding them in a way neither of them quite understood.

Enough for the crown to accept her as part of him. As someone who had as much right to the crown as he. "So they banished you."

"They had no right!" Tharsen snarled.

She laughed. The jury was out on that. "They ensured no one could get to you other than your own blood. For years, you infested the minds of the younger ones of us, attempting to crawl your way in, but they were never desperate enough to think of freeing you."

Until her. He hadn't targeted her by chance; her abandonment issues and desperation to fit into a world not built for the likes of her had played a great part in his success, though her naivety was equally guilty.

"If you don't give it back to me—"

She didn't stay to hear the rest of his threat. He was an enemy. Perhaps an enemy she should have taken the time to eliminate, but crownless or no, Tharsen was a warrior who would have fought tooth and nail, and time was one luxury she didn't have.

She instinctively directed those beautiful, strange wings of hers to let her drop to the bottom of the mountain, and exited her cousin's prison the way she'd come in.

Khal and Teoran were arguing at the edge of the woods. She landed before them, more awkwardly than she would have liked. The new wings hadn't come with a manual.

They both took in her haggard appearance, or the crown, or the wings—she couldn't quite tell.

Rissa was fairly certain she would have been able to work it out, had she wished to, but invading people's thoughts without their approval was one ability she fully intended to reserve for foes.

"Wings," Teoran finally said.

"Well, I did have feathers," she pointed out.

She hadn't expected wings in a long time. Natural abilities had a tendency to burst out during a fae's teen years, and she'd never so much as felt the graceful limbs. "I don't think I can carry you, but I need to get to Rydekar." She knew it, as well as she knew that her name was Serissa. "Tharsen is still in the mountains. You were right. He’s a monster. I hate to leave you to deal with it…"

“Go,” Khal replied. “We’re right behind you.”

She gathered him in her arms, holding on tightly. The wings moved to encompass Teoran in the bear hug. “Come back in one piece.”

After a last look at her friends, she took to the air.

Of Land and Sea

Rydekar didn't take many things for granted. Not his crown. Not his people. Not his friends. The only person he was fairly sure of was Khal, and he even occasionally questioned his cousin's loyalty.

Then Rissa had entered his life, and he'd known everything he'd survived, everything he'd endured was going to be worth it, because fate had rewarded him with a mate.

Amate. How many folk could say as much? One out of ten thousand, a hundred thousand? But he had her, and nothing could take her away from him.

Yet, just a week before Rissa reached her majority he was called to his grandmother's side. Charlotte invited every lower king and queen in the realm to witness her giving her crown to him.

Him, not his father.

He remembered that very day, a day he might have looked forward to as a small, useless boy. But as the crown was forced on his head, he knew one thing. He had to let her go.

Rissa was young—too young for him, but he would have made it work. He wasn't the first two-hundred-year-old with a twenty-five-year-old mate. He would have been patient, befriended her until she felt their connection. He would have courted her until she saw nothing but him. But he was now high king, with a target on his back, and he had no intention of bringing a pure, innocent soul into the unseelie court.

The plan was simple. Wait a hundred years until Charlotte was satisfied enough to go on her journey to the Eternal Realms, where so many of his ancestors already dwelled, then pass the crown down; ideally to Khal, or one of his cousins, for all he cared.

But war had come to their shores, delaying his agenda again.

A war that had been nothing but a lie.

He should have seen it. He should have questioned everything years ago.

Rydekar rode at the head of his army, along with the seelie contingent. They were after blood, same as him.

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