Page 67 of Feral Guardian
“Are you going to be queen, or are you going to die in this pit?”
I just didn’t want to hurt anymore. I wanted to protect myself. I wasn’t able to make myself into the queen she wanted, but she made me into the monster I needed to be to survive.
I pick at some of the crisped ends of the meat. “I didn’t want to be a stupid, weak princess, so I knew I needed to do something no one had done before.”
“You are not stupid, or weak, and never have been,” he says, his voice stern.
Pain flares down my arm, the marks made long ago burning like the day they’d been carved into me. “You’re wrong.”
Alastair grabs my shoulder. “You have been young and inexperienced. Being young and inexperienced does not mean weak or stupid. Even at eleven years old I knew you were special, Lily. Someone important to me.”
My throat tightens around my response, and I shove the turkey leg in my mouth to avoid crying. The burst of flavor has me forgetting everything else. It’s sweet, salty, smoky, and a little tangy. The jam is perfectly caramelized as I’d assumed, and it’s gooey, sticky, drooly, to-die-for deliciousness. I groan in pure ecstasy.
“Alastair, this is amazing,” I say through my mouthful of meat.
“Manners, princess,” he says, then takes a massive bite. Then he grunts in surprise and talks through his mouthful, too. “But you are not wrong.”
“Are we going to get on the road today, or stay here?” I ask. It’s already noon, and I’m hoping we can have a day of rest.
“We’ll leave after we’ve finished eating and packing our gear. We’re not too far from town now,” he says.
I swallow my turkey and lick my lips to get the jam off. “Alastair…?”
“What is it, princess?” he says without looking at me.
“Why did you come to Fynren?”
He takes a huge bite—to avoid talking, I assume—but I wait patiently for him to finish chewing.
“Eat. You’re hungry, and all your magical expenditure needs to be replenished,” he says.
“I’ll eat when you tell me why you came to Fynren,” I say.
He glares at me with an annoyed look.
I scowl back at him. “Had you forgotten what I’m like all those years apart?”
“No. I had hoped maybe you would’ve become a little less stubborn, but I think you’ve only become more cunning.”
I grin. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. Despite how much agony your stubborn cunning puts me through, it makes you all the more a queen.”
He takes another large bite, eyeing me as my stomach groans.
“Eat,” he commands.
I shake my head. “Why did you come to Fynren? Why not be an Illyan royal guard?”
He sighs. “Because the only person worth protecting is here, next to me.”
My stomach flutters and I take a small, delectable bite.
“More,” he demands.
“I’ll eat more when you answer another question.”
His magic glows brightly in his eyes for a blink and I smirk. “Why me? Why am I ‘the only person worth protecting?’” I say in a mocking tone.
