Page 96 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
The amphitheater rises from the cliffside. The tiered seats curve beneath the overhanging ceiling, hewn directly into the rock. One wall is missing—by design, not decay—opening the place to the sea, where lightning dances across black waters and the cliffs plunge without mercy. The salty tang of brine presses inward.
It’s a chapel built not for prayer, but performance. Not to worship saints, but to satisfy gods who crave a barbaric spectacle. The vacuum of Alaric’s presence makes the oxygen feel thin, like we’ve climbed too high, too fast.
“Forget love,” he snarls, hands clasped behind his back. “I want you to makeheras indifferent to him as she is to me. Make sure she never loves anyone else.”
I hesitate. “I can’t do that.”
He narrows his eyes. “I know about your pet Faeling waiting in your bedroom. He’s the one you truly care about, isn’t he?”
Heat drains from my face, my heart, my stupid, dumb brain.Percy.
“Now you’ll carve that arrow for me. Make her numb forever.”
My hands shake. “I can’t.”
His voice drops. “I’m getting real tired of hearing those words from you.”
“I’ve been cursed. I can’t use my magic anymore,” I roar over the wind.
He spins around to face me. “Cursed?”
“Yes. If I were to craft a forbidden arrow for you now, I’d be dead within the hour.”
His eyes are black, but he’s listening. The scales of lyranthium bristle, one end tipping inward to bite my skin, the other hovering in mid-air. They no longer offer any coverage, but threaten to slice me open instead. A thousand tiny diamond-shaped knives, poised to strike. They tickle my flesh—my collarbone, my ribs, the swell of my breasts—ready to kill at his command.
I must look like a sacrifice laid bare at his feet, dressed in nothing but two strips of black mesh. My nipples are hard in the cold, outlined clearly beneath the mesh, my stomach bare, rising and falling with shallow breaths.
Alaric stares at my body beyond the spikes. His teeth are clenched, his nostrils flaring, but his gaze lingers on my chest. On my hips.
He hesitates, lips parted in a mix of cruelty and sexual arousal. “I love her, and she just…dismisses me. Insults me. She doesn’t deserve to be queen.”
The Storm King doesn’t like being rejected. His feelings for Tatiana make him vulnerable, and that’s the part he can’t stomach.
“To love someone is to hand them a blade, hoping they don’t twist,” I say. “Loving Tatiana means giving her the power to hurt you.”
His tongue darts out to touch his bottom lip. “I’m no good at giving away power, I’m afraid.”
“We have that in common.”
Alaric disgusts me, but in his darkness, his desire for revenge, his hunger for power, there’s a piece of my reflection. Everything I hate about myself is in there, magnified tenfold.
He spins around toward the sea, and the dress sighs, its links and pieces trembling over my skin as it settles back into place.
A long outcropping juts from the center of the concentric stone floor, narrowing as it stretches over open air. At its end rests an altar of lyranthium. No railings, no steps, just a smooth, wet stone that rises up to my midriff.
“What is this place?” I ask.
Alaric runs his hand over the slab, caressing it. “Do you know what a traditional Storm’s End wedding looks like?”
“I never had the pleasure, but I would assume the bride and groom have to fuck, like everywhere else.”
A slow, wicked smile spreads on his lips. “That’s right. No musicians. No silverware. No tarps. No pretending this ritual is anything but primal. The groom claims his bride right here” —he slaps the slab— “in front of his peers and under the fury of his gods. Seth might talk a good game and look the part, but he’s no true Storm Fae. He’s soft, like you.” He walks over to me and grazes the flesh of my arm from shoulder to wrist. “You need a man bold enough to possess you, Lady Eros.”
Behind his heated words—phrased to appeal to women in search of a passionate lover—I hear a different truth. This man wants to own his wife.
He motions to slab again. “There’s no silly phrases or sugary vows. Only a willing bride surrendering herself to her husband.”
“Glad to hear she’s got some say in it.”
