Page 26 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
“We felt nothing from you there.”
“Likewise. I felt nothing through my mark. I tried to summon Ediye too, but nothing happened.”
“What changed? How did you get out?”
“There was some kind of door. Or a portal maybe. Something blocking me. When I figured out the…key…I guess it’s a key?.. I still couldn’t feel you, but I tried Ediye again and it worked.”
Ashen looks at me for a long moment before he sighs, resting his forehead against mine as he closes his eyes. “That’s my vampire.” Movement in the periphery captures my attention as his wings curl around us until we’re shrouded in our own private realm. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I should have been. I never should have asked you to run. I failed you,” Ashen whispers. His quiet confession enlivens his scent with something sweet, like carnations stained with the blood that still coats his hands.
“Don’t, Ashen. We both made the only choices we could with only moments to decide. I chose to run. You fought so I could get away.”
“It is not enough.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“That’s not the point, vampire.”
“It has to be. We can’t change time. And we’re all safe. That has to be the only thing that matters.”
Ashen lowers his gaze from mine and I know I haven’t changed his mind. His anger, whether it’s at others, or fate, or the man he sees when he looks in the mirror, it cuts a wound too deep for me to heal with words.
I lay my hands to his face and pull Ashen into a kiss as his wings crackle around us. The taste of his lips fills the emptiness that’s gnawed a hole into me these last days. “Can we go somewhere?” I ask when I draw back and look into his eyes. The bright red rings that encircle his irises have dimmed, just a little. “I don’t even want to talk. Just touch. Just sleep.”
Ashen nods as his wings shift, opening our sanctuary to the world. When I look toward the door, Cole is there with his hand around Ediye’s. We exchange relieved, weary smiles as Cyrus passes through the door, dragging a terrified demon in chains behind him, two more soldiers following in their wake. Cyrus lurches to a halt as his gaze shifts between me and Ashen. He looks as though he’s been thrown from a routine and plunged into the unknown.
“My Queen,” he finally says with a bow of his head after what seems like a long moment of indecision.
My Queen.Fuck, that’s strange. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
“Heyyy-hi… hi-lo Cyrus.” Christ. So awkward. Ediye covers a snort with a cough. Ashen’s hold on my hand grows hotter, his attention squarely on the demon in chains.
I recognize the man from the battle with the hybrids. He’s the one who hit the beast in the eye with a blade. “What’s your name?” I ask.
The man swallows. “Pyrrhus,” he answers simply, until Ashen lets out a low growl and he tacks on “your grace”. Lordy, that’s just as weird as Queen. Maybe weirder.
“You were there in the field.”
Pyrrhus nods once. Beads of sweat dot his hairline. His heart hammers at double the pace of everyone else’s. I get the impression he’s been in this room before and knows what’s coming, but he tries his best to keep his fear from his face.
I regard Pyrrhus with a long look, watching as his chest rises and falls with quick breaths. “You missed the first time.”
We both know what I mean. Pyrrhus intended to hit me. His eyes flick to my throat as though remembering where he meant for his blade to land. “Yes,” he replies, his voice resigned to his honesty.
“You didn’t miss the second time,” I say, and Ashen’s rage flares all around me as he misinterprets my words. His wings crackle with sparks, the leathery skin sweeping across the floor as they expand. I squeeze his hand in a silent request for patience.
Pyrrhus casts a nervous glance to the furious demon behind me. “That is correct.”
“Why? You could have tried for me again. You didn’t.”
It takes Pyrrhus a long moment to consider this. His gaze drops to the floor before returning to mine once more. “You,” he says. The word hangs between us as I wait. “You warned me about the venom in their bite. You chose my side.”
I take a step closer. I know I could probably just wrench the truth right out of his mind, but the words he chooses to give me mean more than taking honesty by force. He straightens, steeling himself for what he seems to expect will be a painful turn of events. “I have one more question. Once the battle was over, if you had the chance, would you still have taken me for whatever Ember’s plan had been?”
Pyrrhus looks at my throat again, but I don’t think he’s really seeing me. He’s seeing the possible outcomes of that battle, placing himself into different futures through a nonexistent past. “I don’t know,” he replies when he meets my eyes. “If I was the last one left, no. If the others were there, perhaps. Probably.”
Ashen’s rage burns at my back with those words. I take one more step closer. The scent of sulfur and something earthy and herbal drift toward me. Fear. And truth.
“Thank you,” I say, though I don’t say why. For his honesty. For not hurting me when he had the chance.
