Page 76 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
Ashen and I sit in silence as the cavern empties of spectators and soldiers and guards. Valentina and the hybrids are led to a passageway to their temporary accommodations, an unused set of barracks separate from the community of demons. The audience files out of the structure, demons chattering with excitement as they recall their favorite moments of the show and make plans to drink atBit Akalum. Many look my way with newfound admiration. Some even call out my name.
I remain seated in my chair, a fragile smile etched into my face as I nod in acknowledgement to those demons who solicit my attention as they pass the dais. I try to keep my expression serene, but beneath my skin is a jumble of emotions that never settle in place long enough for me to grab hold of just one. The feeling of treading water doesn’t subside until the last demon’s back is turned and they start to ascend the dark stairway.
With a breath that feels like a baptism of air, I rush off my chair and climb onto Ashen’s lap.
“I’m sorry—”
“You could have beenkilled, Lu. Before my very eyes.”
“I know, I’m—”
“Joash could have pulled you into that acid. What if he had somehow freed your blade?”
“He couldn’t, Ediye’s spell—”
“What if he was trying to get you into the Resurrection Chamber with some other traitor we haven’t yet flushed out? He could have been on you before I had reanimated by your side. Has that thought occurred to you?”
No, it hadn’t until Joash mentioned it, but I leave that part out. I grasp Ashen’s face between my palms and he glares back at me, the rage a thin veil for the kind of worry that nearly chokes me as it climbs up my mark and into my throat. “I am sorry, truly. We both knew this would be a dangerous gamble as much as an unmissable opportunity. But that doesn’t make me any less sorry for scaring and hurting you.”
Ashen’s eyes bound between mine, the rings brightening with my words as though I’ve stoked his anger, not soothed it. “We knew it was a gamble, yes. But I would have intervened. I needed to be able to do that.”
“And if you had, you would have undermined my credibility as someone capable of leading this realm. If I can’t look after myself in this world, how am I supposed to look after anyone else?”
“How are you supposed to look after anyone at all if you’re dead?”
We stare at one another, both unyielding, both right, both wrong. A rumble of discontent rolls through Ashen’s chest as his gaze drifts away from mine. The muscle in his jaw clenches and releases as he chews on the words he must want to say but won’t. I stroke Ashen’s cheek, and even despite his fury, he drags his gaze back to mine. And what I feel when I look at him isn’t just the frustration of landing at an impasse, or the sadness of wounding him deeply, or the guilt of deceit. It’s love. It’s love so big I can touch it, so rich I can taste it, so bright and blinding it burns. Its facets are ever changing. I turn it in one light, and it reflects the joy I feel when I make Ashen laugh. I turn it another way, and passion consumes me, burning my belly with an ache for his touch. If I twist it again, there’s the deep love I feel when we repair our trauma and wounds together, a comfort much like the warmth of the travertine pools of Pamukkale as I watched the sunrise in the protection of Ashen’s embrace. But the one constant in every facet of love is choice. I choose to always hold on to it. Mated mark or not, whether in happiness or anger or sorrow, I choose Ashen.
And I understand now. Maybe he feels like I didn’t this time.
“I’m sorry, Ashen. I won’t put you in that position again,” I say.
The magic encasing his wrists and ankles begins to wane. I expect he’ll probably toss me off his lap as soon as he’s free. His body smolders, the smoke unabated as it cascades across the dais in swirling waves.
But when the magic disappears, Ashen wraps his arms around me and crushes me to his chest, burying his face in my neck. I clutch him back and we stay like that for a long while, just holding one another in the silent cavern, the only sound around us the rippling flame in the torches set along the walls. When we finally do part, Ashen grasps the back of my neck with a calloused palm, his thumb gliding across my skin in a gentle caress.
“I will only fight with you because you are worth fighting for,” he says, pressing his forehead to mine. He sighs as though a pain has been lifted, like a deep splinter has been pulled free. “You are right, just as I am. But it doesn’t matter who is right in the end, or who is wrong. I love you, Lu. I am so proud of you. I truly am. Do not let our disagreement detract from your success. You were a force on the playing field. The Goddess of the Gauntlet.”
My smile is caught up in Ashen’s kiss. His tongue sweeps into my mouth and the vibration of his relieved moan shakes the worry from my heart. His anger still simmers in the tether between us, but other emotions are there to soothe its ache, pride and love most of all.
“We’ve done big and bold,” I whisper against his lips when we part. “How about we get to the subtle and soft part of tonight’s agenda?”
Ashen’s final kiss holds a different kind of worry, one for his own reparations and the uncertainty about charting through waters he’s never traveled. “Are you sure about this?” he asks.
“Less sure than I was about the Gauntlet.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I know, right? Let’s go get it over with. I want some angry makeup sex before the wings subside,” I say with a wink as skim my fingers across the scales before shimmying off Ashen’s lap to his groan of desire.
“We could just stay,” he says, adjusting his pants around the growing bulge straining the fabric.
“Or we could swing by the suite to get some rope once we’re done and then come back so you can tie me to the chair, Reaper. Maybe I need a little punishment for my tricksy ways.”
The words have barely left my lips when Ashen sweeps up my hand and drags me toward the stairway, the sound of my laughter warming the cold stone. With every step we ascend, every word spoken and heated look shared, the hurt chips away, a little bit at a time.
Ashen holds my hand as we walk to the Kur, Zida and Urtur following as our only guardians in the fog. The night air is humid. It feels like an unseen storm lingers in the distance. The thoughts of the crawlers and souls press on my mind but never breach the barrier I’ve gotten better at holding between us. But I know they lurk in the shadows, now a comforting presence despite their broken minds. My steps become more determined, because the path I’m walking now is the one I’m taking to help them… I hope.
When we get to the Kur, we go straight to the Throne Room where Ashen pulls my heavy polished chair back from the Council table. He turns it to face the windows that look across the Bay of Souls, the black water barely visible in the night, even to my vampire eyes. I sit and he stands next to me, taking my hand while we wait. The pattern his thumb taps on my skin is the only outward sign of his nerves.
