Page 58 of Ruthless Fae King

“It should last us a few days,” he said with a nod.

I filled a kettle and put it on the gas burner to boil water for something to drink.

“Do you think we’ll be here that much longer?” I asked. I glanced up at him.

Erol folded his thick arms over his broad chest and leaned against the counter—it was dwarfed by his size. In that stance, he looked like a sullen stack of muscles.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to go back yet,” he mumbled. “The darkness hasn’t tried to control me since I left the castle. What if, when I go back, it starts to control me again?”

“You can’t stay away forever. I know what happened was terrible, but I’m not the only one who knows you weren’t in control, you know. We all want to help. If we set the plan into motion, and we get started on getting rid of the Conjurite magic… The sooner it’s over, the better it will be. For everybody, but especially for you.”

Erol grunted, but he nodded. “You’re right. I’m just not looking forward to the process. Cyrene is going to fight us on it.”

I hesitated, something pressing on me. “I know it won’t be easy. In the process of helping the people after you left…we lost another one.”

Erol’s eyes widened. “What?”

“One of them didn’t make it. The darkness was too much, and…she died.”

His face changed. For a moment, smugness flickered across it.

“So, you’re failing.”

“We’re not failing. It’s two out of a lot more than ten, by now. The percentage is lower.”

Erol pursed his lips together. I hated this part of him that showed through, the darkness that relished in pain. It was the darkness I hated, not Erol. He was a wonderful man under all of that.

Was I an idiot to fall for the man beneath, when all the power changed who he was? Like Zita had said, he had been my captor, a Conjurite ruler, someone who’d done terrible things out of will. Then again, it hadn’t been free will, and no matter how many times I told myself maybe I was better off without him, I just couldn’t stop seeing the man beneath—the man who deserved to be saved.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “We knew it was a risk.”

“It’s a hell of an uphill battle you chose,” Erol said. “You might not win this war.”

“Nothing will stop us from trying,” I replied, determined. “We didn’t come here because we thought it would be easy.”

Erol ran his fingers over the dead bird, deep in thought. He fought something that flipped back and forth between evil and goodness. Sometimes, pure evil took over, and the glint in his eyes terrified me. I saw more and more of him, but that darkness in him wasn’t gone—far from it.

He still deserved to be saved. Everyone deserved it, no matter how terrible the things they’d done were. Everyone deserved to live in the light, to be forgiven, to have a second chance.

I took a deep breath and focused on that.

“Let’s go back,” I offered. “Bring the bird with you, we can give it to the kitchen for a feast tonight. We’ll invite your mother and sister to stay at the castle—they can feast with us—and then we’ll do what needs to be done.”

Erol looked reluctant, but he knew as well as I did that there was no other way to do this. We couldn’t go around it—going through it was our only option.

I loved being here in the mountains alone with him. In an ideal world, we could hide out here and just be together, the two of us, forever.

One day, after this was all over, we would come back, and we would rejoice in our victory.

Erol finally agreed and walked into the bedroom to pack. I followed him in, and we started getting our things together.

We rode back on the hover bike Erol had used to get here. I sat behind him, my arms wrapped around his torso, and I pressed myself tightly against him as we sped through the countryside.

When we arrived back at the castle, Erol put the bike away, and we walked in through the front doors together—he was the Regent, and I was with him. We had nothing to hide, and he had nothing to fear.

He held my hand but squeezed it tighter when we walked into the living room, where my mom, Zita, and a few warriors were gathered.

“You’re back!” Mom breathed, jumping up to greet us. She hugged me, holding me close. “I missed you.” She turned to Erol. “Welcome home.”

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