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Dade
The path to glory was paved with blood and gore.
And bone-melting lust, it would seem. Though in nearly a lifetime of training with my uncle, he never went into detail about much else. Sex was a release, he’d said, and desire a curse. We fuck to be rid of it, but only if doing so did not detract from our goals.
Love would be our end.
An unexpected surprise—the intense attraction a nuisance I’d thought might need to be eradicated until the stars intervened, and well, here we were.
A swan princess, a prized jewel that had not been seen in centuries, was now cornered within my keep. She could run, she could shift, escape and fly herself home, but we both knew it would be futile.
We both knew I’d enjoy the chase and perhaps leave a trail of bloodied violence in my wake.
My swan was easily drowned in useless feelings such as guilt, so she’d stay right where she was, feathers splayed beneath my paw.
“My king,” drawled Fang from the drawing room. “Why do I scent a bird in our midst?”
The scent of her should’ve been a dead giveaway during our handful of visits to that cave, but my hunger was such that I cared little about her sweet, airy fragrance and more about her lithe body. Every perfect curve, her laughter, and the way her eyes would change from bronze to molten gold with her turbulent emotions.
I should have never confided in Fang, but being that he was the closest thing I had to what most called a friend, I sometimes did. “Because you’re sticking your snout where it does not belong.”
I made to continue down the hall when he chuckled and said, “Scythe is positively overjoyed, you know.” Sighing, I turned to lean against one of the dark oak doors while Fang finished chewing his leg of chicken. “Already sharpening his claws. Swan is a delicacy.”
The circular marble-topped table shook with my rising rage, rattling the cutlery he didn’t bother using. “Then it is within your best interest to make sure those claws stay sheathed.”
His low laughter trailed me as I swept down the hall to the stairs that spiraled down into the kitchens.
Staff bowed and went about their business. I made haste to Merelda, the head cook, who was reprimanding a young pixie, and cleared my throat.
Though everyone else in the kitchen stilled, their fear and unease circling the too-warm rooms, Merelda did no such thing. The cook had been ru
The pixie’s pale green eyes flicked to me, then to Merelda, and sensing she was no longer hearing a word, Merelda dismissed her with a wave of her favored threadbare dish towel before finally deeming me worthy of her attention. “King.”
I watched the pixie dart around me, my lips wriggling, then tilted my head down at the rotund cook. “You terrify her.”
“No more than you do,” she muttered, heading to an awaiting tray on the wooden island behind me and dumping a spoonful of batter onto it. “What can I do for you, Daden?”
As always, my teeth clenched, but she was the only one permitted to call me by my true name. “We have a guest.”
“Just one?” She didn’t remove her attention from her task, slopping heaping globs of what smelled like oats, raisins, and brown sugar onto the tray. “You’re losing your touch if you return with only one prisoner.”
“Sarcasm,” I said, dragging my finger over one of the perfect globs, groaning a little as the sweet ingredients caught fire over my tongue. “Delicious.”
She swatted me away with the towel and a scowl. “Get to the point.” The tray was moved out of my reach. Wise. “What’s this guest got to do with me? You don’t feed prisoners.”
“We’ll need to feed this one three times a day and give her whatever she so desires.”
“Three times a day?” Her golden brows shot up with her head, brown eyes blinking as she surveyed my face. “You’ve…”
“That will be all,” I said before the entire room became aware of information I’d rather they not be privy to. It wasn’t that I was ashamed. This feeling, nagging and incessant, forbade such a thing. I just didn’t care to give them all something else to gossip about as they prepared our meals.
Merelda’s gaze tracked me until I disappeared up the stairs. The palace, often referred to as Shadow Keep, was abuzz with activity, murmurs in halls and behind closed doors as the staff all tended to their duties.
I sensed him before I saw him and withheld a curse in the hall atop the stairs as he exited a small sitting room where he’d been waiting and fell in step beside me. “We need to talk.”
“Oh?” I ached to tell him to fuck right off, but instead, I asked, “What of?”
He gestured to the now empty drawing room, Fang long gone, the remnants of his di
“She is not,” I corrected and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Her name is Opal.”
Serrin’s blue eyes narrowed. “It matters not. You’ve brought our foretold doom straight to our door, inside our stronghold. Worse than that…” His thick brows scrunched with his face. “You seem fucking happy about it.”
I ran my tongue over a canine, smiling to myself. “Do not worry yourself. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.” I straightened and sank a hand through my hair. “I will need legion one ready to journey at sundown.”
“You have their princess, and we’ve killed their king,” Serrin needlessly said, his expression rolling into slack shock. “Is the queen next? They will fall, and what will your swan do then?”
“What the swan does or does not do is of no concern of yours,” I gritted. “We head to the cove. While I was visiting Castle Errin, I heard talk of ships arriving at dawn the day after tomorrow.”
“Dade.”
I’d turned for the doors when his next words stopped me.
“I fear what the stars have in mind for you, for all of us, if we proceed now that we know of her existence.”
When feather meets fire, vengeance will expire.
Anger burned brighter than any prophecy mapped out by the stars as I rounded on him, and growled low, “Are you suggesting we stop? When we are this fucking close to total a
“Total a
I stared at him for untold seconds, and then, as though it was rising from the deepest depths inside me, a graveled laugh trickled out, growing louder as I grabbed the rough fabric of his red tunic within my fist and bared my teeth. “You dare tell me what I do and do not need to do?”
All my fucking life, this cretin had bathed me in stories of murder and heartbreak and retribution. At the age of five years, I was handed a blade and told to wipe my tears and cut down that which had caused them.