*Ryatt*
I don’t normally stay in the dining hall this long after breakfast. It’s nearly 9:00, and the sky outside hasn’t even begun to lighten. Rain bursts over the balcony in sheets of silver as I pour myself a third cup of coffee and rest my legs on the opposite chair, crossing my ankles.
The obsidian walls in the cavernous room glimmer in the light radiating from the hearth. It’s quiet, peaceful.
The two-story high wooden doors burst open, slamming into the walls on either side. The impact echoes through the room, followed by brisk footsteps.
“What in the actual fuck, Ryatt?!”
Ella comes to a stop a few feet away from the table with a sneer. Her face is bright red and peppered with soft bruises and welts. Her hair is tightly braided but loose strands fall around her face, and her eyes? Goddess, there she is. Finally, that girl I fell in love with at the ball has returned to me.
“Good morning,” I smile as I casually bring my coffee mug to my lips.
Ella’s eyes blaze like sapphires held against a flame. She pulls her lips back in a sneer, her canines sharpening like she’s about to shift. She’s furious.
She picks up a pitcher of orange juice and hurls it at my head. I dodge to the side, still sipping my coffee as the pitcher crashes in a shower of glass several yards away from the table. “That pitcher was a family heirloom.”
“I had to run ten miles in the rain in fucking leather boots, you sadist prick!”
I arch my brows at her course language. “I do love a morning run.”
“You–” she pulls a chair out from under the table and points her finger at me, “You said I’d be training to hone my powers, not getting my ass kicked repeatedly by one of your commanders!”
“Sit down, Ella, and eat something, for the love of the–”
She slams her fists down on the table with so much force the plates and platters of food bounce several inches in the air. I stand abruptly. “That’s enough. If you’re going to throw a fit, go do it upstairs–” I let my powers flow through each word, my tone nothing but a sharp, brutal warning. She cuts me off regardless.
“Why am I here, Ryatt? I just spent four hours being hit with a wooden sword. What kind of game are you playing?”
“We’ve established why you’re here–”
“Your father wants to breed me.”
I clench my fists as I look down at her, down at the wild look in her eyes, at the hatred and desperation written all over her, and it’s not necessarily directed at me.
I sit down and take my coffee in my hand. “I’m impressed, Ella. Westfall doesn’t open up to anyone.”
Her nostrils flare.
“What else did you get out of him?” I meet her eyes before taking a sip of my coffee.
Ella exhales through her nose, still looking at me like she’s about to shift and rip me to ribbons, but curls her fingers around the top of one of the chairs and sits down. She blinks several times before toying with the leather armor she’s still wearing. “He said he’d answer my questions if I get him on the ground. So, I did.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
That’s incredibly impressive, but I don’t tell her that. Instead, I ask, “And what did you learn?”
She swallows hard and pulls an empty plate in front of her. “I have questions for you first.”
I knew this was coming eventually. I motion toward the breakfast platters laid out on the table. “Eat first.”
“You’ve barely spoken to me in the last twenty-four hours, and now all you want to do is boss me around–”
“There’s a lot I’d like to be doing to you right now, Princess,” I cut in, giving her a heated look.
She scowls at me and fills her plate. “I hate you.”
“You’re just hungry and tired.”
“I was woken up by your creepy shadow commander at four in the morning, Ryatt. He was standing at the end of my bed!”
I hide my satisfied smirk behind the rim of my mug. Obviously Westfall listened when I told him Ella could handle whatever he threw at her, and he’d done just that.
She eats a few bites of scrambled eggs, sighing with relief, then looks at me again with a calmer, more collected look behind her eyes. “What is he?”
“A Shadowsynger. It’s a type of wolf shifter.”
“He has similar powers to you.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Why?” She holds my gaze, unblinking.
“I don’t have an answer for that. Shadowsyngers went extinct during the great war with the Gods several thousand years ago. Sometimes these things just… show up. Like the fox.”
She still holds my gaze and looks more than unsatisfied with my answer.
“You look alike.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Why?”
I exhale, reining in my patience. “If we share similar powers it’s likely we’re related in some way down the line. A great-grandfather, or uncle, perhaps.”
“I thought he was your father the first time I saw him.”
My stomach curls at even the thought of her in the same room as my father. “I take after my mother. I look nothing like my father.”
“What does he look like?”
“I’ve never seen his face.”
Ella had just turned back to her plate but her head snaps in my direction. “What? How is that possible?”
“I only remember the mask he wore, that’s all. I was five when my mother and I escaped, if you remember. My memories beyond those last few weeks in Rifthold are blurry. When I pretended to ally against your realm and bent the knee to him a year ago, I only spoke to him through one of his commanders.”
“He wore a mask?”
Something in her expression shifts, and her eyes drop from my face. I nod, looking down into my coffee as I contemplate how I’m supposed to explain this next part.
“King Kane is a collector of people–magical beings, like my mother. Like you. Like Westfall. Westfall was enslaved during the First Uprising, the war that created the Roguelands. He was fifteen at the time. All I know about him is that he somehow ended up in the fortress in Rifthold and was kept in the dungeons with the rest of the king’s pets.”
“Including your mother.”
“Yes.”
Silence settles between us for a moment, broken only by the pattering of rain and crackling fire. I lean forward, continuing, “He collects the powers of others. He has mystics, healers, and witches locked away to use for his own gain. They bring life to the forges that keep his empire running. He steals their powers and uses them as his own.”
“Are his powers like yours?”
Something heavy settles against my chest as I shake my head. “He can’t even shift, Ella.”
She crinkles her brow, her mouth parting to ask me what I’m even talking about, no doubt.
“What did you see under that lake during the Rite?” My words hang in the air between us.
She rolls her puffy, bruised lower lip between her teeth. “A queen wearing a mask of moonstone.”
“Guess who has that mask now?”
“I already knew,” she whispers.
“It’s yours, Ella. By blood, by birthright. It should have been my mother’s, which is why he used her like he did. It’s a Firestone mask, and only she could unlock its full potential. She could have brought down the veil. But she refused, and he… he made her his breeder, forced her into it, to try to use me against her.”
Ella’s eyes flicker to mine, terror shining in her gaze.
I continue, roughly, “It didn’t work. Now he wants you, but he knows something now that he didn’t know before.”
She swallows, the column of her throat bobbing with effort. I keep my eyes locked on hers, but my hands curl into fists on the table. “My mother wasn’t a full Firestone witch. Neither am I, and neither are you… but together–”
She closes her eyes as the truth hits her. “You allied with him and told him you’d bring me back to use as a breeder.”
“Yes.” The word echoes through the room, which now feels incredibly cold despite the raging fire. “Exactly. Even during a pregnancy, our child would ignite new powers within you, the full force of what the Firestone witches used to be. What their queen was. He would have used you to harness the power of the mask and then killed you before the baby was born.”
She meets my eyes again, her gaze darkening with such raw emotion it makes my heart squeeze. It makes me want to rip the world apart and lay it at her feet.
Instead, I reach across the table and take her hand. “I won’t let it happen.”
She pulls her hand away and tucks it between her thighs. “You should have told me.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“It matters to me. It matters that any child we have will be–will be–” she can barely finish the words. “Will be hunted, Ryatt.”
I clench my jaw as her words–full of despair–linger between us. “I won’t let it happen,” I repeat more firmly this time. “I’m going to start a war against him. My men are already building an army in the Roguelands. I will kill him, Ella, and this will be over.”
She shakes her head. “We’re missing something.” She sounds exhausted.
“Eat,” I command, rising from my chair. “There’s nothing to worry about now, at this moment.”
She picks up her fork but stares blankly at her plate. She wanted the truth. I shouldn’t feel bad about telling her, should I?
I round the table and stop short of passing her chair. I pull a small box from my pocket and set it in front of her. “Happy Solstice.”
She looks down at the box, no bigger than the palm of her hand. She turns her head to gaze up at me, her eyes narrowing into cat-like slits full of suspicion.
“Open it.”
She does, and a ring of pure obsidian gleams in the firelight. A few small sapphires glint as she takes it out of the box to examine it. “Is this your way of proposing to me?”
“Your people have strange customs, Princess.” I lean down to brush the next words over the top of her ear, “I don’t get on my knees unless it’s to taste you.”
She shivers, and I don’t hold back the devilish smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I straighten up.
“No, Ryatt.”
“No, what?”
“I’m not marrying you!”
“Well, that’s too damn bad, because in this realm, we’re already married.” I start striding toward the door as I sense her anger beginning to flare again. Good, I need her sharp right now, not wallowing over the cold hard truths of this world and our situation. “If you have any doubts about that, just run your fingers over the scar I left on your inner thigh. You are mine, Princess, whether you wear a ring or not.”
The ring box goes whizzing through the air, barely missing my head. “Ryatt!”
“What, Ella?” I let some of my patience slip as I whirl around. “What do you want me to say right now? Do you want me to grovel at your feet, to crawl for you? You are my mate, and the Luna of my lands. What more do you want?”
I realize I’ve fucked up the moment I see the look on her face. Hurt blooms behind her eyes as she clutches the top of her chair.
“Ella, wait–”
She’s running toward the far end of the room in a flash, her body disappearing through a small side door that opens up for her in a phantom wind. The house slams the door shut behind her, the dishes on the table rattling violently.