A Kingdom of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 3)

I might’ve just imagined the last one. I still didn’t have access to my animal. Actually, the master hadn’t pulled out any of our animals. He was supposed to be preparing our kingdom for war, curing the people who still needed it and reuniting all of us with our animals, but none of that had happened. He’d shut down instead. Which was why I was here. He needed to get moving, and apparently I needed to be the kick in his ass.

He sat nude on the bed, facing the window as the sun crept over the horizon. A gash marred his back and dried blood crusted against his skin. He hadn’t bothered cleaning himself up after battling in the Royal Wood the previous night, and I doubted he was worried about tending his wounds so they wouldn’t scar. He’d started doing that when Finley came, I thought because he wanted to stop adding to his collection of scars for her sake, but it was obvious he didn’t think she was coming back. He didn’t want her back. He wanted, above all, for her to be happy, and for some fucking reason, he didn’t believe he had anything to offer her. He was an incredibly powerful alpha prince, hot as all hell, with a stellar body, had the sort of rage she liked (she was insane), gave her mighty orgasms (quite loud ones, too), and he didn’t think he had anything to offer. He was a real dipshit when it came to women, that much was clear.

He was bent over with his head in his hands, his fingers pushed up through his unruly dark brown hair. The force of his power and status shoved at me, uncomfortably strong, and I didn’t even have the primal kick of my wolf to tell me that I should watch myself because a big ol’ alpha was in the room.

Releasing the suppression magic had given him access to his incredible reserves of power, even if it hadn’t given him his wings back. Not yet, anyway. A bunch of people surmised that when the curse was broken, life would go back to the way it had been, and not just in terms of electricity and running water and all that modern goodness. They believed anything that had been damaged because of the curse would be fixed.

I wasn’t so sure. If the curse was broken, would all my memories of shame-fucking demons go away? Somehow I doubted it.

I sidestepped a little closer. And a little closer still.

“Sir.” I cleared my throat. “Sir, might I have a word?”

“No. Leave.”

His blast of power stung my eyes, but a command hadn’t ridden his words. He clearly didn’t want to be alone. Fuck. I wasn’t sure I was ready for this. I should’ve had another drink.

I inched a bit closer.

“Yes, sir. Only, I was tasked by…” I pursed my lips because I didn’t know how to do this without saying her name and setting him off. “I was tasked by…the woman who is sacrificing herself for us—”

The blast of power made me yelp this time. I looked back at Leala, haunting the doorway with a worried expression. She gave me a thumbs-up, like that might help.

I took a deep breath, like that might help.

“She was very clear, sir,” I said, inching ever closer. Trying to will myself enough courage to stand in front of him. I didn’t really want his full focus, but Finley would expect results, and I didn’t want to let her down. I’d already let her down by not finding a way to go with her. “You need to pull the animals out of suppression. Only you can do it. There isn’t anyone else strong enough. Not with her gone and your court cleared out.”

“They’re hurting her,” he said, his voice gruff and filled with enough misery to prick my eyes with tears. “She must’ve arrived there recently because the type of pain has changed. It has increased tenfold. She’s hanging on to my power with everything she has just to stay afloat. The pain is drowning her. I can feel it. I shouldn’t have let her go.”

My stomach twisted, and my heart ached for what she must be going through. But she’d known it was going to suck. She’d chosen this path, and regardless of what she was going through now, I knew she’d choose it again if given the chance. She was not a woman who took the easy way out, not when people were counting on her. He couldn’t have kept her from going.

He wouldn’t want to hear any of that, though. He was a man of action, and right now he probably felt as helpless as I did. He needed a way to support her.

“Okay, then…” I inched closer, level with him now and working my way in front of him. “So what can you do to help her? Obviously you can’t go to her, not with the curse’s magic forcing you to stay within the kingdom’s borders. You can’t fight her battles. So what can you do with the resources you have to make things easier for her?”