The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

Delano edged Perry back—away from me. The wolven sank low to the ground, his ears flattening as Reaver stretched his head to the sky, emitting a strange, staggered sound.

In the back of my mind, I knew I was making them uneasy—that the raw anguish was calling the wolven to me. I might even be scaring them, and I didn’t want that. But all…

All I saw was his ring—his finger in that box.

I shuddered, and from that cold, hollow fracture in my chest, icy wrath and vengeance poured out.

That was all I became.

Not Poppy.

Not the former Maiden and now the Queen of Atlantia.

There would be no more waiting. No carefully laid plans. No hesitation or thought. I would tear through Solis, sweeping across the kingdom like the plague she was. No city would be left standing. I would rip the Blood Forest apart to find her precious Malec, and then I would send her the gift of her love in tiny pieces. There would be no place for her to run. Nowhere she could find shelter.

I would lay waste to the entire realm and her.

Turning stiffly, I splayed my fingers wide as I started walking toward Cauldra Manor—toward the waiting horizon of Oak Ambler. The reeds and tall stems of lavender parted, shrinking back. The pines trembled.

“Poppy!” a voice shouted, and my head snapped in the direction of the sound. The wolven halted a few feet from me, his wide eyes fixed on me, the blue now luminous, his pupils no longer black but glowing a silvery-white. “Where are you going?”

“Carsodonia,” I spoke, and my voice was full of…smoke and shadow. Full of death and fire. “I’m going to slice every finger from the Blood Queen’s hands, one by one. I’m going to peel the flesh from her body.” A shiver of anticipation swirled over my skin. “Then I will rip her tongue from her mouth and tear her eyes from her face.”

“That sounds like a damn good plan.” Kieran’s voice had changed, too, roughening as he took a step toward me. “And I want to be right there beside you when you do it. I would love nothing more than to help you.”

“Then help me.” My voice…it slithered with the wind, carrying far as the shadow-laced light rippled along the ground. Through the tall, bushy weeds and flowers, sleek, dark shapes raced toward us. The wolven. They too would swarm the cities, a sea of claws and teeth and death. “You can all help me.”

“We can’t,” Kieran said, the tendons in his neck standing out in stark relief. “You can’t. You can’t do this.”

I stopped. Everything stopped. The faint trembling under my feet. The wolven, who halted in their tracks. I stared at the one before me. “I can’t?”

He stretched his neck, his chest rising and falling. “No, you can’t.”

My head tilted. “You think you can stop me?”

A dry laugh rattled his body. “Fuck, no. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. Because I can’t let you do this.” He edged closer, foolishly brave. Foolishly loyal. Because he wasn’t just a wolven. My fingers curled inward as I forced myself to focus on Kieran, on what he was saying. On what he meant to me. Advisor. Friend. More in the past weeks. “I know you’re in pain. That you hurt and are angry. You’re afraid for Cas—”

The silver-tinged shadows pulsed around me. Cas. He loved it when I called him Cas. Had said only those he trusted most called him that. That it reminded him that he was a person. I shuddered, the back of my throat burning with the rage, the guilt, and the agony.

Kieran was within reach now, mere inches from the swirling mass of power radiating from me. Tension had gathered in him, tightening the lines of his face. “You want to make her pay for what she did. I do, too. We all do. But if you do this—if you go anywhere like this—people will die. Innocents you want to help. People Cas wants to protect.”

Fiery anguish twisted my chest. Cas. Who was protecting him? No one. A tremor coursed through me, hitting the ground. The pines shook harder. “I don’t care.”

“Bullshit. You care. Cas cares,” he said, and I flinched. Not at the sound of the name but at the truth. “That’s what both of you have been trying to avoid. That’s why we have plans. But if you do this? Those you don’t kill will be terrified of you—of all of us. If they even saw you like this now, they would never see you as anything else.”

I glanced down at the whirling shadows and the light dancing over my skin. In my skin. The next breath I took was too tight. “She hurt him.”

“I know. Gods, I know, Poppy. But there will never be peace if you do this,” he rasped, his lips pressing back against his teeth. “Even if you destroy the Blood Crown and end the Rite, you will become what mortals and Atlantians fear, and you will never forgive yourself.”