24. Kellan

Chapter twenty-four

Kellan

It had taken only a few days to arrive back in Isla once we left the cove of Tortunele. The Vayr Sea had been kind to us—a small blessing for our weakened, battered crew.

As I stared out at the sea’s waves, I berated myself for not having a set plan on how to behave once I faced the queen. If what Callius spoke of was true, and they were indeed mates, then Idina, by now, was well aware that his soul had moved beyond to the vale. But what of her son? Delivering the news of this would have to be handled carefully, and that was something I simply never fucking had the patience for.

As we floated into the Islan harbor, I noticed it was nearly empty. Not a single vessel in sight. Where the fuck were all my ships?!

Once our ship docked, I stormed down the gangplank, and my irritation flared when I noticed the dock’s guards were rushing towards me, hands on the pommels of their swords.

“Gentlemen,” I greeted.

“Where have you been, Adler?” one of the males barked .

A growl rumbled through me. “Excuse me? Who the fuck are you to question me, Braynon?” I demanded.

“Callius left me in charge of guarding the queen in his absence, which you are well aware of,” he spat.

My jaw locked, and my hand moved to my sword as I took a few steps closer to him. We stood chest to chest—the sound of our heavy breathing filled the air as the rest of my crew caught up to me. Maintaining their position behind him, his own entourage of guards edged closer to us.

“It appears you aren’t doing such a great job guarding the queen currently, Braynon. What brings you to my docks?”

“Things have changed around here, Adler,” the other male spoke.

A growl left me. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Braynon interrupted. “I have orders from the queen to bring you in at once if you are to return with her son.” His eyes flared as they moved behind me, appearing to realize that the prince was not in our company.

His stare made its way back to me. “Where is the prince?”

“There is much I need to discuss with the queen , Braynon. Not some lazily recruited guard left in charge of the female for mere weeks.”

“Arrest him,” Braynon shot over his shoulder, and the queen’s guards rushed the dock.

I drew my sword, along with those who remained behind me. “What the fuck is the meaning of this?! I am your captain!” I shouted.

Braynon reached into the pocket of his cloak and presented me with a piece of rolled-up parchment. I reached out and ripped the page from his grasp, waving it in the wind to open the roll.

My eyes traced over the words, and I barked a laugh that echoed through the sea air. I cleared my throat and read the note aloud. “‘By direct order of the queen, if Captain Adler shall return with my son, Prince Kai, they are to be escorted to Castle Isla. If Adler shall return alone, he is to be…’” My words trailed off.

“He is to be arrested on sight and immediately brought to the queen directly for questioning,” Braynon finished for me.

“You’re fucking joking,” I hissed, as other guards, males that should be under my gods-damn command, maneuvered around me and placed my wrists in cuffs faster than I could blink.

“Hardly,” he responded as they shoved me down the dock while a carriage arrived at the foot of it.

“And what of the crew?!” I bellowed as my eyes locked with William’s. I sent him a look that said, keep your fucking mouth shut , and he gave a barely noticeable nod in return.

“They are to remain free males until the queen is fully informed of what occurred on this journey. She is… Rage doesn’t even begin to uncover what she has felt and placed upon her citizens.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I struggled against the chains and lashed out with every step they forced me to take, but they surrounded me, shoving me toward the city’s streets.

I stood before the dais of the throne room in Castle Isla as I awaited the arrival of Queen Idina.

How the fuck was I going to get out of this? Why would she assume there was a possibility that Kai wouldn’t be with me? She even sent out direct orders for my arrest, if that were the case. Something was off. I knew she would sense something had happened with Callius, but her son, too?

The click of the door sounded, echoing in the empty chamber. My gaze shot to the queen as I remained where I stood, weighed down by the heavy chains that chimed together with every minuscule move I made.

Her eyes were bloodshot, the red hue matching her hair that cascaded down to her waist. Her jaw appeared to be clenched, the hollows of her cheekbones more than apparent as the sunlight peered in through the high, stained-glass windows.

It was so odd to see her walking up the dais alone, without the constant crutch of Callius escorting her. The more I thought about it all, all the signs that had been right under our noses from the moment I was taken under his wing, the more I had to fight back a laugh.

They almost fucking got away with it too, but now this cunt of a queen would be forced to rule without her mate and their son at her side—at least until I could come up with a new plan.

She sat upon the late king’s throne, eyes boring into me as a scowl stretched across her face. My stare leisurely wandered to either side of her, noticing that her throne from when King Jameson reigned had disappeared, and all that remained was his.

“Kellan Adler,” she began, completely forgoing my title of captain. “You come back to Isla alone, without your army you left with, without Callius, and without my son.” Rage surged through every syllable that escaped her lips.

“My queen, perhaps if you would have allowed me to explain what had happened during our quest instead of demanding I be cuffed and dragged to be sentenced before your throne, you would already be well aware of what happened to your son and guard.”

“Watch your tongue, Adler,” she hissed as she pointed a dainty finger in my direction. “Perhaps you have somehow already forgotten the position you have found yourself in. You are chained and cuffed before the queen of the realm, facing charges. You will do well to behave yourself if you wish to see another day.”

I bit down on my tongue to avoid the snarl that was working its way up my throat.

“I can sense it, you know,” she said as she snapped her fingers, summoning a handmaiden to deliver a glass of wine. She swirled the ruby drink in her glass as her eyes remained fixated on me.

“Sense?” I questioned.

“Your rage—you wear it like a cloak. It is constantly with you, a reaper leaching off your back. Feeding upon you and every motif you’ve ever had. It’s what drives you, thrills you. In fact…” She paused as she sipped from the glass. A bead of the wine trailed down her perfectly painted lips, and she swiped it away with her tongue as her eyes remained on me. “ I’m willing to bet you wouldn't know who you are or what to do without it.”

My eyes darted back and forth between hers. “And what makes you sense this?”

She huffed out a vicious laugh that would’ve had any other male cowering before her. Something had changed in her, and fortunately, I knew exactly what it was. Perhaps I could make that work to my advantage.

“I recognize this in you, for it is a mirror of myself.” She took another sip. “What happened to my son, Adler? Why have you arrived with such little numbers and not a single prisoner in tow?”

Interesting that she would ask about her son before her mate, but she didn’t know the extent of the knowledge I held.

“We were ambushed.”

“ HOW?! ” she screeched as she lunged forward in her throne, the word violently bouncing off the walls, jostling the wine in her glass.

My eyes flared. “Elianna…”

Before I could get another word out, she cut me off once more. “Your job was to bring my children back to me and be rid of her! I did not give a single fuck about those pathetic fae that felt they might find a better-suited life outside of Isla. They were not the priority.” Her brows knitted together as she pinched them between her thumb and forefinger. “Does she still breathe?”

I swallowed. “She does.”

The queen’s stare snapped back to me. “And my son does not? ”

Silence blanketed the room, but it was deafening.

“Many do not. Your son being one of them.”

She let out a shuddering breath and sipped her wine. “How.”

A demand.

I chose to omit the scene of our initial attack on the mortals and cut to the moment of the answer she sought.

“Somehow, Elianna received word of our arrival once beyond the Sylis Forest. She arrived on the back of your wyvern that she initially escaped on, and many were lost in the blaze, including the prince,” I lied. “There was nothing that could be done.”

“And Callius was among them?” she asked, but her amber eyes shone with a fiery intensity.

She was silently testing me. While I lacked a mate, I knew of their legends. Everything was felt between the two bonded souls—even physical pain. She was trying to bait me into a lie, but she didn’t know that I knew better.

The look on Callius’ face, as I plunged my sword through his gut, flashed across my memory, and I knew that if the queen were to believe me, I had only one chance to get this right.

“He was not, my queen.” Her eyes softened the tiniest amount. “You see, the wyvern burned through its flame, as it had many times before, beneath this very castle. When that happened, both Elianna and her few companions stepped foot on the soil of our camp.”

Her breath hitched, and what could only be described as pure, hate-infused dread etched itself into her features .

“Queen Idina,” I started. “No, Callius was not lost in the blaze as your son had been. Elianna gutted him where he stood and fled on the back of her wyvern once she realized they were still outnumbered.”

I waited for her to speak, but no words found her, so I continued the lies. “I was across the camp when I watched her and a few others ride the wyvern into the smoke-hazed sky they had created. I was forced to listen to my soldiers' agony-filled screams as their flesh melted from their bones. By the time I had reached Callius, his breaths had turned staggered, and his wound beyond repair without the assistance of a healer.” Both her eyes and nostrils flared. “But he did ask something of me.”

Her head tilted to the side in confusion. “And what was that, Adler?”

I dramatically looked to each of my sides, to the guards that stood at attention next to me, and then met her stare once more.

“I don’t believe it’s something that you would want others to hear.”

Braynon’s eyes whipped to me, nearly burning a hole in the side of my face.

“Everybody out,” she demanded, barely above a whisper. When no one moved, she screeched, “Get out! ”

As if they were startled rats in the castle’s dungeons, the guards and handmaidens posted throughout the room scattered, fleeing the chamber instantly.

Once the doors to the throne room were completely closed, the two of us were sealed off from the rest of the realm. Taking a single step toward the dais, my chains rattled against the floor, the cool touch of them biting into my skin.

“You have the floor, Kellan Adler.” She gestured to the empty room. “And my undivided attention. Now tell me before I lose what very little patience I have left—what did my guard have to say to you that no others could be privy to?”

“My queen, it’s not what your personal guard demanded of me…but what your mate requested of me.”

The veins bulged from her neck as her eyes widened in horror. Her grip on the wine she held in her hand shattered the glass, raining tiny shards down atop her gown and floor.

It took every ounce of self-control I had mastered throughout my life to hide the smirk that was aching to spread across my face.

“What did you just say?” she asked in a hushed, desperate tone.

“Your—”

“No.” She held up a hand to halt my answer. “Do not repeat yourself. What I should have asked was why . Why would Callius tell you what I am to him?” she snapped, but then her eyes softened slightly. “What I was to him,” she corrected herself, her voice barely audible.

“Callius feared for you, Queen Idina. For he knew you would rule with an iron fist, but with who to protect you at your side? He told me everything between his dying breaths.” Her lips curled back. “Your mate begged me to protect you when his soul entered the vale. To guard you and see that you remained upon the throne that you both worked tirelessly to attain. ”

Her lip trembled for a fraction of a second, and if I had blinked, I would have missed it.

I took another step toward her. “Callius watched his son die.” Her eyes flared once more. “He knew he was entering the vale in the same moment as his son, leaving his mate and queen alone in the realm. Your Majesty, Callius wished for me to watch over you in his place. I swore to him that I would guard and protect you from any threat that presents itself to you or your claim to remain on this throne.”

Her dagger-like gaze remained fixated on me as she stood from her seat, her heels stepping on the glass she had destroyed, shattering the pieces further.

“Braynon!” she boomed, and the main entrance doors to the throne room burst open.

He rushed in. “Yes, my queen?”

Her eyes roamed over me as if looking for the lies that effortlessly rolled off my tongue. “Remove the shackles from Captain Adler’s wrists.”

“But, Your Maj—”

“Now,” she demanded, the word clattering through the chamber.

He huffed out a breath and shot me a look of pure hatred, but all I could do was grin. It was too gods-damn easy.

The key turned in my cuffs, and they clanked down to the marble floor beneath my boots.

Queen Idina lifted the front of her maroon gown and gracefully took the steps down the dais, unaccompanied.

“Braynon, you are relieved of your duties as head guard now that the captain has returned. Your last assignment is to inform him of the structural changes set in place for the citizens. After that, you are dismissed to return to your previous assignments.”

Our gazes lingered on her as she exited the room.

“You’re a real fucking prick; you know that, Adler?” he growled at my side.

I rubbed my wrist in my opposite hand as a sharp smirk inched its way up my face. “Braynon, it has always been a pleasure dealing with you, as well. Now tell me…what does the future hold for Velyra under the reign of our queen?”