48. Arran

I stayed in my beast form for nearly an entire day.

No one tried to speak to a wolf that could rip their head off, severing bone and sinew with fangs the size of a child's forearm. No one spouted off about the sacred bond I now shared with a beautiful, brazen queen who could speak directly into my mind.

Even standing on that barren mountaintop, listening to her explain what might be the end of our world, my beast had been feral with need for her. He'd urged me to fill my hands with her breasts, to lay her back on the grass and rut with her like an animal, claiming her for all of the earth and sky to see.

But worse than that was the strength of the bond inside my chest. I felt the urge to gather her up into my arms, to kiss the tension from her face, to feel her melt and relax against me. That was even more foreign to me than the insatiable physical desire.

When I finally shifted back into my fae form, in the same bedroom I'd occupied in childhood, I stared at myself in the tall mirror. I examined the familiar lines of my Talisman, the rugged muscles that had been forged by battle, and by some strange magic, had not atrophied while I laid in Avalon in an enchanted sleep.

But for all that my body was unchanged, a stranger stared back at me through my black eyes.

I had nothing left of myself. No longer the Brutal Prince, but the High King. I'd never spent more than a month in the same female's bed, and yet supposedly I'd pledged myself for eternity to Veyka Pendragon.

I understood why I had done it. My entire life had been given in service to Annwyn. To prove that I was more than the monster inside of me, I had become an angel of death and destruction. I claimed every bit of the power in my veins, fauna and flora, and then I controlled it. The control was what had been most meaningful, not the power. That was the part that few understood. Power that was unclaimed, unchained, was meaningless. Dangerous, but not useful.

I had spent three hundred years making myself indispensable to the terrestrial kingdom. They needed me, depended upon me. Me—the son of the female they had debased so cruelly, then shunned.

I would never be beloved by the terrestrials or Annwyn at large. Their fear did not allow it. But every time I led legions onto the battlefield, pillaged a city on a distant continent and brought back riches to Wolf Bay, I carved myself deeper into the history of the terrestrial kingdom. Of Annwyn.

Duty, above all else.

Now, duty at the cost of myself.

I stalked away from the mirror, unable to bear the sight any longer. My dark hair was matted over my shoulders, but I did nothing to tame it. For the first time since I'd awoken, the beast inside of me was quiet.

So it was the mating bond in my chest that pulled me toward the window.

I was so exhausted that I did not fight it.

A party of five moved across the long, narrow bridge connecting Eilean Gayl to the mainland. Two terrestrials I did not recognize led the way. Behind them, the unmistakable form of my wife followed, her long strides eating up the ground. I watched as her gait slowed. She was taller than the two terrestrials in front of her and moved faster. Suddenly they sped up. I could not hear it, but I imagined her barking an order.

The golden elemental—Lyrena, I recalled—walked just off of Veyka's shoulder, guarding her back. And behind them, another figure I recognized. I could see his beard from my window. Barkke.

His swagger was only slightly impeded by the travel pack strapped to his back.

They were leaving.

The amorite mines.

Veyka had not even seen fit to send me word that she was leaving.

What reason did you give her? When she explained the threat against Annwyn, your first instinct was to argue.

That voice of reason in my mind sounded disturbingly like my mother.

But it was not the Lady of Eilean Gayl's rational thought that guided my footsteps away from the window. It was my beast. He had awoken.