52. Arran

I was a heartbeat away from losing control.

The beast inside of me tugged at the restraints I kept on him constantly. Never, since the early days after my beast had emerged, had I struggled to keep him leashed. The power of my will had always been stronger. But not where Veyka Pendragon was concerned.

Every step, I had to force my foot forward or it would have angled in her direction. The breaths I inhaled begged to exhale her name. Food tasted like ash in my mouth, because the only flavor I wanted on my tongue was her.

I was nearly ready to give in, to fuck her just to get her out of my mind. I was at war with myself, unsure if that would even be enough. The pull between us was more than physical. The swagger with which she walked, the confidence and command in her words, all of it drew me to her. My logical mind screamed at me to go slowly, to approach this female with caution. But every instinct wanted to know her better. I did not know how much longer I could fight it.

And then we arrived.

The scent of brine and sea salt flooded my senses moments before we crested the hill.

There it was.

A long downward slope, slick with snow, just like every other mile we'd trudged since leaving Eilean Gayl. This close to the water, the layer was thinner. We ought to have been able to see footprints left behind by guards, residents, animals. But there was nothing. An undisturbed blanket of white that stretched from the toes of my boots down to the unmoving edge of the Split Sea. And in the center, a castle so black it sucked in the light of the untouched snow surrounding it.

It was a blight upon the landscape.

While Eilean Gayl rose up from the lake as if by magic, a strong, unfaltering sentinel in the brutal northern reaches of the terrestrial kingdom, there was no sense of protection emanating from the black stones of the castle. No moss clung to the grooves between stones. I knew without having to reach out my flora power that no living thing touched that castle. If there was grass on the plain before us, beneath all that snow, it died away long before the cursed black stones met the earth.

I recognized Veyka's presence at my side before she spoke. Or rather, my wolf did.

"That looks very welcoming," she said, planting a hand on each hip. Wide hips. Hips made to be gripped and—

"What is this place?" Lyrena asked, cutting off my thought. Thank the Ancestors for that small mercy. I needed to be thinking strategically about how to obtain the amorite in the mines, not about how to bring my wife to climax.

"The new lord has named it Castle Chariot," Kay said from my other side. He and Vera had taken up positions on the outer fringes of our group, precisely as I'd commanded. I had never led either of them into battle, but they were loyal to my mother and, therefore, loyal to me. Barkke lingered in the woods, a lifeline if things went badly.

"The same lord who killed the previous occupants?" Lyrena asked, recalling the brief story Kay had told us around the campfire two nights before.

The boar shifter nodded. "A line of powerful aerial shifters held the fortress and the mines for thousands of years."

Held.

But no longer.

I vaguely recalled meeting the male who had held this castle sometime in my youth. He had come to Eilean Gayl to express his goodwill to my mother and father in the months after the full strength of my power had manifested. Every lord of any importance north of the Spine had come crawling to Eilean Gayl in those early days, eager to get a look at me. And to prove to their peers that they were brave enough to stand in the same room with the flora and fauna gifted child so powerful, he'd left a trail of bloodshed across the continent before his eleventh birthday.

"I don't care who he's killed if he gives us the amorite," Veyka said, her sharp blue eyes scanning the tableau before us. I wondered if she noted all the same things I did—the impenetrable walls without even arrow slits, the strange position at the bottom of the valley rather than the apex of the hill where we stood, assuring that any approaching enemy would always have the high ground. With the Split Sea at its back, the fortress should have been nearly indefensible.

Everything about this place screamed its wrongness.

"He could very well try to kill us," I said, loud enough that all of our travel companions could hear. I wanted everyone on alert. No matter what we were walking into, we would not be facing an ally.

Veyka smiled, a wicked, feral thing that made my cock harden instantly. "He could try."

I cleared my throat, shoved down my beast, and took the first step down the hill. "Kay, Vera, guard our backs." When I stepped forward, I expected the rest to follow.

Of course, Veyka remained on the hill, hands still planted on her waist, pushing back her fur cloak and highlighting the lines of her figure. Ancestors. Did she do that on purpose just to distract me?

Her wicked smile deepened.

Yes, she did.

"No brilliant battle plan?" she challenged.

I ground my teeth. "This is not battle." Not yet.

The smile dropped off of her face. "That is where you are wrong." She was not looking at Castle Chariot as she said, "Every day, every breath, is a battle."

There was no one to greet us. The castle was just as deserted from ten yards away as it had been from a hundred. I scanned the battlements, the towers, the gatehouse—nothing. I kneeled, pushing my hand through the snow to feel the ground below. A mealy of mixture of dirt and sand. No plants. I could summon them, even at this distance, but they would be less powerful, slower.

Fine. My beast could handle anything that came from those dark walls.

I stood again, frowning.

"Were you expecting a welcome party?" Veyka said, her sultry voice turned mocking.

Veyka's voice had not echoed in my mind since she'd given her word. But I wondered if she could sense my thoughts just the same.

She's elemental. She can see the thoughts I do not guard right on my face.

I turned the same dark glare on her that had cowed thousands of warriors on the battlefield. "We are the High King and Queen of Annwyn."

Veyka snorted. "And in the months since I've been queen, an assassin has snuck in through my window, the captain of my Goldstone Guards has turned traitor and tried to murder me, and a half-human witch lured us to Avalon only for us to be attacked by an enemy I thought long dead." She rolled her eyes, like she was exhausted, explaining this to a child. "Being king is not exactly what you might have dreamed."

I'd never dreamed of being king. The only thing I'd wanted was to do my duty and be left the hell alone. But that thought melted to nothing as I realized the full enormity of what she'd said.

Targeted by an assassin. Betrayed by the captain of her guard. Attacked in Avalon.

I remembered none of it.

"There were fires burning in the round towers," Lyrena said, reminding me that despite the force of her presence, Veyka and I were not alone.

"How can you tell?" Vera asked from Lyrena's other side, frowning.

"I can sense them." As Lyrena spoke, the broadsword she held casually in her hand began to glow slightly. No, not glow. Burn. But her golden face showed no hint of untethered emotion as she continued. "They must have doused them when they saw our approach, that's why there is no smoke. But the embers are still burning."

"But how did they see our approach at all?" mused Kay. "There has not been a speck of movement on the battlements since we crested the hill."

But they had seen us—someone had. There was no reason for this mysterious lord to take over the castle and then abandon it, when doing so would mean also leaving behind the prosperous amorite mines.

"Check the perimeter," I ordered. Kay and Vera moved immediately. Lyrena, unsurprisingly, did not. She was steadfast at Veyka's side. Good, my beast growled in approval.

Veyka waited until the other two terrestrials were out of earshot before she spoke. "This is a waste of time."

This time, I was the one fighting the impulse to roll my eyes. Veyka may engage in childish antics; I did not. "We need the amorite," I said. A simple fact she had insisted upon.

Another flash of that wicked grin to belie the seriousness of her words. "We ought to just kill the mysterious lord and be done with it. Take what we need. We do not have time for games."

"Another ambitious terrestrial would rise up in his place, and there is no guarantee they would continue to supply the amorite. We need the mines operating and delivering amorite for as long as they can. We are better of convincing the current lord to acquiesce now." Though her strategy sounded infinitely more gratifying.

What I did not say was that if we did as she suggested, we'd have to spare loyal soldiers to work the mines. And we might need those soldiers in battle.

"As long as they can?" Veyka said, voice quieter.

"Amorite is rare. These are the only mines on the entire continent," I said. If the situation was truly as bad as Veyka had described, the succubus as formidable, then these mines could very well mean the salvation of Annwyn.

"I know that." There was more steel in her voice this time, though it remained soft.

"Mines do not last forever. Eventually the veins will run dry." I'd been contemplating it since our conversation on the mountain top. The amorite was a finite resource. We could make weapons to destroy the succubus as they came or protect individuals from possession. Some combination of the two. Either way, if the succubus came in larger numbers, it would not be enough.

"I know that, too," Veyka said softly. Her face was unmoved, but her voice showed all the emotion her countenance did not.

She understood.

Several more interminable minutes passed. Vera and Kay had not returned, but enough time had not yet passed for me to be concerned. Veyka muttered something I did not catch. Lyrena chuckled softly, then—

"I am going in."

"Absolutely not," Lyrena said.

"No," I growled, the force of my beast behind the sound.

Veyka smiled sympathetically, glancing between me and Lyrena. "Neither of you is my keeper."

Before either of us could argue, she was gone.