Chapter 113

Arik

I had dreamed of this moment since I was a young boy, but the reality was nothing compared to that. I couldn't have anticipated throwing my ‘brother' into the midst of the courtiers left huddled in the throne room, nor the new Duke of Fallspire and the lords loyal to him filing in to observe. The general of the army and some of his top ranked officers were also serving as witnesses, as were a number of wolf shifters along with Selene and Desiree.

"Gods, I never thought to see you two again!" Jessalyn said as she rushed over to their sides. She touched Selene's then Desiree's face, as if needing to check for herself. Selene gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it.

"The only drugs Giselle was ever going to get her hands on came straight from my father." She nodded to the Raven, who lurked now in the corner of the room. "My brother carries the antidotes with him everywhere."

"And some wonderful stuff that drives the headache away." Desiree grinned loosely at Jessalyn. "Makes me feel all light headed."

A feeling that perhaps the king shared. Once Magnus clambered to his feet, the waver made clear that he was in no state to fight. Too bad. I drew my sword free with a theatrical flair, then let it swipe through the air. It thirsted for his blood, and so did I.

"Get him a sword!" I barked, but the over-bred idiots Magnus kept at court just shrank back, as if they would be the ones to face my blade.

Not yet.

An investigation would be held and each one examined to determine whether or not they should retain their lands, but first this.

"So you must kill Magnus."

Father came to stand before me, staring out at the proceedings, the only sign of what he was thinking was a slight tightening of the muscles around his eyes.

"It was either him or me, you know that." I turned to stare at his ghost. "You always knew that." I frowned slightly, remembering all the times he intervened, redirected, tried to avoid just this. "And if I had—?"

"None of this would've happened," he said with a slow nod. "We each must answer for our sins, but now you answer for mine."

A sword hit the floor with a clatter, tossed there by Roan.

"You've got a sword now," he said to Magnus. "Let's see if you can pick the thing up."

Roan favoured a claymore, a big, heavy unwieldy sword that many men would struggle to deploy skilfully. It took a degree of power I doubted the king had, but he moved forward and raised the weapon. We all saw his muscles quiver with the effort—that was hampered by the knife wounds Silas had given him—but I didn't care. The courtly code that had been instilled in me as a boy died the same day the golden stag did.

It was a lie. This all was. The crown, the Emerald Throne, everything was little more than glittering props on the stage of Khean, the king, the lead actor. He had to move, dress, eat, fuck like someone who deserved to rule over everyone else and as long as he maintained that facade, the people did not rebel. It was only when the truth was finally shared of what went on behind the curtain that everything went to shit.

I didn't care. I wasn't doing this to take the throne. The fact I was my father's only son didn't matter either. I stared at his ghost for just a moment then nodded and strode forward.

"Magnus, false king, you stand accused of taking the crown of Khean under false pretences, because you share no blood with the royal family." Little gasps went around the group of courtiers. "You called me bastard, and yet you were the one who was born from an unholy union between your mother and one of her knights, but even if you were my father's true born son, I would challenge you, because you are no king. You are cruel and venal. You care not for the people of Khean, only in indulging your own base…" I let out a shuddering sigh. "…murderous impulses. The country has thrived despite your rule and now it faces war on two fronts." More twittering at that. "Our enemies mass at our unprotected borders. The treaty with the wolf shifters is in tatters. Our country is completely vulnerable to attack now."

"I was going to kill the golden stag." I'd never heard Magnus sound so uncertain right then, his voice so shaky it sounded like someone else's. "I was!" He spun around in a circle, the sword point dragging across the ground. People chuckled at that, even some of the courtiers. "It's his fault!" He lifted one hand off the hilt to point in my direction, but the sword dropped closer to the ground in response. "He killed my stag. He tried to steal my crown then, and now he's doing it again!"

"Well, then come and end this, ‘brother'," I said, raising my sword. "For whoever survives this will need to mobilise this army and direct it at the borders. Our enemies will have to be shown once again what a mistake it would be to attack Khean and that starts now."

I awarded him an honour Magnus didn't deserve, holding my sword up in salute before flicking it away.

"Kill him!" someone shouted. "Bring down the bastard, Arik!"

Magnus stiffened at being called the bastard after using it as my name for most of my life. That had me grinning as I stepped forward.

I could've ended this within the first five minutes. Magnus tried to parry my first blow but my sword licked across his knuckles as he moved too slowly. Every shift of the claymore was wearing on muscles he'd never bothered to develop.

"First blood?" I blinked to see a tall warrior woman standing beside me, her arms crossed as she watched the proceedings. "Well done, but you'll need more than that before this is done."

"You…?"

I was staring at her, dimly aware from the shouts that Magnus was rallying.

"Princess Ingrid," she informed me. "You don't remember me? You will now, all of us. You should've done this a long time ago, but right now you must focus on the job at hand."

Magnus' roar echoed throughout the throne room, declaring to everyone what he was doing, so I sidestepped his wild thrust, the crowds scattering as Magnus lurched instead towards the wall. A sizeable chunk of plaster was dislodged as Magnus jerked his sword free.

"This is the man you were too afraid to face?" a slender woman asked, her brows drawing down as she regarded the proceedings. "This is the man you allowed to be king?" I just stared. "Princess Francesca."

As she performed a neat curtsey, the king pierced her ghost through as he rushed towards me. I parried his attack, then thrust my foot out, sending the idiot flying forward. The air was driven out of his lungs, his sword sliding across the floor, but he scrambled to recover it as I stalked closer. I raised my own, but before I could strike, she appeared in front of me.

"Why did you allow him to sit on the throne?" Princess Annaliese said. Her name, her icy demeanour that she maintained the whole journey, coming back to me. "Why did you submit to this fool?" She surveyed the court with a sharp gaze. "Any of you?"

I was forced to step through her, trying to keep my eye on my enemy, not the ghosts of the past.

"Because everyone accepted that what he did was fine and who the hell was I to say otherwise?" My sword flicked out, slicing along Magnus' biceps. His strike was aborted as he shrank back with a shriek. "Everyone just stood by while he did monstrous things. I thought I was the only one who had a problem with it. That's certainly the way it seemed."

"That's not why you allowed him to live."

Evangeline, the first princess I was forced to bring here after Ariel's death, stood before me and just like when I met her years ago, I blinked. She didn't have Ariel's blue eyes, but that long dark hair, that imperial demeanour was a mirror of my first love's. Later, I assumed she was chosen simply for the way she resembled Ariel.

"No one else did anything," I snapped, advancing on Magnus. "Everyone just stood by. When he brutalised other children. When he whipped his horse too hard. When he hurt…"

My hands moved without thinking, catching his blow on my blade then spinning my wrists to deflect Magnus and make my own strike. That thin red line of blood that I left in my wake, it should've satisfied something in me, but it didn't. I'd seen too much blood. On the battlefield, on the practise ground, but most of all in the jail cell that was our playroom. My blood coating the toy that Magnus had used to bludgeon my face with. My mother's back bleeding so much from the beating she got for stepping in that she couldn't lie down on it for weeks. I'd traced the silvery scars repetitively they healed, swearing one day, one day…

The blood of the stag.

That's what I saw, coughed out and flecking his nose as my arrow drove home. It splattered the road too bright, too red against the earth. Right then I saw the stag's eyes rolling towards me, peering into my soul, all the shades of gold and copper contained within it.

"I just accepted that this was the way of things, like everyone else."

The room felt like it came back with a snap, the faces of everyone witnessing this fight replacing the princesses. Blood, that's what they wanted, the humans' eyes shining just as bright as the wolf shifters. The death of the stag was a ritual bloodletting, an acknowledgement of the turning of the wheel of power. One king must die so the next can live and that's what I decided to do now. My sins were many, my feet were coated with clay, dragging across the floor, but still, I could do this. This one thing and that was to put down the rabid dog that I had called brother.

I moved swiftly now, my sword flashing in the morning sunlight that streamed in through the windows. Magnus' eyes went wide as he realised he had met an equal and opposite force. No, more than his equal. I slashed until his shirt was dyed red with his blood, until his screams filled this room, just like so many women's had, right as the general stepped in.

"Time to end this, soldier. The troops are needed at the border and they can't go without your leave. Give the order, my king."

Magnus rushed towards me, arms upraised, not even attempting to protect himself now. He just wanted to kill me. Well, like the day of the hunt, wanting and getting weren't the same thing. I spun my blade around, elbows in tight, and then drove my sword into the fucking bastard's heart.

It was a mercy killing after all, just as it had been the stag. He jerked, then shook before sliding off my sword in a messy pile. Blood spread around him, blooming like a flower, as he twitched and then jerked on the floor.

"Mother…?" He stared blindly at the ceiling, seeing something that I couldn't, but I was willing to bet he didn't notice the seven women now standing around his body. "Mother? I am to be king! Mother, I am to be king…" The ghost of each princess formed a silent vigil, a vacuum of silence I had to fill.

"It should've been me," I said. "I was always the one he wanted to kill, so it should've been me. If I died, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe it was the fact I killed his stag that drove him mad. Maybe if I hadn't intervened…"

The women all stared at me, their gaze pitiless, but I didn't deserve anything less. I dropped down onto one knee, my sword more a means to keep me upright than a weapon. Witnesses would've thought this a moment between two men raised as brothers, despite the bonds of blood, but I owed Magnus nothing. I hadn't allowed Creed to tear him to pieces where he stood, that was the only mercy I could give him. But the women? I stared into each woman's gaze, begging for forgiveness, even though I knew I didn't deserve it, hoping that this was enough. Magnus coughed his lifeblood out onto the marble floor, just as the stag had.

"It's over now." Ariel appeared beside me, the girl I'd been ready to marry, not her blackened corpse. Her smile was like sunlight on my face, helping to dispel the cold. "No more pain. No more abuse."

"Really?"

I felt not like a grown man but a child pleading with his mother and she just nodded.

"It can all be over." Her hands stroked my face. "All of it. You can come with me, Arik." Dimly, I could see Magnus moving, the sounds of people's shouts filling the room, echoing and distorted. "We can be together, forever."

That was what I wanted, wasn't it? So why did it feel so wrong? My mind, my body rejected it, Ariel's touch now ice cold. I went to jerk away from her and that small movement was what saved me, as Magnus staged one last ditch effort to kill me. His knife sliced through the air.

Only to be met by hers.

Jessalyn's knife struck home in Magnus' throat, his head hitting the marble with an awful crack, but it wasn't his wide open stare I met. Her blue eyes examined me with startling swiftness, her hands touching my face, my chest.

"Are you well? Did he harm you? We need a healer. A healer!"

I dragged her down into my lap and held her close, just breathing in her scent. Night blooming jasmine, I would forever love its perfume. My whole body shook which forced me to hold onto her tighter. Too tightly, I feared, but she wrapped her arms around my shoulders just as tight.

"No, I need you," I croaked out. "I choose you, Princess Jessalyn Pearl Yasmina Tennesley." I pulled back to stare into her eyes. "You and only you."

"Damn right."

Silas slid down onto the ground beside us, as did Roan with Selene and Desiree coming up behind, but Creed? His roar filled the room as he reached down and tore Magnus' head and spine from his body then went stamping over to the balcony. Soldiers from the royal army and Fallspire, citizens of the capital and wolf shifters alike clustered below. I felt the roar from the crowd as much as I heard it, as he presented his blood trophy to the lot of them. That was when I looked up. The Raven of Khean tipped an imaginary hat in my direction then tapped on a panel in the wall and disappeared through it.

"My king…" the general said, appearing before me. "I realise that this is not the time but—"

"Send the army forth," I replied. "Do what you must to save Khean." My voice rose as I considered those that stood before us. "A new treaty will be forged with the elders of the wolf shifter clans, one much more in their favour, but if you will lend us your strength now?"

"We would be proud to, my king," a wolf man said, bowing low.

People moved everywhere, but some of them weren't going to get away so easily.

"The entirety of the former king's court will be placed under house arrest within the palace," I decreed. "Until such time as their actions can be judged and a decision made about their future. People have stood by and watched, if not participated in too many acts of cruelty in this building. This will not be tolerated anymore, but right now…"

I felt a pang of guilt as I swept Jessalyn into my arms, but all I could do was hold her tight for as long as she allowed me to, the feel of her arm around my neck a gentle benediction. I wasn't sure if all of the ghosts of the past would ever be laid to rest, but that couldn't stop me from making the most of what I had here and now.

"I don't know how to ask for forgiveness when what I did was unforgivable," I told her as I stared into her eyes. "Jess…" Her hand went to my cheek, her thumb stroking my skin as she nodded in encouragement. "No more of that going forward now, lass. You told me to prove myself worthy of you by becoming king. Well…?"

My voice broke on that.

"Well, it's a good start," she replied, shooting me an impish smile, "but your worthiness? I don't see that so much as a state achieved as a condition that needs to be constantly reviewed."

"Naked? Can we do it naked?" Roan asked, trying to smile and failing. "I feel like that would make sure everyone would willingly attend such meetings."

"Find us a room, brother, lest I tear my mate's dress from her in front of the entire court," Creed said, having returned to us. "Then I'll have to pluck out everyone's eyes for daring to look upon her body." His wolf receded, leaving the man, who stared down at his bloodied palms with a wince. "And an ewer to wash my hands in."

"Wearing the blood of my enemies?" Jessalyn said. "It's not as repellent as you think. Actually, I think this is a good look for you… my mate."

Creed seemed to swell to almost twice his size at that honorific, but any pleasure he felt quickly faded as he saw the bruises on her wrists.

"The kitchen," he growled. "Where is the kitchen? Or the infirmary? Somewhere with the proper herbs. I need to make a poultice, brew some tea."

"This way." Desiree stood there with her hands on her hips, smiling at our collective attention. "Those medicines are starting to wear off and I'll need some willow bark tea myself."

"Willow bark and some angelica," Creed said, taking Jessalyn from me with all the care one might a girl made of glass not flesh and blood. "Something to dispel the toxins in your system…"

"You did it." Roan offered me his hand and when he hauled me to my feet, Silas was standing there waiting.

"We did it," I corrected. "Magnus is dead." I looked back at his corpse. "He will get no royal funeral. Let his body be tossed on the midden, just like he did the girls he killed."

"What about Giselle?" Silas asked, and both of us sighed. "And my father? His fingers are all over this. You know he thinks a debt is owed."

"But who will be the one to pay it, brother?" Selene appeared beside him, and the two of them shared a moment. "I don't know about you, but right now I intend to find the woman I am going to make my wife and fuck her until I can't feel or see any of the horrors that happened today." She nodded at Silas. "I suggest you do the same because tomorrow…"

The board was being cleared. All of the monsters of Khean would face justice, but only Silas could stand in judgement of his father. He nodded slowly, right before Roan clapped him on the shoulder.

"Let's get down to the kitchens, because Creed's just as likely to start rutting Jess on the benches, and I don't need my sister seeing that sort of thing."

"We celebrate today…" I glanced back at the throne room, the sullen green glow of the Emerald Throne looking like it taunted me. "Because the gods know if we'll have the chance tomorrow."